Mark Cavendish’s retirement announcement on the Giro d’Italia rest day lead to Geraint Thomas reflecting on their entwined career paths and his own retirement plans but the Welshman stayed focused and ambitious as the decisive final week of the 2023 Giro d’Italia loomed large on the horizon.
Thomas could see the Italian mountains from his resort day hotel between Brescia and Lake Garda. He and his Ineos Grenadiers teammates did a two-hour, rest day ride but included some efforts to keep their legs activated and ready for Tuesday’s mountain stage and summit finish on Monte Bondone.
Cavendish celebrated his 38th birthday at the Giro on Sunday and Thomas will turn 37 on Thursday. He is hoping for a birthday stage win and a time gain rather than a cake and candles.
“It’s strange to see Mark retire because it means I’m going to be retiring soon as well. You think you’re always going to keep racing your bike but you’re not,” Thomas reflected.
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“Cav is the greatest sprinter of all time when you see his results. I was there when he won the worlds and we raced as Juniors and U23 all over the world together and have a lot of memories. It’s been an honour to ride with him and to be mates with him for 25 years. Now he’s got to get that record at the Tour and win a stage here at the Giro.”
Thomas has been considering his own future for several months. He wants to race on in 2024 and stay at Ineos Grenadiers but knows his final days will eventually come.
“I like the idea of an exit strategy…” he said when asked of his plans and Cavendish’s announcement.
“As I said before the Giro, I want to concentrate on this race. Talk has started about extending with this team but I’m going to cross that bridge in the couple of weeks after this race hopefully.”
Thomas is wise to wait until after the Giro d’Italia. Overall victory in the Cosa Rosa would sit with his 2018 Tour de France victory, embellish his career and also boost his final salary.
Giro waiting game
After two weeks and 15 stages of the Giro d’Italia, Thomas is 1:08 down on Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ), to whom he conceded the maglia rosa on stage 14, but leads Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) by two seconds and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), by 22 seconds.
The closeness of the GC battle has left the race in stalemate, annoying or boring some fans and observers but Thomas asks for understanding, giving a racing and potential winner’s perspective.
“I’ve been disappointed too, I’ve wanted to test myself against the other guys.” Thomas claimed. “There have been days on paper when the opportunity was there but there weren’t the conditions. On the stage to Gran Sasso there was a block headwind and there was nothing we could do, so it was a stalemate. Racing in bad weather is also more testing.
“On television it can look that we’re going easy but we’re doing high 300, low 400 watts. The base strength of the peloton is higher than it once was and so people are more cautious and calculating.
“Cycling is entertainment but as riders, you want to win, you don’t want to waste energy. When Chris Froome won the Giro he made a big attack and it was spectacular but it’s actually super rare. Last year Carapaz made a crazy attack on the Turin stage and that lost him the Giro because of the energy he lost there.
“All the talk of the last week is part of it too. I want to race but I don't just want to attack for entertainment, blow up and someone else profits from it.”
Thomas has been playing a waiting game, hoping to come into peak form in the final week after a disrupted winter and spring. He is hoping to match or distance Roglič, Almeida and the rest in the three mountain finishes and the final mountain time trial to Monte Lussari on Saturday.
He expects the Giro d'Italia to finally erupt starting on Tuesday with the mountain finish atop Monte Bondone.
“We’ve got three hard mountain stages and a mountain TT, so people will have to try,” he predicted. “We’re not leading the race but we’re top of the GC tree, so the onus is on the other guys to attack us and get time back. We’ve got our way of wanting to race and hopefully that will come off.
“The stage to Tre Cime di Lavaredo is the queen stage and the final three kilometres are steep. The last time trial is brutal too. I think we’ll go into the time trial with differences of minutes, not seconds.
"It’s definitely going to kick off for sure and we hope to be on the right side of that. We’ve got a strong team and have been one of the strongest teams. We’re motivated to do something.”
