Nothing refreshes Geraint Thomas more than some time off and a few beers. By his own admission he needs downtime after a major event, whether he has won or lost, as was the case in the Giro d’Italia earlier this summer when he suffered a bitter defeat in the final time trial to the Slovenian Primoz Roglic.
Thomas, who missed July’s Tour de France, is now building towards a challenge in the three-week Vuelta a España by racing in the UCI World Championships men’s time trial on Friday. But he describes his loss of the Giro’s overall lead just a day before the final stage in Rome as “brutal”.
“That wasn’t a typical time trial though,” he says. “It is one of those things. It’s done, move on.”
After coming so close to winning a second Grand Tour, it had, he admitted, taken time to get over the defeat. “I guess I have always looked at the positive [side] of it,” he says. “The fact that the start of the year I had was so up and down, and stop-start. I never really got going until March, which is pretty close to the Giro, really.
“I was super-happy to be in the position to win. Then to get so close on the last day made it hard to take. But at the same time, I was happy with how I managed to get into that position.”
Thomas, the winner of the 2018 Tour de France and a podium regular in Grand Tours, has grown used to near-misses. “I had two weeks [after the Giro] where I didn’t really ride much at all. I let my hair down a bit. Just ate and drank whatever,” he says, before adding, deadpan: “Drunk quite a bit, to be fair.
“It was a nice break with the family. Just trying to slowly get back into it and then spend a bit of time up in Andorra at altitude with the team. It was the best way for me to focus. I had three weeks or so up there.”
His past experiences of competing in world championships have been mixed, but at 37 years old, he is relishing the chance to perform in front of home crowds. “I have never really been in decent shape at the worlds, either. Maybe once at Imola and when Mark Cavendish won [the men’s road race] in Copenhagen.
“You do, when you get a bit older, appreciate a bit more, because you know it’s coming to an end quite soon. You make the most of it. You really try to take it all in, especially being in the UK. It makes it even more special.”
As for the time trial course around Stirling, the Welshman describes it as “interesting”, adding: “It’s some long straights, but not too much going on until the last 10km and then it gets pretty solid. If you have got almost 40km in your legs and then you do the hardest bit …”
The final Grand Tour of the year, the Vuelta a España, starts in Barcelona on 26 August with a team time trial. Thomas is guarded about his chances. Roglic, his tormentor in chief from the Giro, will be there, as will the recently crowned Tour de France champion, Jonas Vingegaard, with their Jumbo-Visma team targeting an unprecedented Grand Tour grand slam. It’s a daunting prospect and Thomas knows it.
Can they be stopped? “That would be tough, folks,” he says. “They obviously have two pretty decent guys. We will see.”
