Victory for Thomas in Romandie

Geraint Thomas had his first win since the 2018 Tour de France after the Welshman led put in a measured ride in Fribourg to overhaul leader Mike Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation) and secure the overall victory from his teammate Richie Porte by 33 seconds.

Victory for Thomas in Romandie

Thomas finished third on the final stage, not pushing for the stage win, knowing that his aim was to overturn a 11 second gap to race leader Woods. The Welshman looked on course to achieve this at the intermediate check point, where he led the field.

However, with patches of rain across the course, the Welsh rider carefully navigated the second half of the stage, finishing third to seal overall victory.

Geraint Thomas: “I’m very happy, especially after the little mishap yesterday – which wasn’t ideal! That definitely made it more of a challenge today but I felt good.

“To be honest it kind of reminded me of when I won the Tour back in Espelette, it was kind of like this, the last descent on the radio they were telling me to ‘take it easy’ and just ‘don’t do anything stupid, don’t crash on the corners’ and then obviously you overthink it a bit then. I’m really happy to finish it off and it’s been a great week with the team.

“Today was all about trying to take the jersey and get around safe. Obviously I would have loved to have gone for the stage, but that last descent it was a bit wet, so best to just take it steady and finish the stage rather than risk it all.

“At the start of the year, I said my goal was the Tour and every race was a build up to it and didn’t really put any pressure on myself to perform early, but I seem to have come into some good shape pretty soon. I’ve had a lot of good races building up, obviously Catalunya was really good for the team, I was third there behind two teammates, which was amazing to be a part of. I knew I was going well and myself and Richie wanted to come here and make sure one of us won the race. First and second – we can’t complain!

“I knew I was going well. I’ve done a lot of hard work and spent a lot of time away from the family. I really wanted to make it worthwhile – and I’ve certainly done that.

“As we all know bike racing is about winning but it’s not like I haven’t performed since I won the Tour. I was second in the Tour the next year, second in Tirreno, third in Catalunya. I’ve been up there but it’s nice to finally get the win.”