‘Nothing but bonus rounds’ - Geraint Thomas returns to the Vuelta a Espana

At times, even a season as recent as 2015 can feel like ancient history in cycling. When looking back at highlights from that year, like Alberto Contador winning the Giro d’Italia or Chris Froome taking his second Tour de France, the time gap seems unbridgeable.

But for proof that 2015 is not so distant, it's worth recalling that Geraint Thomas – prior to his own Tour de France victory and multiple other Grand Tour successes – rode his only Vuelta a España to date that September. It was not a happy experience

“I wouldn’t say I raced it,” the Ineos Grenadiers pro tells Cyclingnews in the countdown to his return to the Vuelta on Saturday. “I was just a passenger.

“It was just too much for me, to go to the Classics, and then the Tour. I remember the pre-race ride at the Vuelta and I was asking myself ‘What am I doing here?’ I felt like dogshit.

“Things never got any better from there, they just got worse. We lost Froomey half way through [the Sky leader for the Vuelta broke his ankle after crashing in Andorra] and so we had no focus. It’ll be nice to go and have a better experience.”

Even back then, despite Thomas' focus on the Spring Classics – he’d won E3 Harelbeke that March and run third in Gent-Wevelgem – the Welshman had already developed into a ‘Plan B’ for GC for Sky and had been running fourth overall as far as the Alps at that July's Tour.

A memorably terrible stage to La Toussuire – “some days in cycling you’re the hammer, other days you’re the nail, and today I was a cheap Ikea nail,”  was his typically wry description at the time – put paid to that plan and likely with it any vague chance of him contemplating a GC battle in the Vuelta. But fortunately a lot more water has gone under the bridge since then and that’ll be more than reflected on his return to the Spanish Grand Tour.

"To be honest, ever since I won the Tour de France, I feel like I’ve been constantly having bonus rounds, just enjoying riding my bike," Thomas says.

“Winning the Tour took the pressure off myself because I always knew I could do something but there was always some little mishap or something along the way. But that year was ideal, nothing went wrong.

“Since then I still feel like I’ve got a point to prove, and when I was writing the book [his autobiography] with Tom Fordyce I heard myself saying it about ten times about proving people wrong and that is a bit of a motivator for me.

“But when it comes to the Vuelta, whatever happens, I can already look back and see it as a good year.”

Going for the win

Delivering an A grade for this 2023 season was more than unexpected in the first part of the year, Thomas said, “because it was the worst build-up I ever had, with a lot of stop-starts.”  But there was a contrast between the start and what he could do at the Giro, “to turn that around, was really good.”

“Obviously, then at the Vuelta, I’m going to get stuck into it. We’ve got a great group together for going into it, on and off the bike, and we’ll just see what we can do," said Thomas. "I want the best result possible, of course, but I’m not stressing about it.”

Thomas may say he’s taking it easy, but beneath his chilled exterior there still lurks an extremely ambitious bike rider, no matter how many Tours he's won. There is no hiding the way his eyes positively gleam when Cyclingnews asked if he’d sign on the dotted line, pre-Vuelta, for a podium finish in Madrid.

“Mm, not sure. The podium would be nice, but I’d want to get a win. That’s what you do it for, isn’t it? Even if it’s getting a stage," Thomas said.

“Third overall would be decent, specially with the field there is. The thing is I’ve been getting a lot of places. Constantly being around the top three, but I haven’t won much recently. I’m desperate to get a win.”

Thomas can take encouragement that even if he doesn’t raise his arms in victory that  when he does it’s nearly always big.  His last triumph of 25 in his pro career might be over a year ago, but given it was the Tour de Suisse, widely considered cycling’s fourth Grand Tour, that’s hardly to be sneezed at. His previous five wins were all WorldTour level, and 14 months ago he was the 'first mortal' behind Pogacar and Vingegaard at the Tour's final podium, plus this May he came within a whisker of securing the Giro d'Italia.

It's a sign of how seriously Ineos Grenadiers are taking his Vuelta tilt that they're sending a notably strong lineup to back him, with options outside Thomas should things go awry for the Welsh veteran. Filippo Ganna is a favourite for the mid-race time trial, Thymen Arensman another possible GC contender after taking fifth in the Vuelta last year, and climbing powerhouse Laurens De Plus, who gave Thomas such strong support in the Giro mountains, is also on the Barcelona start ramp as well.

Ineos could well make their presence known as soon as the opening team time trial, too, particularly with Ganna and Thomas in the mix. Now all but restricted to a handful of stage races, a TTT is something that rarely features in Grand Tours outside the Vuelta – the last in the Tour was in Rotterdam in 2019, in the Giro in 2015 in San Remo – but last year Ineos showed their aptitude for it when they placed second in Utrecht in the Spanish race. For the Welshman, should Ineos go one better and seal victory in the opening stage and Thomas crosses the line first, Saturday could see him complete his collection of Grand Tour leaders’ jerseys.

“It would be great to win, specially in a team time trial where everybody goes up to celebrate the victory,” he said. “You need a great deal of cohesion in the team, and everybody feels like they’re part of it.

“Obviously if the jersey’s in the team, it’d be nice to have it, but I won’t be focussed on that, it’ll all be about getting to the line as quickly as possible. But I’m really looking forward to it, I love a TTT.”

Relishing the challenges

After the bar was set so low from the start of his previous Vuelta a Espana, and then went downhill all the way from there, Thomas himself said that he is not overly used to racing in Spain. “It is definitely a different vibe to France and Italy. But I’m looking forward to it.” 

He is equally upbeat about taking on such a deep field as the one lining up for the Vuelta this year.

“It’s good. You want to race the best guys," said Thomas. "It’s easy to think, 'Oh, it’d be better if it was a weak field, because it’d be easier to win' and stuff, but like I said now, there’s no pressure on me when it comes to performing so having them there will be great.”

It’s not just that Thomas relishes a challenge, either. With all the “hype”, as he calls it, surrounding the Jumbo-Visma duo and Remco Evenepoel, there’s a chance that with so many top names, even one as significant as Thomas, will be able to fly under the radar a little bit more.

“We’ll just go about doing our thing,” Thomas said. “Remco and Jumbo have a bit of a beef, don’t they, so it’ll be nice to sit back and watch that and hopefully profit off people racing a bit different, maybe getting a bit emotional.”

Equally, he said, it’ll be good to see his underlying form from the word go, with the first summit finish on stage 3 into Andorra.

“There are so many key points and mountain stages, though, aren’t there? Nearly half the race finishes at the top of a hill or mountain, so it’ll be good to get it done," said Thomas. "That first stage into Andorra won’t be as crucial as on other Grand Tours, maybe, because there are so many opportunities and plenty of time to get that back. But it’ll be nice to get that in the legs and see how everybody is early on.” 

“Remco for sure will be starting super strong, and a lot will depend on how he goes in the third week. And guys like Primož [Roglič] and [Jonas] Vingegaard, they know how to race a three-week Tour, obviously.”

“So UAE are going to be super strong, with [Joao] Almeida and Ayuso. And [Enric] Mas (Movistar) too, will be super keen after missing out on the Tour. There’s going to be a lot of stuff going on.”

Thomas' own decision to take part in the Vuelta, hopefully completing two Grand Tours for the first time since that ill-fated participation in 2015, has been at the back of his mind, he said, since the start of the year. Then after the Giro, the idea gained yet more impetus.

“It’s nice to keep mixing it up, really. I’d never done Pologne before this year, either, for example, and doing the Giro-Vuelta combination was something I always thought I’d like to try. This is the ideal opportunity to do it.”

The downside of so much racing, he said, has been the time spent away from home, more than at the Vuelta, in the weeks spent at altitude beforehand. But as he said, after the Vuelta, there will be “plenty of time to chill” with only Il Lombardia on the program following his three-and-a-bit weeks in Spain.

Life after the Vuelta

And beyond that? Although Thomas had, in early August, yet to sign his contract, at 37, he tells Cyclingnews, “the idea is to do two more years and then call it a day. I’m not too keen on being 40 and still racing in this peloton, that’d be too much. So that [racing for two more years] is the most likely thing.”

First, though, comes the Vuelta, and while the goal is a GC victory, as has often been pointed out, riding the Spanish Grand Tour will also set Thomas up with a solid base for the start of next season.

“Yeah, for sure. I don’t know what I’ll doing in terms of racing next year, but it definitely gets you into the winter well and you don’t have to start as early or push on as much. It definitely helps. So with next year being my penultimate or perhaps my last, you want to enjoy it, and you can only do that when you’re relatively competitive at the least.”

Thomas wants much more out of the Vuelta than just building for next season, though, and after getting the lead in the Giro d’Italia for eight days and coming so close to overall victory, it’s clear that even at 37, he still has ample ability and strength to go the distance. His goals, in any case, remain just as ambitious in Spain as they were in Italy.

“The main objective is to try and win the GC,” he said, “but also be aggressive in the race, try to do it a bit differently."

"We did have that idea in the Giro, but when you’ve got the leader’s jersey that kind of changes things, all the boys were getting behind that one goal. But we can definitely go to the Vuelta with that open attitude again, and then see what happens.”