Geraint Thomas starts the 2023 Vuelta a España in Barcelona on Saturday as a rock to cling to in choppy waters. Beset by rumours and uncertainty, his Ineos Grenadiers team are once again relying on the 37-year-old Welshman to lead from the front, as he did when finishing a very close second to Primoz Roglic in this year’s Giro d’Italia.
The British team are in upheaval after the loss of star riders, including the 2020 Giro d’Italia winner, Tao Geoghegan Hart, one of several to move to rival teams in recent weeks. Swirling around the team, whose transfer spending currently appears frozen, are rumours of mergers, acquisitions and personnel changes, focusing on the current Vuelta champion, Remco Evenepoel, also a friend of Thomas’s.
Evenepoel will lead the Soudal Quick-Step team in the Vuelta, but speculation continues that the world time trial champion is likely to join Thomas at the British team, either through a big-money move or a future merger between both sponsors. The young Belgian has already become weary of the rumours.
“If I have to hear the same shit every day for three weeks, it’s going to be a long Vuelta,” he said when again asked about his future during the world championships in Scotland. In the meantime, Thomas is getting on with the job in hand.
“It’s the first time I’ve done the two, the Giro and the Vuelta,” Thomas said. “I’ve done the Tour and Vuelta before and that was horrible. I’m a bit more prepared this time and looking forward to it. I just want to get these three weeks done and then have a few drinks.”
He is also already thinking of a return to the Tour de France. “We’ll see what happens, but I’d love to go back to the Tour,” Thomas said. “As a leader and targeting it … I don’t know. It’ll take a bit of time to make that decision.”
The Belgian cyclist Tijl De Decker has died as a result of severe injuries he sustained in a crash during training last Wednesday, his team Lotto Dstny said on Friday.
The 22-year-old crashed into the back of a car and was taken to hospital in Lier, Belgium, where he immediately had surgery before being transported to the Antwerp University Hospital later that evening, the Belgian team said.
'Despite the best efforts of the staff at the hospital, Tijl couldn't make it through and this morning he lost his battle,' Lotto Dstny said in a statement. De Decker joined Lotto Dstny earlier this year, and had earned a stage win in the Tour de Taiwan as well as winning the under-23 Paris-Roubaix race.
'We are devastated by the loss of our cyclist,' said the team CEO, Stephane Heulot. "Tijl showed big progression this year and we believed in [him]. We will always remember him as a talented young rider and a warm and friendly person off the bike.' Reuters
His team’s deputy team principal, Rod Ellingworth, believes the key to Thomas’s career longevity is his ability to switch off.
“That’s in them already through their parents, through their early development years,” Ellingworth said. “Geraint, if you look at his life, look at his parents, they are who they are. I don’t think you can change that in people too much, that’s in them already. Being able to switch off is important.”
“Sometimes he drops off the side of the mountain,” Ellingworth said of Thomas. “The year he won the Tour in 2018, a few weeks later we rocked up at the Tour of Britain, and I was like: ‘Oh my God, who’s this guy?’ He was about 30 kilos heavier.”
In a sport in which burnout is becoming a prominent issue, Ellingworth added that Thomas maintains “a good balance of life.
“I think a little bit of the problem with what’s happening at the moment is a lot of the young riders are coming through, but I think they will have issues because they are way too focused. They’re becoming pro bike riders maybe too early. They’re having a pro mentality too early.
“That’s why Geraint’s able to perform at 37. It’s not just physically he’s getting better – he’s professional in his outlook, and he’s always open and honest and he gets the best out of himself in every race.
“He’s not sort of the guy where he’s like, ‘If I’m not the leader, I’m switching off.’ He’s like: ‘OK, I can’t be the leader, I’m not good enough, so I’ll work for this guy,’ and it doesn’t matter how old they are, how many years they’ve been in the team.”
In a 2023 Vuelta field that includes Evenepoel, the double Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma teammate Roglic, plus a host of other contenders, Ellingworth described the race as “very tough” but added that “a podium finish, at least,” would be Thomas’s objective.
Yet Thomas and Evenepoel will struggle to combat Jumbo-Visma’s strength in depth. Key to the Dutch team’s ambition of an unprecedented Grand Tour grand slam is the American climber Sepp Kuss, who is riding his third Grand Tour of 2023, in the service of Vingegaard and Roglic.
“They’re both some of the best riders in the world,” Kuss said of his team’s leading duo. “In the end it’s pretty simple: in order to win a Grand Tour, you need the best rider. You can only do so much as a team, so for me it makes it easier riding for those guys. You know how good they are and how much they sacrifice.”
