Geraint Thomas worries Egan Bernal’s Tour victory could limit his ambitions
Geraint Thomas has admitted his frustration that he may have to sacrifice his future personal ambitions for Egan Bernal, his Ineos teammate from Colombia who beat him in the 2019 Tour de France.
Speaking to the Guardian in advance of a BBC documentary covering his defence of his 2018 Tour de France title, the 33-year-old Welshman was asked if he found Bernal’s emergence as a Tour winner frustrating after he had already spent several years in the service of the prolific Grand Tour winner Chris Froome.
Thomas replied: “Yes, to be honest,” but added: “When there are better riders [in the team] it’s obvious. [Teamwork] is what you’ve got to do. It’s a team sport and those two guys are special.
“Froome is the greatest Grand Tour rider of his generation, and Bernal … to win a Tour at 22, he could have 10 or 12 years of being super-competitive. But at least I will always have that Tour win.”
Thomas fell short this year in his attempt to win a second Tour in a row and he ended the season without a win, in stark contrast to 2018 when he landed seven victories including the overall standings at the Tour with backto-back mountain stage wins along the way and the Critérium du Dauphiné.
“With second in the Tour [in 2019] I can be happy and proud, but at the time it was disappointing. From the start, the way the season went, and the offseason. The buildup was nothing like 2018, but I was still confident.”
“It was a shame about the cancelled stage [in the Alps] and the shortened day. It leaves an unknown. You can’t say Egan shouldn’t have won, but there is a bit of an unknown.”
If he has one regret about this year’s Tour, Thomas says, it is the Pyrenean stage into Foix, where he felt he did not make a full-on effort. “I could have
pushed harder. I sat back a bit. I was feeling good, and I could have gone quicker. But that’s how Grand Tours go – you have off days when you limit your losses and on the good days you need to make the most of it.”
Thomas acknowledges that the question of who will lead Team Ineos at the 2020 Tour de France will be raised constantly until next July, but expects it to be resolved in the same way that the question was settled in 2018 and 2019.
“We will deal with it as we have done [in the past]. When I won and Froome was third, when Egan won and I was second, the reason we both finished on the podium was that we were open and honest with each other. We pulled in the same direction, never chased each other down.”
In terms of his personal objective for next year, Thomas has the Tour firmly in his mind, but has yet to fix his programme. “I’m looking at targeting the Tour. We need to confirm it all, to chat it through, but at the moment it’s all about the Tour again.” It was, no doubt, with that in mind that this week he completed a marathon 190-mile lap of Majorca at his training camp, spending eight hours in the saddle at 22mph.
There is, he says, no chance in the short term at least that he will line up the Giro d’Italia or Vuelta a España as a target simply to ensure that he has an unhindered run at team leadership.
“You have to weigh up your position in the team and it’s about what motivates you. There is no point going to the Giro just to be the leader and only being 95% motivated. You need to be all-in. I’d love to do the Giro [to win] one year, but next year what excites me is the Tour again.”
This is not the most straightforward of close seasons for Dave Brailsford’s squad, with Froome still getting over the accident that cost him most of the 2019 season and left him with multiple fractures including to his femur, elbow and ribs.
Froome has yet to race again, and asked about his teammate’s chances of returning to the top, Thomas said: “I think [he can] but I don’t know how quickly or how good [he will be]. It was such a horrific crash. How and when is the million dollar question.”
Thomas is one of the few to have raced with Brailsford’s Sky and Ineos since its inception in 2010, but he said he has not paid great attention to the current medical tribunal involving Team Sky’s former doctor Richard Freeman, or the allegations around the team’s former coach Shane Sutton. “To be honest, I haven’t followed it too much. All I saw was Shane talking on BBC Breakfast about being able to get it up. It’s crazy, Freeman against Shane, thrashing it out.”
Closer to home, however, is the departure of Thomas’s former mentor Rod Ellingworth, the 2018 Tour winner’s coach since his days in the Great Britain academy 15 years ago. Ellingworth now runs Bahrain-McLaren, and will be directly pitted against his former squad. “I definitely miss him, 100%. But it’s a great opportunity for him, I hope he has success there, but hopefully not when I’m around. It’s strange without him. Being [in Majorca] now, I keep expecting him to walk around the corner and say: ‘How are you doing?’”
Geraint Thomas: The Road Will Decide, Thursday 19 December, 9pm, BBC One Wales and BBC iPlayer
off there was a warm minute’s applause and the former Manchester City forward Mike Summerbee and the former Oxford striker Jeremy Charles placed wreaths in tribute to Smith behind the East Stand goal.
This was a meeting between two of the country’s biggest entertainers – only West Brom and Peterborough have outscored Oxford in the Football League this season – and Karl Robinson’s side tested a youthful City defence after the break having been kept at arm’s length for much of the first half. “Nervous is not the word but they pushed a lot, they played so well, created lots of chances,” Guardiola said of Oxford. “But we are in the semi-finals for the third season in a row.”
Rodri, one of only three survivors from the starting lineup at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, was instrumental throughout and Cancelo and Riyad Mahrez combined neatly down the right flank but City spent much of the second half repelling Oxford attacks.
The celebrations after Sterling struck were low-key – business as usual had been restored – and City had work to do to fend off Oxford, who sensed an air of vulnerability.
“We cannot play like that and not build on it – we were horrendous on Saturday [at MK Dons] – we have to find some consistency,” said Robinson, the Oxford manager, whose side return to League One action against Wycombe this weekend.
Tariqe Fosu was a livewire, while Cameron Brannagan, who spent 16 years on the books at Liverpool, showed a touch of class in midfield and Rob Dickie, the Oxford captain, displayed composure in defence in a difficult environment, with a swirling wind making life difficult for both teams.
“They were really tough conditions – winter is here,” Guardiola said. “They [Oxford] are a top side. Last season [in City’s 3-0 cup win] they played good and I think this season they played better, so maybe next season we will be back. Cup competitions away in this period are always really, really tough.”
City were in cruise control after Cancelo’s opener, stroking the ball around for fun, successfully sapping Oxford’s energy and belief but the hosts roused themselves immediately after the interval, striking within 21 seconds of the restart.
Oxford rippled Claudio Bravo’s net without City getting their mitts on the ball; from kick-off a recharged Oxford piled forward down the right, with Shandon Baptiste’s quick thinking outwitting a green City backline, comprising the 17-year-old Taylor Harwood-Bellis and the 18-year-old Eric García.
After being fouled by García, Baptiste’s free-kick released Taylor, the Bristol City loanee, who turned inside Harwood-Bellis before sending a leftfoot effort beyond Bravo. Oxford’s joy may have been short-lived – City retook the lead four minutes later – but they gave the Premier League champions a fright.
“To take them on at the game they are best in the world at is crazy, stupid but I didn’t want us to roll over and not lay a glove on them,” said Robinson.
“If Jim is looking somewhere, I think he would be a very proud man. He built a club with next to nothing and put us in a position at the top of English football.
“Our love and thoughts are with his family and we’ll dedicate that performance to him. It had everything he believed in – heart, desire and entertainment – and hopefully we’ve done him proud.”