Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas

GREAT BRITAIN/ INEOS

Last year’s Tour de France was engrossing because of the unexpected usurper of Froome’s crown, his own teammate Geraint Thomas. After the drama of Froome’s salbutamol case, which intensified prior to the Grand Depart when race organizers tried to prevent him from starting before the uci closed the investigation officially with five days to go, the narrative seemed likely to go two ways: Froome would win his fifth yellow jersey and redeem himself or he would lose to one of his rivals. Instead, Thomas was the strongest rider in the race and Froome had to secure a podium spot in the penultimate stage’s time trial.

This year, Sky’s new incarnation Ineos can once more offer two potential winners. Will the team commit itself to Thomas if he looks on better form early in the race? In 2018, Froome suffered a bummer of a first stage, crashing with roughly 4 km to go and losing time to Thomas and several of his rivals. But Sky continued to back Froome over the Welshman. Thomas later told the media that he was informed that the team would leave him behind if he punctured on the Stage 3 team time trial even though he led Froome by 53 seconds. What’s clear is that their team will once again be packed with extremely strong riders who will boss the race and most likely make it predictable.

Thomas was more successful in his first race of the year, the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, than Froome was in the Tour of Colombia, which tuckered him out enough to lead him to skip the uae Tour. Thomas withdrew from Tirreno-adriatico with stomach problems.