Geraint Thomas opted to save energy for the tougher challenges to come on stage 11 of the Giro d’Italia, where the summit finish at Cusano Mutri saw the GC contenders play it relatively calmly with no major overall attacks.
Summit finishes immediately after rest days are anything but predictable affairs, but as Thomas explained later, the headwind on the wildly uneven slopes of Cusano Mutri made for a watchful but largely uneventful ascent for the GC favourites.
On a day when the top four on the overall crossed the line almost simultaneously in 14th to 17th spots, Thomas remained safely in third overall at 2:58, and as he put it afterwards, the day was about “hiding as much as possible and getting to the line as quickly as possible”.
The only GC team who put in a serious drive on the climb itself were Bahrain Victorious, seeking to put Belgium’s Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) under pressure and favour their own contender, Antonio Tiberi, in the fight for the white jersey of best young rider.
But rather than get caught up in a battle not of his own making, and after a fast start where it took a long time for the break to go, Thomas said that he was simply looking to stay out of trouble. The Giro’s main mountain stages, after all, are still nearly a week away.
“It was a tough old start as we saw with the break, with it taking so long to form,” he explained on the line. “When we hit the climbs in the middle of the stage, we knew that a strong break would form and be likely to stay away.
“UAE set down a good pace, but with that headwind at the finish it was always not going to be too crazy at the end.
“Then I saw Bahrain started riding because they didn’t want the break to get too much time and then if other GC guys were suffering they turned the screw a bit there. But I don’t really know what happened, I just wanted to stay top five or six and hide as much as possible.”
While Thomas was essentially trying to fly under the radar, he singled out teammate and former World Champion Tobias Foss, who had an uneven start to the race, as putting in a particularly impressive and much more high-profile performance on the stage.
“We all kept our momentum going but Tobias got in the break and he’s back and riding well. It was good,” he said. "I was pretty confident in myself in that I knew how I was doing on the rest day. Then the start gave you a bit of time to get into it, and to be honest, I felt pretty good.”
One of the most experienced riders in the 2024 Giro peloton, Thomas argued that “with the headwind, Tiberi was never going to go anywhere.” The Italian certainly tried his best, but ended up veering closer to cracking in the finale as he lost a few seconds behind the top four GC favourite, while Uijtdebroeks lost seven more.
“Today wasn’t really the day [for attacking] or I didn’t feel like it was. I just wanted to stay with the boys. So now we’ve got three tricky days and then a big weekend,” Thomas said, although the trio of stages he considers "tricky" are either flat or only hilly in the finale.
At this point, of course, flying under the radar will no longer be possible, but for now, it’s a strategy which is paying dividends for Thomas.
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