Tao Geoghegan Hart: I wasn’t that far off in those hard, intense moments at Volta ao Algarve

By his own admission, there’s still plenty of work to be done but Tao Geoghegan Hart’s two top-ten finishes on the uphill stages of the Volta ao Algarve and his general consistency through the week were a pleasing sign of things to come for the British rider and his Lidl-Trek team.

The 28-year-old finished seventh on both stage 2 and the stage 5 summit finish to Alto do Malhāo on the final day of racing in Portugal, to net 12th overall in his first race back since crashing out of last year’s Giro d’Italia.

The final stage was raced at a blistering pace with Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) throwing caution to the wind with a 40km break that almost turned the race on its head.

Geoghegan Hart survived and was at the front of the race on the final ascent. He wasn’t able to live with the pure accelerations from stage winner Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) or overall winner Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) but still managed to hold his own and finish just seven seconds behind Martínez.

“I didn’t see much of the front, to be honest. I think there’s a modern way of the last days of stage races now where caution is thrown to the wind, even more than normal. It was 65km for the breakaway to go and then one of the best riders in the world decided that he was going to kick it off with around 50km to go with Ben Healy trying to hold on behind him. It’s as you would expect with teams chasing, up and down all day with steep little climbs and hard tarmac. I was feeling better than the last few days but still missing that real big acceleration but it’s not too bad,” Geoghegan Hart told GCN at the finish.

Coming into the race Geoghegan Hart made a point of lowering expectations. The Volta ao Algarve wasn’t about gaining results or contemplating seconds here and there. Instead, the focus was on returning to race rhythm after an extended period out of the sport. In that sense, it was a successful outing for the former Giro d’Italia winner.

“I don’t think the GC is really the thing to look at,” he told GCN.

“I passed the week without any issues. I wasn’t too far off on the rhythm. For sure I’m going to take a lot from this because the things that I was missing were the things you really get from racing. I wasn’t that far off in those hard, intense moments. I was missing a little bit but that’s normal for the first race of the season.

“I started last year on the front foot with a win and okay I wasn’t close to the win this week but I was in the right ballpark and I’ll take that. There’s no panic by any means. There’s definitely a lot of work to do, most importantly yesterday with the time trial but it’s been a nice week and I’ve been really happy to start with the team.”

Geoghegan Hart’s next race hasn’t been finalised yet. There will be a call in the coming days in which he and the team go through a variety of options. Algarve has given the British rider a base to work on but his recovery in the coming days, coupled with his next block of training will help shape what’s to come.

“Actually, we’ve not decided yet,” he said when asked about his next outing.

“We’re going to do a call with the team this week and discuss this race. There are tentative plans but we need to take it step by step and see how I recover. For sure it will be one of the week-long WorldTour races. It’s going to be another big step from this in terms of the peloton, speed and level. It was a hard week here but it will be another step to do seven days.”