The various layers of the hilltop city of Perugia seem to fold into one another like something from an Escher drawing. It’s easy to get lost here at the best of times, and easier still after racing flat-out up the steep road into the citadel at the end of 40km Giro d’Italia time trial.
By the time he had freewheeled as far the junction of Via Baldeschi and Via Battisti, 400 metres or so beyond the finish line, Geraint Thomas had lost track of the signs guiding him towards the carpark where his Ineos Grenadiers van was waiting. The former Tour de France champion stopped in the road to take stock of the situation as pedestrians ambled past him without a second glance towards their Friday evening aperitivo.
When Thomas looked around, the journalists who had been jogging after him in search of a quote now pointed him in what they reckoned had to be the right direction. He nodded his thanks before setting off once again, guiding his bike around the corner and down the hill out of sight.
After losing two minutes to Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in this stage 7 time trial, Thomas might have been forgiven for wishing to escape from view altogether, but he has never been one to hide away, in good days or bad. In the Team Sky era, for instance, he regularly found himself pressed into service on bad news days as the de facto team spokesman once Dave Brailsford began to recede from public view.
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By the time the reporters reached the carpark on Via Checchi, Thomas had already climbed aboard his turbo trainer, sheltered from the sun beneath an overpass. As Thomas began his cooldown, Ineos Directeur Sportif Zak Dempster offered his assessment of a day that yielded a double defeat for his team.
As well as putting two minutes into Thomas, Pogačar produced a startling finishing effort to deny Filippo Ganna stage victory by 17 seconds. Ineos’ Thymen Arensman was third at 49 seconds and Magnus Sheffield was fourth at 1:00, but their fine displays were offset by the disappointments endured by Ganna and Thomas.
“I think we’re not the first team to be slapped around by Pogačar and we certainly won’t be the last,” Dempster said. “Considering he normally goes fast uphill, downhill and on the flat, I wasn’t that surprised he was fast there on the final climb.”
Thomas, Dempster confessed, “wasn’t exhilarated by his performance on the last climb,” and the Welshman confirmed as much when he nodded his assent for the journalists to huddle around his turbo trainer. The run from Foligno was a time trial of two parts, flat and fast for the first 32km ahead of the uneven climb into the heart of Perugia.
“For me personally, it wasn’t the best, but for a bad day on the bike I guess it’s not so bad,” Thomas said. “I tried to hold back a bit on the flat and then push on the climb. I think I attacked the steep bits, but I was way too off it for the rest, and I lost a shipload of time. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
“On the steep parts of the climb, I was doing around what I wanted to do. I guess I was a bit too conservative the rest of it, but, yeah, that’s the way it goes.”
Deficit
At the first check after 18.6km, Thomas was just 8 seconds down on Pogačar, but that gap had yawned out to 40 seconds by the time he reached the foot of the final haul into Perugia. On the climb itself, Thomas couldn’t quite find his tempo, or at least a rhythm that would help him limit the damage to a supersonic Pogačar, who delivered his most emphatic time trial display since his startling win at La Planche des Belles Filles on the 2020 Tour de France.
Thomas finished the day in 10th place on the stage.
“I was trying to keep something in reserve and just ride fast,” Thomas said. “When I got to the climb, I felt like I had a bit in reserve. It wasn’t like the last 3k of the last TT last year [on Monte Lussari – ed.], that’s for sure. It was similar to the opening TT last year which was flat with a kicker at the end.
"I kind of felt the same, when it was time to really go, I couldn’t really go, I could only half go. But like I say, I have some good and some bad days.”
In the overall standings, Thomas dropped to third overall, 2:46 down on Pogačar, and 10 seconds behind his old teammate Daniel Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Pogačar was the overwhelming favourite for the Giro before the race began, though Thomas had resisted well in the opening phase days. The complexion of the race has changed quite emphatically after Pogačar’s stratospheric display here, but even amid the bewilderingly interwoven streets and alleyways of Perugia, Thomas tried to find a clearer perspective.
“It’s a long old race, isn’t it? I didn’t lose time to everyone,” Thomas said. “A few guys gained time, but that’s what Grand Tour racing’s all about it really, unless your name’s Pogačar or Jonas [Vingegaard]…”
Yes, the Giro is still long, and yes, almost all of the key mountain stages are still to come. But at this remove and against this Pogačar, that just feels like part of the problem, and Thomas knows that too.
“We’ve just run out of things to say about him really,” Thomas said. “We all know how good he is.”
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