Could Geraint Thomas replicate Bradley Wiggins and target the Spring Classics in his final season?

Geraint Thomas’ 2024 race programme has yet to be confirmed but the Ineos Grenadiers rider already has his eyes on 2025, and a possible tilt at the Spring Classics before his eventual retirement.

The Welshman recently signed a two-year contract extension at Ineos that will bring the 37-year-old to the likely end of his glittering career. This week he told GCN that the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France could be on his programme in 2024 before shifting his focus for his final WorldTour campaign, in a move similar to his former teammate, Bradley Wiggins.

Thomas has concentrated on Grand Tours for a number of years now but before his transformational Tour win in 2018, the Welshman was something of a one-day threat with a top-ten in both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, along with a win in E3 Harelbeke after dropping the likes of Peter Sagan and Zdeněk Štybar in 2015.

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Since then the Spring Classics have taken more and more of a back seat with only occasional appearances at some of cycling’s toughest one-day races. That could change in Thomas’ final year though with the veteran keen to return to the cobbles in 2025. It would be a very similar move to that of Bradley Wiggins’ final year in the WorldTour. Back in 2015, Wiggins made the Classics his final major target in the WorldTour before dropping down to lead his own Team Wiggins squad at Continental level in May of that season.

Thomas has no ambitions of cutting his 2025 season short but the Classics could still be a major aim during that season.

“Next year, I don’t think so. Maybe if I only do the Tour I could do the Classics but you’ve got to do all of them. I don’t think you can just drop in and do one or two. You’ve got to do a full campaign, so maybe in 2025. I’d love to do that in my final year. It’s where I started really. It would be a bit like Brad but I wouldn’t want to finish with Roubaix, although he did carry on a bit after that. 2025, I’d love to go back,” Thomas told GCN. 

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas following the moves in Paris-Roubaix in 2014

Evenepoel and Uijtdebroeks links

While Thomas is closer to the end of his career than the start, his Ineos Grenadiers team have signed several up-and-coming prospects for the future. AJ August, Magnus Sheffield, Michael Leonard, Joshua Tarling, Leo Hayter and Carlos Rodriguez form the new generation of athletes on the team, while Remco Evenepoel (Soudal QuickStep) and Cian Uijtdebroeks (Bora-Hansgrohe) have both been linked with the team.

Read more:

• Josh Tarling: Ineos Grenadiers will be a really strong team in the coming years
• Keeping Cian Uijtdebroeks a 'goal' for Bora-Hansgrohe but future remains unclear

Evenepoel has a contract with Soudal Quick-Step until 2027, and Uijtdebroeks is tied to Bora until the start of 2025 but Thomas would keenly welcome either rider should a switch ever take place.

“To be honest I’d love it if they did. I think it would be great for the team but I just can’t see the Remco thing happening. I don’t know anything about it but purely from the outside, him being a Belgian on a Belgian team, I just don’t see how he could. And Uijtdebroeks, it would be great if he came but who knows with that. He’d be another young guy, top ten in the Vuelta. It would be great to have either of them.”