Tag: Geraint Thomas

Highs and Lows from the 2020 Giro d’Italia

Highs and Lows from the 2020 Giro d’Italia

With the Tour de France having got the 2020 Grand Tour calendar underway following the initial shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was time for the Giro d’Italia to take centre stage. With an altered route at times, riders still went through 3,361.4km of hard riding between the 3ʳᵈ and 25ᵗʰ October, and this all culminated in 25-year-old Tao Geoghegan Hart earning the Maglia Rosa on the final stage, becoming the 5ᵗʰ Brit to win a Grand Tour.

General Classification:

  1. Tao Geoghegan Hart (Great Britain) – Ineos Grenadiers – 85h 40′ 21″
  2. Jai Hindley (Australia) – Team Sunweb   + 00′ 39″
  3. Wilco Kelderman (Netherlands) – Team Sunweb   + 01′ 29″

Points Classification:

  1. Arnaud Démare (France) – Groupama–FDJ – 233 points
  2. Peter Sagan (Slovakia) – Bora–Hansgrohe – 184 points
  3. João Almeida (Portugal) – Deceuninck–Quick-Step – 108 points

Mountains Classification:

  1. Ruben Guerreiro (Portugal) – EF Pro Cycling – 234 points
  2. Tao Geoghegan Hart (Great Britain) – Ineos Grenadiers – 157 points
  3. Thomas De Gendt (Belgium) – Lotto–Soudal– 122 points

Young Rider Classification:

  1. Tao Geoghegan Hart (Great Britain) – Ineos Grenadiers – 85h 40′ 21″
  2. Jai Hindley (Australia) – Team Sunweb   + 00′ 39″
  3. João Almeida (Portugal) – Deceuninck–Quick-Step + 2′ 57″

Teams Classification:

  1. Ineos Grenadiers – 257h 15′ 58″
  2. Deceuninck–Quick-Step + 22′ 32″
  3. Team Sunweb  + 28′ 50″

It’s probably no surprise that a 3-week race has a number of highs and lows as it progresses. Today I will be looking 3 highs and 3 lows that stuck with me as I watched the race

Low – Crashing out early

With Individual Time Trials accounting for 3 of the 21 stages in this year’s Giro and a number of big names missing following the Tour de France and World Championships, this looked like a race Geraint Thomas was destined to win. However, the Welshman’s dreams of winning the Giro came crashing down on the streets of Sicily as his bike caught a discarded bottle, sending him to the ground at high speed. Though he managed to complete the stage, a fractured hip brought his race to an early end after just 3 stages.

cycling giro geraint thomas ineos

G is one of the great personalities in the peloton, and it is never nice to see someone’s race ended early, but it was even more disappointing given his history of bad luck in Grand Tours. Hopefully we will see G leading the team at Grand Tours again next year, but with the sheer number of Grand Tour winners in the Ineos Grenadiers ranks next season – despite Chris Froome’s move to Israel Start-Up Nation – he’s going to have to be on top form.

High – Plan B

While G’s injury and early abandonment were a clear low in the race, it actually led to one of the biggest highs. The one benefit to losing your leader just a few stages into a 3-week race is that you have time to adjust your plan for the race. And this is exactly what Ineos Grenadiers did, and it led to their most successful Grand Tour!

They were always going to be the favourites in the ITTs with World Time Trial Champion Filippo Ganna in their line-up and the Italian duly won all 3 of the stages, while also showing that he is more than just a TT rider with a sensational ride on Stage 5 to take a 4ᵗʰ stage victory in the race. Meanwhile, fellow TT specialist Rohan Dennis also showed his quality with 2 top 10 finishes in the Time Trials, but his biggest impact on the race came in the final few days as he became the key domestique on the climbs, dragging Geoghegan Hart and Jai Hindley away from the Maglia Rosa and to constantly come back when Hindley attacked on the final climb of the penultimate stage. Jhonatan Narváez also added to the success of the team with a win on Stage 12 when he attacked from the break.

cycling giro tao geoghegan hart trophyAnd then of course we come to Tao Geoghegan Hart, who came to the race as a domestique for Thomas but instead found himself becoming the leader. The 25-year-old held with the leaders when many others struggled, and a win on Stage 15 propelled him not just into the top 10 but all the way to 4ᵗʰ in the GC. Then in the final few days of climbing, he was able to ride away from the Maglia Rosa along with Rohan Dennis and Jai Hidley of Sunweb, leaving us in the craziest of situations where 20 stage of riding saw the lead of the general classification come down to a fraction of a second between 2 riders who came to the race as domestiques – a margin he was able to overcome with a strong time trial on the final day to become the latest Grand Tour winner.

Low – COVID Chaos

We may be back to racing, but that doesn’t mean that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, and it certainly had its impact on this race.

Adam Yates was one of the favourites to win the race, but struggled through the first week before abandoning ahead of Stage 8 following a positive COVID test. Just a few days later, the rest of his Mitchelton–Scott team abandoned after 4 staff members tested positive.

The entirety of Team Jumbo–Visma also abandoned on the first rest day after Steven Kruijswijk tested positive, while sprinters Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) and Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) also abandoned following positive tests.

First things first, you could question why there were not standardised processed in place, with Team Jumbo–Visma pulling out after 1 positive test within the team, but Team Sunweb and UAE Team Emirates continuing without the rider in question. Second, you could ask why the riders were staying in hotels that were also open to the public, and why we were still seeing fans without masks able to get within metres of the riders on some of the climbs.

Without the riders, there is no product, so you would think the UCI and race organisers would be working harder to look after them.

High – Alex Dowsett’s big day

We’ve all had one of those days where things start wrong an you just know it’s setting the trend for the day. Well Israel Start-Up Nation’s British rider Alex Dowsett thought it was going to be one of those days on 10ᵗʰ October when, ahead of Stage 8, he tweeted out “Cleaned my teeth then realised I hadn’t drunk my freshly brewed coffee yet this morning. I really hope the day picks up because it started with a nightmare.”

Well the day certainly did get better for him, as he managed to get in the break and then attack to win his first Grand Tour stage since a Time Trial in the 2013 Giro, but even more importantly, Israel Start-Up Nation’s first ever Grand Tour stage.

The joy of a 3-week race like the Grand Tours is that while you will have days where the focus is on the big names like the GC contenders or the sprinters, there will also be great stories like this to look out for as the weeks go on.

Low – Avoidable accidents

Sadly, the risk of exposure to COVID-19 wasn’t the only risk the riders were exposed to, as there were a couple of incidents during the race that the UCI and race organisers should be ashamed of.

There has already been plenty of questioning of the quality of barriers at races following their catastrophic failure during the Tour of Poland crash between Dylan Groenewegen and Fabio Jakobsen, and they failed again miserably on Stage 4, as a helicopter flying low overhead resulted in some of the barriers near the end of the course blowing into the riders passing at that moment, leading to some serious injuries.

Sadly this wasn’t the only incident with an outside influence, as Stage 11 saw one of the camera motorbikes try to make it’s way up through the peloton at a point where they were closely grouped to make their way through some technical turns. With space quickly disappearing, the motorbike was left with nowhere to go, other than into Elia Viviani, who was knocked off his bike.

Accidents are unavoidable in bike racers, we all know how easy it is to just slightly touch wheels within the peloton, or to lose the bike from underneath you as you try taking a turn too fast. But both of these accidents are bringing outside influences into the race that are putting the riders at risk, and it doesn’t feel like anything is being done to improve their safety. Frankly, that’s just not good enough.

High – Young and hungry

cycling giro tao geoghegan hart trophy
cycling tour de france 2020 podium roglic pogacar porte
cycling bernal yellow thomas

In the last couple of years, we have started to see more and more success for young riders who are deemed to be well before what has previously been their prime. Riders like Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogačar have not just gone against that conventional thinking, but laughed in its face as they have won Grand Tours in their early 20s.

In this edition of the Giro, 25-year-old Tao Geoghegan Hart and 24-year-old Jai Hindley came with the intention of riding for Geraint Thomas and Wilco Kelderman respectively. But when push came to shove in the final days, they were the ones riding for the title. Meanwhile, 22-year-old João Almeida was shocked everyone by taking the pink jersey from Filippo Ganna on Stage 3 and holding it right up to Stage 18, before finally finishing 4ᵗʰ. Even Ganna himself proved that he is more than just a time trial rider with his win on Stage 5 proving that you can never take him for granted if he gets up the road in a break.

These performances are by no means saying that what was considered a rider’s prime is now too old, but instead it highlights that we are in a new golden age of cycling where even the experts are left shocked by the quality of performances right through the peloton. Now that is a great thing indeed!

Eyes On: Tour de France 2018

Eyes On: Tour de France 2018

The Tour de France is over for another year and for the 6th time in 7 years, Team Sky are emerging victorious in the General Classification – though maybe not with the rider everyone was expecting. The final standings in the various classifications were as follows:

  • General Classification:
  1. Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) – 83h 17’ 13”
  2. Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) – + 1’ 51”
  3. Chris Froome (Team Sky) – + 2’ 24”
  • Points Classification:
  1. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) – 477
  2. Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) – 246
  3. Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) – 203
  • Mountains Classification:
  1. Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) – 170
  2. Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic) – 91
  3. Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) – 76
  • Young Rider Classification:
  1. Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) 83h 39’ 26”
  2. Egan Bernal (Team Sky) – + 5’ 39”
  3. Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Goupe Gobert) – + 22’ 05”
  • Team Classification:
  1. Movistar Team – 250h 24’ 53”
  2. Bahrain-Merida – + 12’ 33”
  3. Team Sky – + 31’ 14”
  • Combativity Award: Dan Martin

History made, but not as expected

Though many likely expected a Team Sky rider to be standing on the top of the podium, I think most would admit that they would have been expecting to see Chris Froome there winning his 5th Tour de France title and 4th consecutive Grand Tour. Instead, it was his teammate and former super-domestique now co-leader Geraint Thomas who made history by becoming the first Welshman to win the Tour. With Froome having competed in the Giro d’Italia, it was unclear how fresh he would be for this race – and at one point it was unclear if he would be allowed to race while the investigation into his adverse test result from last year’s Vuelta continued – so Thomas was given the lead of the team in the 2018 Critérium du Dauphiné, which he won, and was given protected status as co-leader for this race.

20180730_193411.jpgAs is always the way in the Grand Tours, Team Sky brought a dominant roster to the race which certainly gave both Thomas and Froome every chance to compete, but whereas previously Thomas had struggled from poor days or poor fortune, this time he was able to keep himself where he needed every day and was able to avoid any bad luck, while many of his competitors in the General Classification lost time early on. Chris Froome lost 50 seconds on Stage 1 when he came off the road, while Richie Porte (who later retired injured on Stage 9) and Adam Yates also lost the same amount of time courtesy of another incident. Tom Dumoulin lost time after contact with Romain Bardet left him in need of a wheel change within 6km of the finish line and lost 53 seconds on the road with a further 20 seconds being added as a penalty for spending too much time drafting behind his team car to get back on. Romain Bardet had almost half a dozen bike/wheel changes on the cobbles of Stage 9 and expended so much energy to only finish 7 seconds down on the day, but struggled with a number of domestiques abandoning early, while Vincenzo Nibali crashed out on Stage 12 and Movistar could not decide which rider out of Mike Landa, Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde to support.

Despite all these issues for his competitors though, “G” was fully deserving of the victory as he was able to deal with all of his rivals attacks and was often stuck on Dumoulin’s wheel when he attacked almost as if the Dutchman was another super-domestique, before attacking himself in the final kilometres to win Stage 11 (where he took yellow) and Stage 12 – where he became the first yellow jersey to win on Alpe d’Huez. I’ve noted previously that to win on GC, you have to be strong all-round. Thomas can climb with the best of them and also has a good sprint at the end of mountain stages, while also being an above-average time trialist – good enough to limit Dumoulin and Froome’s gains on the final day to less than 20 seconds. Watching G in interviews, he is just so likeable and after seeing his reaction to winning on Alpe d’Huez and seeing him break down after the time trial, not to mention his off the cuff speech on the podium in front of the Arc de Triomphe where he tried to thank everyone and promptly forgot the names of his teammates and only remembered his wife at the last minute, it was impossible not to be rooting for him.

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7 Grand Tours, 4 Olympic medals & 3 Commonwealth Games medals in 1 photo

Speaking of Froome, do not expect this to be the end of an era. Very few team leaders would ride 4 consecutive Grand Tours and it seems that this was just 1 race too far for him. He was still competitive throughout but in the last couple of days just did not have the legs to hold on against Thomas and Dumoulin, but responded well and became a willing domestique for Thomas in the final days. It will be interesting to see how Team Sky structure their rosters moving forward with both of these riders on their books. Will they use them in separate races to each get the benefit of a full team? Or will they work as co-leaders until the leader is clear and the other becomes a domestique? Do not rule out either option and a continued run of Team Sky dominance in the Grand Tours.

A new star

That dominance in the GC may not even have to come from Froome or Thomas, though, as young Colombian Egan Bernal announced himself on the Grand Tour scene with a wonderful race! The youngest rider in the race did not seem phased and was often one of the last remaining domestiques on the mountain stages and – much like Froome in 2012 – I occasionally got the feeling that he was holding back to protect his leaders. So many times we saw the big names in the GC try to attack on the final climbs only to be drawn back in by a group led by Bernal and his impact on the race only seemed to grow as the race went on, when he could have easily faded due to inexperience and extra workload due to Gianni Moscon being removed from the race. It may not happen this year or next year, but it surely won’t be long until we see Bernal leading a team at a Grand Tour and to be honest, when he gets that chance I’d expect him to be pushing for at least a podium position.

Survival of the fittest

The Points Classification started so well with a couple of early stage victories for Fernando Gaviria, however the excitement soon came to a premature end. Last year’s green jersey winner Michael Matthews was out early following a crash. Marcel Kittel, Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw all missed the cut-off time on Stage 11, while Gaviria, André Greipel and Dylan Groenewegen all abandoned on Stage 12. With Arnaud Démare having had issues on the early sprint stages, the Points Classification was over as a competition Alexander Kristoff failing to win the intermediate sprint on Stage 16 meant that Peter Sagan was mathematically assured of the victory provided he made it to the end. The only excitement came after he fell the next day, though he was able to continue racing without having to worry about competing at the sprints.

Granted, crashes and injuries are difficult to predict, but too often in the Tour de France, the race for the green jersey is more about who can make it over the mountains in decent shape, something that currently too few specialist sprinters are able to do.

Not good enough

A crash for Thomas during the 2017 Giro d’Italia prompted me to write a piece about how outside influences can heavily affect the result of the Grand Tours. Well 14 months later and things haven’t really changed judging by this race.

Froome and Team Sky’s dominance over the years – and Froome’s adverse drug test – have made them very unpopular in France but where most people will g as far as booing, too many people decide to take it further. Team Sky riders, especially Froome, were repeatedly spat at and had liquids thrown at them throughout the race, while one spectator tried to push Froome off his bike on Stage 12 and was actually able to make contact with him (thankfully not enough to make him fall) and another tried to grab Thomas towards the end of one of the recent stages. As if all of that wasn’t enough, Froome actually found himself pushed off of his bike on the way down to the team bus from the finish line of Stage 17 after not recognising him. Not a great look.

It wasn’t just Team Sky who came into problems during the race as a combination of a flare from the crowd, a motorbike too close to the riders and a crowd too enclosed resulted in Vincenzo Nibali crashing on Stage 12 and abandoning the race with a fractured vertebra. Not only that but a protest by farmers on Stage 16 saw them try to block the road with hay bales, while the response of the policy to pepper spray the protesters caused the race to be stopped for 11 minutes after the pepper spray blew back into the eyes of the peloton.

If a professional event like the World Cup or the Super Bowl had even half these issues, there would be hell to pay! The tournament organisers have a lot of work to do to ensure the safety of the riders and the safety of the race result.