Geraint Thomas

Ineos director of sport, Dave Brailsford, said Geraint Thomas deserved a 'wry smile' for proving team management wrong by finishing third.

Every day, the performance team gets together and pulls a report together and I get that every night.” “He needs the opportunity to be himself. “I’ve got a fantastic working relationship with Rod, the team and the riders,” he said. We sat down and agreed that he’d be a role model to the young lads, a perfect teammate, and I think that slightly relaxed approach worked. The mistake would be to drop him into a very sterile approach because I’m not sure that’s right for him. Everybody feels it’s a very satisfying performance for him and the team.”

Now it is Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar - the freshly crowned champion and the winner of the previous two editions - who rule. Vingegaard is 25 years old, ...

The men in front were operating on another plane and Thomas was wise enough to recognise that fact. Vingegaard is 25 years old, Pogacar is 23; their rivalry could define this sport for a generation. Now a new hope has emerged in the form of Vingegaard, Pogacar and other all-rounders such as Wout van Aert, "the best rider in the world" according to his Jumbo-Visma team-mate Vingegaard. When Thomas had to climb gruelling mountains on his own, he looked like a throwback of sorts; a reminder of the dominance Ineos - and Sky as they were previously known - used to exert on the Tour. Vingegaard and Pogacar set such a ferocious pace, this Tour was effectively split in two: their epic duel for the yellow jersey, and then the best of the rest - a contest Thomas won comprehensively. The more the Tour de France changes, the more Geraint Thomas stays the same.

Will it be a farewell to the Tour de France for Geraint Thomas? Only time will tell but, in the immediate aftermath of an improbable podium finish, ...

Where once he might have partied until the early hours in Paris last night, instead it was a more muted aftermath to what was his 12th Tour de France. I was confident if I kept working hard I could be in the mix. Following that win – the first by a Dane since 1996 – Vingegaard said: “It’s just incredible. “I say it doesn’t motivate me but deep down it does,” he said. Of whether this was the Tour finale, Thomas said: “I don’t know. In some ways, this third place was all the more impressive.

By Paul Jones. Geraint Thomas admitted he would not be celebrating as hard as in his younger days, but a podium finish at the Tour de France was still an ...

I did Flèche [Wallonne] and [Tour of] Basque for the first time and it gave me a new lease of life. This year I’ve had a different programme in the run up. It kept the body guessing. In November Sa told me I’d finish on the podium at the Tour this year. I might do one more [Tour]. This is for her and Macs for always believing, & for everyone’s support over the last month.