Team Sky rider Geraint Thomas has impressed greatly with a second strong performance in the Criterium du Dauphiné. The 24 year old Welshman sprinted into Saint-Laurent-du-Pont in third place yesterday, crossing the line just behind Lampre's Grega Bole and Peter Velits (HTC-Columbia).
It follows on from his fourth place in the prologue time trial on Sunday, and leaves the young rider in the same position overall, ten seconds behind ongoing race leader Alberto Contador (Astana).
As directeur sportif Sean Yates pointed out, the usual bonuses seen at races would have put him in a strong position. "If time bonuses were being awarded in this race he'd be right up there, but that's not the case,” he said on the team website. “Our aim now is to keep him in contention up to the time trial on Wednesday and see what happens from there.”
He believes that he would have been closer to the win had he not had a complication in the finale of the race. "It was a really solid performance from G [Thomas] and things might have gone even better had he not picked up a mechanical problem on the final climb which cost him some energy.”
Thomas has long been part of British Cycling’s track set-up and highlighted his ability last October when he recorded a scorching time of four minutes 15.015 seconds in qualification for the individual pursuit at the Manchester World Cup.
It was quicker than Bradley Wiggins’ Olympic gold medal time, and was regarded as the unofficial world record. Chris Boardman’s 1996 pace of four minute 11.114 seconds was done in a now-banned ‘Superman’ position.
In February, the time was improved again by Jack Bobridge (Australia/Garmin Transitions), who clocked up four minutes 14.427 seconds at the Australian National Track Championships.
Thomas passed up the chance to further improve the mark when he missed the world track championships in Ballerup this March. He moved from Team Barloworld to Team Sky over the winter and has been fully focussed on that, riding well in several events.
In February he was an important part of the Sky lineup which won the team time trial at the Tour of Qatar, then placed ninth in the individual time trial at the same race. Fifteenth in the prologue of Paris-Nice was followed by later performances such as sixth and seventh on stages of the Bayern Rundfahrt. His form in the Dauphiné is a step above that, though, and he’ll try to profit from it in tomorrow’s time trial. That test covers 49 kilometres from Monteux to Sorgues.
Race leader Alberto Contador (Astana) is the favourite for that, but if Thomas wants a spell in the leader’s jersey, he may have an opportunity to gain time on Contador today. The Spaniard has said that he doesn’t plan to defend the race lead and so if the Briton can get clear in a breakaway group and stay away until the finish, he could then start the time trial in a stronger position. The stage is quite lumpy, though, and so there is also a chance he will opt to keep his powder dry until tomorrow.
According to Yates, there was confusion yesterday when Contador’s team didn’t ride at the front. “There was a bit of a stand-off as to who should chase the break. Normally that would have been left to Astana, so their actions caused a bit of confusion.
"Initially we offered to do our bit but no-one else was willing to join us and in the end it was Garmin who took up the chase.”
He said that he anticipates a similar situation on today’s 177 kilometre stage to Bourg-Saint-Andéol, with other teams having to work.