Lidl-Trek's Tao Geoghegan Hart will make his return to racing on Monday at the Tour of the Alps after illness forced him out of the Volta a Catalunya last month, as he looks to continue building on the "long fight" to rediscover his best form.
Sickness before the start of the stage race in Catalunya saw him contest only the opening day before having to take a week off training, so the Tour of the Alps was a late addition to his programme as he looks to get some more stage racing in his legs.
"It was not normally the plan to be here, but I'm super happy to be here," he told Cyclingnews on the eve of the five-day stage race in Italy.
"We decided after Catalunya, where I missed a key block of racing, that once I was healthy – which took a bit longer that would be ideal, but also was not super bad – we decided to add this just to try to have a bit more racing and another stage race. It was unfortunate with Catalunya, in the end it was one week off the bike, but it could be worse."
At the start of the year Geoghegan Hart stated publicly that he wanted to take the 2025 season as it came and perhaps with more flexibility, rather than starting in January already looking towards one big goal. This programme change is an example of how he and the team are making changes and tweaks to get back on track.
Though the Tour of the Alps is a Giro d'Italia warm-up race for many, Geoghegan Hart is at present not set to race that Grand Tour, instead taking on a double-header of racing with next week's Tour de Romandie as part of his build into a likely Tour de France return.
"It's good to adjust, certainly the first part went all to plan and the winter was super good, and it was just unfortunate timing to have this stomach bug twenty four hours before Catalunya. I still tried to race, and in the end it was not possible," he said.
"It's not a big change now, I was originally hoping to do Liège, so it's just a few days extra racing and then I will go from here almost directly to Romandie. So we'll have a nice block now before we enter a big team camp in May."
The initial plan to race Liège-Bastogne-Liège took a back seat after Geoghegan Hart missed a chunk of stage racing in Catalunya, and returning to the Alps was a clear choice, given his success here in the past.
"When there was a chance I do one day in the Ardennes or five days here, it's better to have these five days of load, also looking at the bigger picture," he said. "For me in the end, all of my good results in my career came from stage racing, so it's good to be back here. I have two super nice memories of this race before, I was two times on the podium and also four stage wins."
'It's been a long fight'
Rather than explicitly talking about the Tour or any specific race goals, Geoghegan Hart is still mainly focusing on rediscovering that level that saw him winning the Giro d'Italia in 2020, and the Tour of the Alps in 2023, his last win before a big injury at the 2023 Giro.
"For me, it's almost two years now that I try to have my best feeling again on the bike after that crash in the Giro with the leg and everything. It's been a long fight since then to have the sensations of before," he said.
"You're always trying to do the best that you can but it's clear that I haven't had the feeling that I had for example here two years ago in that period. It's been a lot of hard work and I'm happy with the level that I've reached at many moments this season so far in training, but of course I want to show it also in the race. It was unfortunate the setback a few weeks ago, but we'll see how the next weeks go and keep pushing."
In terms of his own goals this coming week, the 30-year-old is not setting any stark ambitions in his first race back, and will fit into a Lidl-Trek team largely working for Giulio Ciccone and 2024 Alps winner Juan Pedro López.
"Certainly I need to take it day by day," Geoghegan Hart said. "I don't really know exactly, to be honest [what he's expecting]. It's six, seven weeks at least since I last did a proper race, so it's not ideal, but sometimes that's how it goes. Training has been alright, not that that gives me a big expectation for this week, but if I can have a solid five days in the legs I think that will help me a lot moving forward.
"In the end I'm super happy to be here with the team, look at today in the Ardennes, we are performing really well in a lot of races and here we have the defending champion, we have Cicco who's looking super good for the Giro. We have a strong team so hopefully we have again a nice week."
On Monday there will be little time to ease back into racing, with the Tour of the Alps opening with its only uphill finish, and a tough return to action for Geoghegan Hart.
"It's the hardest stage. I'd prefer if it was in three or four days, but it's like that."
