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Teams & Riders Geraint Thomas

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Red Rick

Red Rick

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Gigs_98 said:
It's funny how these kind of things go. All of a sudden one really has to ask why he didn't attack Roglic in the 2nd week. Who knows, Ineos might have thrown this Giro away by not applying any sort of pressure in Crans Montana.
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I think it's hard to blame Ineos. Crans Montana did have the headwins, and Thomas did push to the line in that stage and it's not like Roglic was close to dropping there.

Maybe you can blame them for not putting Arensman or De Plus in a breakaway, but that's once again similar to the Jumbo 2020 scenario. When riders are in the lead or virtual lead, they generally won't use team tactics to put a teammate in GC.

In hindsight you can say they should have gone harder on Bondone, but I don't think Thomas ever had the surplus of strength needed to make a big move that he didn't.

The equation with TGH in the picture would of course have been way different.
 
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Lequack

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tonymikejoe

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Let's not overlook Thomas beat the entire Giro field in that brutally tough ITT - apart from one opponent - so let's not beat him up too much.
Everybody is an expert with hindsight and will suggest 'Thomas should have attacked here and there,' but a 26 second lead seems decent on Saturday morning.
In fact, Thomas did attack at the end of the Friday mountain stage in an attempt to pad his 29 second lead and what happened? He lost three seconds.
His 26 second lead at the start of the ITT was largely down to following Almeida's attack in the mountains.
Thomas, almost certainly would not have attacked on his own. At no point in the Giro did he leave Roglic behind riding solo.
His advantage on Saturday morning was via his previous two ITT's and following Almeida.
That was the best he could have done.
 
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Savant12

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Rob5091 said:
I agree - When Hart was still in the race Ineos should have been more aggressive, but the parcours and typical Ineos defensive riding meant they missed the opportunity.
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There were just some horrible days to be on a bike and I think if the weather was better then they could have put a weaker Roglic under more pressure because apart from Kuss, the Jumbo domestiques didn't really seem to be there.
 
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theyoungest

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Savant12 said:
There were just some horrible days to be on a bike and I think if the weather was better then they could have put a weaker Roglic under more pressure because apart from Kuss, the Jumbo domestiques didn't really seem to be there.
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Usually in a peloton of 20 riders, 5 of them were Jumbo, so I don't know what you're talking about. It was of course their B or even their C-team to begin with. In the end it didn't really matter anyway because Kuss was stronger than all of Ineos bar Thomas.

I do think that it's a miracle Roglic managed to win this Giro, because he really didn't seem at his best and after the restday it looked like he would crack completely. Kuss really saved his race there, but Thomas looked way stronger at that point. And in the time trial things really seemed to go his way as well. He just completely exploded in the final k of the climb, that's where he lost the race.
 
Blanco

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tonymikejoe said:
Let's not overlook Thomas beat the entire Giro field in that brutally tough ITT - apart from one opponent - so let's not beat him up too much.
Everybody is an expert with hindsight and will suggest 'Thomas should have attacked here and there,' but a 26 second lead seems decent on Saturday morning.
In fact, Thomas did attack at the end of the Friday mountain stage in an attempt to pad his 29 second lead and what happened? He lost three seconds.
His 26 second lead at the start of the ITT was largely down to following Almeida's attack in the mountains.
Thomas, almost certainly would not have attacked on his own. At no point in the Giro did he leave Roglic behind riding solo.
His advantage on Saturday morning was via his previous two ITT's and following Almeida.
That was the best he could have done.
Click to expand...
He did attack Roglic. Almeida was up front, but the intention was not to follow him, but to attack Roglic. He noticed that Roglic is not that good, and that Kuss pacing is more not to hurt Roglic, then to close Almeida. And he attacked, not to follow, but to make difference, which he did. He hit the front immidiatelly, and out of 3-4 km's he was on the front at least 80% of time.
 
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theyoungest

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Savant12 said:
This ain't the Tour domination team. Week 3, Kuss was there for Roglic and....? The rest were all dropped at the pointy end.
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Yes, but so was everybody else. In the Tour it was just the same. They used more agressive tactics there with satellite riders though. In this Giro they rode very conservatively, maybe because on the only stage where they didn't, Roglic got dropped and almost lost the race.
 
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