"He's Pogacar and I’d prefer if he wasn’t going" jokes Geraint Thomas in response to Tadej Pogacar's 'See you soon' message ahead of the Giro d'Italia

In 2024, Geraint Thomas will embark on a Giro d'Italia/Tour de France double. A challenging task made even harder by the fact Tadej Pogacar has similar plans.

When Thomas made the announcement of his plans to double up, it didn't take long before his good friend and rival sent him and ominous message. "See you soon," Pogacar told Thomas. Now, the Welshman has given his reply.

"He’s Pogacar and I’d prefer if he wasn’t going," the former Tour de France winner and runner-up at last year's Giro jokes to GCN. "But at the same time having him there is great. It’ll change the race completely and his team will take the weight of the race and everything but in years to come he’ll have a massive legacy as one of the greatest bike riders ever."

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Although fierce rivals on the bike, there is clearly an immense amount of respect between the pair. "I’m not retiring him already but he’s incredible, so just to be competitive with him and go for the same thing is exciting," says Thomas. "At the end of the day so much can happen, and go right and wrong. I certainly know a lot about that. We’ll see. I’m relishing the challenge. It’s a big goal.”

When they competed against each other at the 2022 Tour de France, both Pogacar (2nd) and Thomas (3rd) were forced to settle for the lower podium steps behind Jonas Vingegaard. If Thomas is to get the better of the Slovenian at the Giro d'Italia, where does he have the advantage?

"He’ll be hard to beat. We’ll have a strong team, it won’t be a super A squad but it will still be really strong. I’m not sure what UAE will bring but we’ll think a bit outside the box and race the race," Thomas previews. "And it’s the Giro so there’s the weather and the roads. There’s always something in there that happens. We’ll see.”