Geraint Thomas Gis For Giro

Geraint Thomas has overhauled his programme in 2017 to give him more shots at turning himself into a Grand Tour contender. Procycling caught up with the Welshman to find out what he learned last year and how it has prepared him for a tilt at the Giro d’Italia.

- Sam Dansie

Geraint Thomas will turn 31 in late May, on the day of the Giro’s queen stage. A good opportunity to reflect on what has gone before, and what has yet to be achieved. But he already knows that he needs the chance to try and win a Grand Tour. We’re not talking as plan B, GC back-up – that was 2016. We’re talking fully resourced, sole-leader stuff. That’s what Thomas wants in 2017.

The Cardiff-born Sky rider feels the finiteness of his career. Possibilities, which may once have been many and various to a man of his all-round talents, have been reduced to the ones that really matter. Over the past four years he has transformed from track team pursuiter to Classics man to his current, more spindly form as a Grand Tour classification hopeful.

Before straying ahead too far, the end of Geraint Thomas’s racing career isn’t imminent. “I’ve got a good four or five years left of trying to win stuff,” he says in that easy-going manner of his. “But I just want to try and make the most of them.” He is telling us this while chewing on a banana on the veranda of Team Sky’s house overlooking Monaco, after a three-hour training ride.