Bang Ger ’n’ smash
WHEELS COME OFF FOR TEAM GB AS THOMAS ADMITS: I MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING BAD IN PAST LIFE TO CRASH IN RIO AND NOW HERE
AT the foot of Mount Fuji, the volcano which towers 12,388ft over Japan, Geraint Thomas cursed his appalling bad luck – once more.
For the third major race in a row, Britain’s former Tour de France champion was left with only gravel rash and a ripped skinsuit for souvenirs after a freak crash involving team-mate Tao Geoghegan Hart.
And as Thomas was forced to retire hurt from the Olympic men’s road race, he groaned: “I think I must have done something bad in a previous life.”
Only 50 miles of a gruelling, 145-mile slog in withering heat had elapsed when 2020 Giro d’Italia winner Geoghegan Hart’s wheel slipped on a metal tramline down the middle of the road and he toppled out of the side gate.
Thomas, on his wheel, had nowhere to go and hit the deck, too, landing heavily on the right shoulder he dislocated on Le Tour last month.
A double Olympic champion on the track, Thomas is so hard he could knock a tent peg into the pavement with his forehead, and he rode on valiantly to support twins Adam and Simon Yates.
But he baled out with TGH before the final climb of a monster six-hour day in the saddle, with his Ineos Grenadiers pal Richard Carapaz (right) going on to win only the second Olympic gold medal in Ecuador’s history.
Thomas, 35, said: “I am feeling beat up, but not too bad
– I’ve definitely felt worse.
“I landed on my right side again, which wasn’t ideal because the muscles and everything almost went into spasm.
“It was such a freak thing. Tao slipped on the metal ridge along the middle of the road for that section, I was on his wheel, had nowhere to go and went down straight myself. It’s disappointing after all the hard work and sacrifices this year – especially after the Tour and what happened there.
“I live to fight another day, I guess. I will rest up now and try to give Wednesday one last big hit (in the Olympic time trial). But right now I want to forget about everything, switch off, have some dinner, ring my son Max – that will put it all into perspective.” Although he has gold medals and a Yellow Jersey to show for his efforts, Thomas has also compiled one of the most breathtaking
catalogues of hard-luck stories in sport.
Five years ago in Rio, he was well-placed to win a medal until a heavy crash on the final descent towards Copacabana Beach left him in a storm drain.
As well as a dislocated shoulder on stage three of the Tour de France, he suffered a fractured pelvis when a stray drinking bottle caught in his front wheel in Sicily at the Giro last October.
He was forced to abandon Le Tour four years ago with a broken collarbone and, two years earlier, escaped unhurt after somersaulting the handlebars and bouncing off a telegraph pole on a steep Alpine descent.
His former team-mate and fellow Yellow Jersey winner Sir Bradley Wiggins joked: “Maybe he’s going blind, I don’t know. Poor lad – he’s been in such good form this year. It’s a real shame.”
Carapaz broke clear to strike gold on the Fuji racetrack where James Hunt won his Formula One world title in 1976, with Belgian Wout van Aert taking silver and Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar the bronze.
Highest-placed British rider Adam Yates was in the mix for a medal until the final scramble inside the last 100 yards, but finished ninth.
Thousands of fans lined the route and 11,000 were admitted to the Fuji track, as it is outside the Tokyo metropolitan area where the government imposed a state of emergency and spectators are banned from Olympic venues.