Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) has given himself an excellent chance of making the most of his last opportunity to climb back up his team’s pecking order.
Just two years after winning the Tour de France, Thomas,
now aged 34 years, was dropped from this year’s Tour line-up.
He started the Giro d’Italia yesterday knowing he must
win overall if he is to lay credible claim to even a joint team leader role –
with Egan Bernal and/or Richard Carapaz – on next year’s Tour during the final
season of his current contract.
After yesterday’s opening stage at the Giro TT he is already in the driving seat and looks like the man to beat in a year with no very clear overall favourite and two more TTs that can suit him.
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In the 15.1km TT into Palermo yesterday, most of which was downhill, Thomas put in a great ride to take 4th on the stage.
He was 23 seconds down on his team mate Filippo Ganna; the new world champion winning the stage and taking the maglia rosa.
The 24-year-old Italian was head and shoulders above the
opposition as he put 22 seconds into runner-up João Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep), who just turned 22-years-old last month.
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Mikkel Bjerg (21) of UAE-Team Emirates was 3rd at 23 seconds, with Thomas 4th on the same time.
Almeida is a
general classification contender, but perhaps for a top 10 ride rather than for
outright victory.
Aside from the
young Portuguese rider, Thomas put a significant amount of time into all his
general classification rivals during what may yet prove to have been a decisive
day of racing.
Simon Yates
(Mitchelton Scott) is perhaps Thomas’s most serious threat for overall victory
and even he lost 27 seconds to the Welsh rider yesterday.
But after Yates,
the gaps to the other heavy hitters in contention for overall honours in three
weeks time were very significant. The time lost to Geraint Thomas by the main
contenders included:
- Alexander Vlasov (Astana) 57 seconds
- Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-Quick Step) 1:03
- Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) 1:05
- Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo) 1:06
- Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) 1:21
- Jakob Fuglsang (Astana Pro Team) 1:24
- Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) 1:37
Whether Thomas has the climbing legs to hold, or even
extend, his already impressive gains should become clear very soon.
Today’s stage 2 ends in Agrigento with a
small climb that is unlikely to cause much damage. However, the real climbing
starts as soon as Monday’s stage 3, with a summit finish at the top of the
18.6km climb of Mount Etna.
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