"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."
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.”