“Just crack on with it, really.” If you’re looking for a Geraint Thomas catchphrase, that’s about as close as you’re going to get. The laid-back Welshman has taken more than his fair share of hard knocks in a bruising – albeit highly successful – career but has always maintained his level head, his mischievously dry brand of humour, and his sense of direction.
The motorbike that sent his Giro d’Italia hopes up in smoke in 2017? Just crack on with it. The stray bidon that took him out of the same race in peak form in 2020? Just crack on with it. The nightmarish 2021 campaign? Just crack on with it.
But the 2022 season is perhaps the one that has required the most ‘cracking on’ of all.
Thomas barely crashed this year, he won the Tour de Suisse, and he finished third at the Tour de France, but it was hardly smooth sailing. Over the off-season, his relationship with the Ineos Grenadiers team, which spans more than a decade, was irrevocably changed.
Thomas has already spoken about how contract negotiations last winter had been the “most difficult” of his career, and, reading between the lines, he has hinted that all has not been not sunshine and rainbows.
But as he sits down with Cyclingnews following some typically hearty off-season enjoyment, he spells it out more plainly, critiquing the team and its management in a manner that’s striking for its rarity these days.
“It almost felt like they just saw a few figures on a sheet, you know, some stats, and just went off that, rather than me as a person who they’ve known for the last 20-odd years,” he says.
Thomas is referring to the way his role changed within the team, as if in the blink of an eye. Tour de France winner in 2018 and runner-up in 2019, by the end of 2021 he was apparently no longer considered capable of being competitive as a Grand Tour rider.
Negotiations dragged on and his would-be role was whittled down to the point where Thomas was told he’d be a support rider in 2022 as well as a mentor to the team’s new crop of young talents. It’s not hard to figure that such a position comes with a rather lower salary than the one he signed for in the yellow jersey.
It was a surprise that it was such a sudden change of attitude
“It was definitely more of a helping role and setting an example for the younger guys, rather than just leading the team and going for my own races,” he says.” For the Tour it was [Adam] Yates and Dani [Martinez] who were talked about from the start, and obviously Egan [Bernal]…
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