Thomas: Olympics are a once in a lifetime opportunity

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Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) has reaffirmed his commitment to the London Olympic Games, insisting that they’re the biggest aim in his 2012 season. The Welsh rider confirmed last month that he would skip the Tour de France, using the Giro and track world championships as Olympic preparation. Thomas is the first high profile rider from Great Britain to take the decision of missing the Tour de France, while his fellow Olympic hopefuls Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins chose to race in July.

“My best opportunity to win a gold medal in London is if I don’t ride the Tour because there would be quite a short turn around to get back up to speed on the track,” Thomas told Cyclingnews.

“The way the team pursuit is, it’s super fast and to give myself the best opportunity in London, the Giro would be the better preparation, similar to what I did before Beijing.”

“The London Olympics are a once in a lifetime opportunity. The Tour is an annual event, it’s still a massively difficult decision to make and I want to do everything, especially now with Cavendish is in the team but hopefully it will be worth it.”

The Classics

Thomas and Sky are yet to finalise his spring plans, but with the World Track Championships being central to his Olympic aspirations, his desire to compete at the Classics again could also be put on hold. This season Thomas put in a number of strong performances in the spring, the highlight being his second place behind Nick Nuyens in Dwars Vlaanderen.

“The Classics clash with the track Worlds and it’s undecided if I’ll go do the Classics as well. I think if I rode them I’d want to do it full on and then take the Giro as it comes, but it’s all undecided for now.”

Team Sky

Although his immediate future is still to be worked out, Thomas’s long term plans have finally been settled after he signed a new contract with Sky. However he told Cyclingnews that although he agreed to the terms with the team and Dave Brailsford, and the team announced his signature during the Tour, he in fact only signed some time later.

“We made an agreement during the Tour but didn’t put pen to paper as we still had a few little things to sort out. It’s signed now. It all had to be done by October 20. It was just the finer points over contracts and doing commercial stuff outside of the team. It was all above my head and I just left it to the guys to sort out for me. I was happy with what I agreed with Dave and I left the other little bits to someone else.”

“But Sky was always home. It’s what I know and it’s working for me at the minute. There were a few other options and I definitely considered them. I would just discount anyone but Sky was what I was familiar with and it just seemed like the right decision to make.”