Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos)(Image credit: Getty Images)
Geraint Thomas at the Ineos rest day press conference in Nîmes.(Image credit: Getty Images)
Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos)(Image credit: Getty Images)
Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) speaks to the press on the second rest day at the Tour de France(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Dave Brailsford and Geraint Thomas at Team Ineos' press conference on the second rest day of the Tour de France.(Image credit: Getty Images)
Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) came through a crash on stage 16 of the Tour de France to finish safely in the pack and retain his second place overall behind race leader Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep).
Thomas crashed 130 kilometres into the 177km stage 16 around Nimes but was quickly on a new bike and escorted back to the peloton by several of his Team Ineos squad members.
The defending champion was relatively unscathed but lost some skin in the fall. He finished in the main field in 25th place while Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) went on to win the stage.
At the finish in a baking hot Nimes, the Welshman briefly stopped to talk to the waiting media, including Cyclingnews.
"I just had one hand on the bars, and then something locked up in my gears and threw me off my bike. Not ideal. I just took off an old scar so it was just new skin bleeding. I just got thrown off on a corner," he said.
Thomas briefly went back to the second Team Ineos car, which was piloted by Servais Knaven and included a mechanic, a team doctor and member of the press corps. Thomas had a brief moment of treatment before finding his way back into the peloton.
"I knew that the race wasn't 'on' so I just had to get back up and get into the group. It was just a freak thing, but I'm all right. I saw the doctor and he sprayed some water on me."
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Wednesday sees the race take on a stage to Gap, and the profile is likely to involve another breakaway. Temperatures are expected to remain high before eventually dipping as the race moves into the Alps for the final decisive stages of this year's race.
"It will be another tough day tomorrow, and then we'll be up in the mountains," Thomas said. "I don't think the crash will affect me. It looks worse than it is."
Thomas is 1:35 behind race leader Alaphilippe and has four riders within 30 seconds behind him: Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), his teammate Egan Bernal and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
