Geraint Thomas is looking for closure and personal satisfaction in 2023. He no longer has anything to prove, including to the Ineos Grenadiers team, and will travel to Pescara for the Giro d’Italia ready for what is probably his last shot at a Grand Tour victory.
Thomas will turn 37 on May 25, the same day as stage 18 to Val di Zoldo, just as the race enters its denouement in the mountains. Whatever the final outcome, the Giro will be an emotional journey for the Welshman.
He is keen to race on in 2024, perhaps with a farewell ride at the Tour de France, but he knows nothing is certain in modern professional cycling, with young rivals taking over the sport and even his teammates competing for his leadership status at Ineos Grenadiers.
Thomas’ love for cycling started in Wales as a schoolboy on the Maindy outdoor track but Italy forged him and inspired him even before he began his 17-year professional career. Targeting the Giro one last time completes a career circle.
He was based in Tuscany as part of the Great Britain Under-23s squad, the launchpad for Olympic gold on the track and Classics success on the road. Later, he transformed into a Grand Tour rider. Victory at the 2018 Tour de France was followed by podium finishes in 2019 and 2022.
Thomas has spent 14 years at Team Sky and Ineos, outlasting Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome as the British team’s captain and figurehead. He has overcome serious crashes, setbacks and disappointment, never losing his determination but living every moment with a sense of adventure and a deadpan sense of humour.
“You never reflect when you're busy racing, but when you get closer to the end of your career, you do look back at what you’ve done,” Thomas tells Cyclingnews.
“Yet I don’t want to rest on my laurels, I always need to push forward. There are people in the team trying to move up, but you want to stay in front of them, in a healthy competition kind of way. I still want to keep performing and that includes at the Giro.”
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Thomas has been nominated as a team leader for the Giro, with the in-form Tao Geoghegan Hart as an alternative. Pavel Sivakov and Thymen Arensman are also part of a strong Ineos Grenadiers squad.
The British team have won multiple Grand Tours over the years but perhaps know the Tour de France will again be out of reach in 2023 and so are targeting the Giro. They face a huge task in trying to defeat Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) in Italy but have taken on the challenge.
Thomas has unfinished business in Italy and is up for it too. He rode the Giro in 2008 as a youngster at Barloworld and again in 2012 when he was preparing for the team pursuit at the London Olympics, but his two subsequent attempts at overall victory ended painfully.
In 2017, he was involved in a crash caused by a parked police motorbike ahead of the summit finish on the Blockhaus and abandoned the race in the second week. In 2020, Thomas was one of the favourites for the pandemic-delayed Giro, but he crashed in the neutralised zone on stage 3 and was a DNS the next day. In his absence, Geoghegan Hart was given protected status and went on to take a surprise victory in Milan.
“I’ve only been unlucky twice and hopefully it’s not three times,” Thomas says. “It’s just the way things go; there are ups and downs and certainly in my career, that’s what makes the ups even sweeter. Hopefully, 2023 is a good year, that’s the plan.”
Thomas has ridden the Tour de France twelve times and finished on every step of the podium in Paris. With so little time trialling on this year’s Tour route, he was happy to return to Italy, where he so enjoyed his early years.
“I want to at least finish the thing….” he jokes. “I also want to try to enjoy it all and hopefully be right up there, in the thick of the race."
“I just love racing in Italy as well. It’s where it started for me as a pro and I love it all: the fans, the food and the atmosphere. It's a different style of racing compared to the Tour and it's a bit less intense as well.”
Thomas decided to target the Giro in the winter but has faced a difficult early season and build-up to May.
He is perhaps now on track to be at his best for the decisive final week in the mountains but was delayed several times by a stubborn viral infection that needed repeat treatment with antibiotics. It slowed his winter training in Australia and New Zealand and then disrupted his early-season race programme.
He has not left a mark in any races but finally seemed to have found some form after an altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada, Spain. He suffered at the Volta a Catalunya and then worked for Geoghegan Hart at the Tour of the Alps, but he looked better and better as the week of mountain racing in Austria and Italy evolved.
“The problems and antibiotics stalled me a bit, but I’ve done everything I can,” he explains, looking close to his racing weight at the Tour of the Alps.
“All I can do is keep working hard and get to the start line in the best shape I can, then go from there. With the way the last week of the Giro is, we know that so much can happen there.”
"It’ll be hard to beat them but it’s not impossible"
Italian directeur sportif Matteo Tosatto will design Ineos’ Giro strategy. He rode 34 Grand Tours during his career and was a trusted domestique at Fassa Bortolo, QuickStep, Saxo Bank and then Tinkoff.
He worked for Alberto Contador when the Spaniard won the 2015 Giro d’Italia. He knows Thomas well and is convinced he can come good in the final week of the Giro.
“The goal is that Geraint gets to the last week of the Giro in better condition than he had at the Tour de France last year. I think that can happen,” Tosatto tells Cyclingnews, setting an important but achievable benchmark for Thomas.
“He’s fresh and in good shape. He’s not yet in top shape but he still has time to make up what form he is missing. I have a lot of confidence in G."
“We’ll be starting the Giro with guys who have won the Tour (Thomas) and won the Giro (Geoghegan Hart). That’s an advantage on other teams for sure. We know how to win Grand Tours.”
Thomas has entrusted Tosatto to do a detailed Giro route reconnaissance, and the team has provided him with all the vital information he needs.
“It's a hard route for sure, the last week is super hard, but I knew it would be. It's got three time trials but the last one is really just up a mountain, so it's not a real time trial is it?” he suggests.
“The first two are good to have in the Giro. I love a time trial in a Grand Tour, I feel like they deserve a place, that’s why I was disappointed with the Tour de France route.”
Thomas has a lot of respect for Evenepoel and Roglič but rejects the idea that they are unbeatable at the Giro.
The Welshman invited Evenepoel onto his podcast last October and jokingly tags him as #littlebastard on social media. He shares a similarly friendly relationship and sense of humour with Roglič.
Asked to pick between them, Thomas jokes: “For what? To have a beer together?”
He never does reveal his preferred drinking buddy, but he knows they will be the riders to beat at this year’s Giro.
Both can theoretically gain time on Thomas and all their rivals in the opening 19.6km time trial along the Adriatic coast and again on the flat and fast 35km stage 9 time to Cesena.
Thomas and everyone else will have to look for a chink in their armour, try to take advantage of their expected rivalry and use their Grand Tour experience en route to Rome.
“It’ll be hard to beat them but it’s not impossible,” Thomas says.
“They’re two quality bike riders and amongst the best in the world in the last few years. But we’ll definitely go into the Giro with the belief that we can beat them.
“Grand Tours are about the long game and the Giro is definitely not as controlled as the Tour de France. Things like the weather can be a factor. We’ve got to use all our experience as a team and me as an individual to try to beat them.”
Thomas knows that just like last year’s Tour, he could be fighting for third place on the final podium but is always ready to pounce on mistakes by the riders ahead of him or in the maglia rosa. Last July, he came back from 18th place in the opening Copenhagen time trial and then defended third place for the final two weeks.
“That’s the great thing about the sport at the moment, there’s a lot of guys who can perform and potentially be on the Giro podium,” he says.
“At the end of the day, I’m not worried about who are or aren’t the favourites and this and that. I'm just worried about myself and I’ll try to be competitive and be up there as I’ve done in the past.
“We've also got a strong team, with Thymen [Arensman] and Pavel [Sivakov] alongside a solid core. Tao [Geoghegan Hart] obviously won in 2020 and showed his form at the Tour of the Alps. I think we can certainly be confident going in there. I’m looking forward to the Giro.”
Before starting his 2023 season at the Tour Down Under, Thomas said he would decide if he would race in 2024 sometime in the spring. Now he says any final decision has been pushed back until after the Giro, indicating his focus is on the corsa rosa and not on his retirement.
Thomas has no plans to race on beyond 2025 but is not done yet. He is talking to team manager and long-time confidant Rod Ellingworth about his future at Ineos but any final decision will depend on his role in the team for 2024 and, of course, on the wishes of his wife and young son.
He may not be assured a leadership role but a final ride at the 2024 Tour de France and then an emotional send-off at the Tour of Britain seems the logical and ideal road to retirement for Thomas.
“I’ve been talking to the team. I’d quite like to carry on,” he revealed recently. “I’ll probably decide after the Giro, so I can focus on getting into the best shape possible and enjoying the race. We’ll deal with my plans for the future after that.
“I’ve still got the drive and intensity for racing but at the same time, and I think having a young child is a factor, you realise professional racing is not the be-all and end-all in life.
“I'm not ruling out doing another year because it's quite a good life. Of course, it’s only really enjoyable when you're competitive, so if I can keep making the sacrifices to be up there, then why not race on?
“The Giro will perhaps show if I’m still competitive or not and so shape my future. That’s another reason why it’ll be a special three weeks in Italy.”
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