Thomas sitting pretty in toughest Giro for years
Briton second heading into last week of attritional race Bad weather, injuries, illness and Covid have hit grand tour
Two weeks down, one to go. Whoever wins this year’s Giro d’italia will have to do it the hard way in what has turned into the one of the most attritional grand tours in recent memory.
“It has been by far the worst grand tour I’ve ever done weatherwise,” Geraint Thomas, who went into yesterday’s rest day second on general classification behind unheralded Frenchman Bruno Armirail (Groupama-fdj), said. “Physically, they are all demanding, but the weather has been a major difference.”
Indeed, at times it has felt as if the winner of the first grand tour of the season would be a case of last man standing. With six days of racing remaining following Sunday’s stage from Seregno to Bergamo – won by Brandon Mcnulty (UAE Team Emirates) – the 44 abandonments of the 176 starters makes this the most attritional Giro since 2011, when there were 48, while just one grand tour in the past decade – last year’s Vuelta a Espana – has had more riders quit (48), and there are three mountain stages and a tricky uphill time trial still to come.
Remco Evenepoel, the world champion and pre-race favourite, withdrew having contracted Covid, while Tao Geoghegan Hart, the 2020 champion and team-mate of Thomas who was third in the overall standings at the time, was forced to abandon following a crash on a slippery descent during stage 11. Riders have suffered a multitude of illnesses and injuries since setting off from the province of Chieti a little over two weeks ago: fevers, diarrhoea and gastroenteritis ended the hopes of some, Covid did for 16 riders’ dreams, while others were taken away by ambulance having broken bones in crashes.
“There are a lot of guys going home with sickness and things,” Thomas, the Ineos Grenadiers leader, said. “And everybody has been tense when it comes to being on the front for the descents, especially when they are wet.”
A veteran of 18 grand tour starts who has endured his fair share of misfortune, including crashing out of his past two appearances at the Giro, Thomas believes that while the Tour de France can be “controlled”, its Italian cousin can feel a little more “random”.
Whether the Giro d’italia is the toughest grand tour to complete remains open to debate, but it is, according to Ben Swift, “definitely one of the hardest”.
The Yorkshireman, who is riding in support of his old friend Thomas, said the combination of unpredictable weather, poor road surfaces and tough climbs had provided unique challenges.
“I was looking at last year’s [conditions] and it was like 30C average, this year it is 10C average with rain most days. You are never really sure what you are going to get,” Swift said.
“There is such a variety of different climbs, from when you hit the Dolomites, the Alps or climbs in the south of Italy, where the road surfaces are poor. The Tour is the most stressful, the Vuelta has got some one-off steep climbs, but the overall fatigue and climbing is definitely hard in the Giro.”
Swift, meanwhile, offered an insight into the tough nature of the sport while reflecting on having to continue while Geoghegan Hart lay motionless in the road having fractured his pelvis.
“I felt really bad,” Swift said. “I saw Tao [lying] there. Once I realised he wasn’t getting up… you just have to leave him. It’s horrible to leave a friend in pain, but the race waits for nobody. We still had Geraint in pink, so once it was clear it was not possible [for Geoghegan Hart to continue], you move on. It’s hard, but it’s professional sport.”
It is these challenges, Ineos Grenadiers deputy team principal Rod Ellingworth said, that make the Giro the “most challenging” to win. “Every day there is something,” he said. “The weather, the Covid issue coming back, Tao’s accident and then the changes [to the shortened stage 14]. It is one of the toughest to put together for the performance team. The Tour has a certain rhythm, whereas the Giro doesn’t. It is definitely the hardest to win tactically. You never know what’s going to happen. If you are not prepared for it, you will get caught out, so you have to be ready.
“You can’t always leave it until the last moment, because if they cancelled a stage due to snow or cut it short of two big climbs, the whole race looks quite different. You have to be constantly on your toes.”
Despite the challenges, Ellingworth said Thomas remained confident he could challenge for the maglia rosa, the leader’s pink jersey he gave away to Armirail, who leads the Welshman by 1min 8sec, on Saturday.
“He’s had his problems this year – nothing major – but he’s been a dream. He was confident all the way he could make it. We knew Geraint would come in a little undercooked, but he is gaining the form at the right time. He’s so consistent, and consistency in this race is massive.”
Ahead of the final week, Ellingworth has earmarked Friday’s stage 19 to Tre Cime di Lavaredo that features almost 5,550 metres in vertical elevation as “an absolute brute”, while adding the penultimate-day hilly time trial to Monte Lussari could be key to who takes home the jersey.
“You will see an aggressive race in this final week, a lot of people have been waiting for this final week,” Ellingworth said. “I don’t think the Giro has started yet.”