Geraint Thomas: ‘We’re not racing for second at the Giro d’Italia, we’ve got to keep the faith'

The expected scenes played out on the final slopes to Santuario di Oropa on stage 2 at the Giro d’Italia. With 4.4km to ride to the summit, the pre-race favourite Tadej Pogačar put on the afterburners and rode away from the rest of the field, clinching a solo victory that presented him with the maglia rosa for the first time in his career.

In spite of brief resistance from Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Pogačar could not be stopped as he recovered in style from a puncture and subsequent crash at the base of the climb. Thomas was in a defiant mood after the finish, with the Welshman insisting that everything was still to play for as the opening weekend drew to a close.

“No, not really,” he answered firmly when asked if he and the other GC contenders were already riding for second place behind Pogačar in Rome.

“Obviously he is strong, but we’ve got to keep the faith and you never know what happens. He punctured and crashed today and a lot can happen in this race, not wishing him to have bad luck but he can always have a bad day as well.”

Such misfortune appeared to be coming to fruition at the foot of the final climb. Suffering a puncture, Pogačar’s front wheel slid out on a right-hand bend and sent the two-time Tour de France winner tumbling to the ground, albeit in what seemed like slow motion, such was his low speed and perhaps, the importance of what was playing out on the television screens.

For a moment, time stood still as the ensemble of media, soigneurs and press officers took a collective gasp at the summit. Was this the moment that Pogačar’s expected Giro d’Italia victory fell to pieces less than 48 hours into the race? As we now know, the answer was to be a resounding no. Domen Novak and Felix Großschartner ushered their leader back to the peloton and after a little under 6km back amongst the bunch, Pogačar took his leave and powered to victory.

Thomas was quick to note that such a recovery from Pogačar did not take him by surprise. It was simply a case of trying not to fly too close to the sun, as Mattias Skjelmose recently described the turmoil of clinging to Pogačar’s back wheel.

“Nothing new that is it, we expected it. I was hoping to follow but I knew if I tried to keep going like that I’d completely blow up. I felt bad for sitting on Ben but I was on the limit for a while there and I had to recover,” he said, having sat on O’Connor’s wheel for 2km after Pogačar’s initial attack.

“The group came up to us and it was just a case of trying to recover and get some seconds in the sprint at the end.”

Read more: Giro d'Italia stage 2: Tadej Pogačar takes first summit finish and maglia rosa

O’Connor suffers but Uijtdebroeks emerges as podium contender

In the end, the experience of Thomas prevailed and the 37-year-old came over the line in third place, taking six bonus seconds behind second-placed Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe). O’Connor, meanwhile, paid for his early efforts and came over the line 33 seconds down on Thomas’ group, visibly upset with how the final couple of kilometres unravelled for the Australian.

“I don’t really know what happened to him,” said Thomas. “I did feel quite bad not pulling but I was like, ‘mate, I’m on the limit now.’ I just had to judge it, wait for that group to come get us and try and just recover.”

After two stages, O’Connor, the biggest favourite for the Giro podium alongside Thomas ahead of the race, sits 1:24 behind new race leader Pogačar and 39 seconds adrift of Thomas, who has moved up to second place after the first summit finish of the race.

The Welshman acknowledged that he did not feel quite as good as in the opening stage, but credited the work of his teammates as Ineos Grenadiers displayed their collective strength for the first time on the front of the peloton. Ostensibly defending the race lead of Jhonatan Narváez, Thomas’ teammates perhaps showed themselves to be more than the match of Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates unit on Sunday afternoon.

“The plan was to go on the front on not the penultimate climb but the one before that because it was technical. We could ride at the front, not attacking but just being safe at the front, fast tempo and we knew it would be chaos behind.”

With Martínez tied on time in third place on GC, Thomas now holds a nine-second gap over Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Einer Rubio (Movistar) in fourth and fifth respectively. It was the former who did much of the work to reel in O’Connor and Thomas as the chasers approached the final 2km of racing. His efforts did not go unnoticed by Thomas.

“He’s super strong, we all know how talented he is, he just needs to chill a bit. I’m not going to say too much because I don’t want him to listen to me yet, but he spends a lot of energy anyway,” he said with a wry smile.

As the Giro settles into its rhythm with probable sprint finishes on stages 3 and 4, Thomas will know that in Uijtdebroeks he has a worthy rival for the final podium in Rome. But in spite of what many may think when looking at Pogačar’s 45-second lead in the maglia rosa, the 2018 Tour de France winner is as determined as ever to win his first Giro d’Italia in three weeks’ time.

“We’ll just keep pushing and obviously it’s a funny one, you don’t want to race just him because you’ve got know there’s other people in the race as well, but at the end of the day we’re going to try to do everything we can to win.”

Read more: Puncture and crash no problem as Tadej Pogačar redefines Giro d'Italia GC at Oropa

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