"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
Cycling
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.”
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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.”
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- Thanks Dadmobk22-12-2024
- Hard to believe with the advancment of modern medicine he can not find a cause for this.frieders321-12-2024
- You continue to platform these two cheats. With that in mind I can no longer use your site. I know my leaving means little, but, sometimes you have to take a stand. See ya!DJ21-12-2024
- Look at what Froome’s won since his last TdF, stop denying there is still more than possible one outcome to the future.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Bruyneel understands nothing about clean competition.Sweep21-12-2024
- Exactly. Remco won 3 WT races/stages last year compared to Pogocar's 19. Remco's single stage win in last years TdF earned him a meager 12 seconds over Pogocar who shellac'd him by 9 minutes in GC.Sweep21-12-2024
- Fortunately and as you point out, more than one strategy is possible and worth trying and I’m sure all concerned riders are well informed and counselled on this subject and don’t need such basic personal advice through media from an outsider.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- The main SPOTY award is "decided" by public vote but the BBC "expert panel" decide who you can choose from, that choice has an equal split of genders and is focussed on the sports BBC show and a disabled athlete. Oh yea the ubiquitous "Pub Games" candidate there too, Darts and Snooker are not sports. The other awards are decided by the "Expert Panel" again it's about the sports BBC show, cycling has had it. Cav got his for his years and achievements in the sport, not just that 35th TDF win. Unless the BBC get access to Pro Cycling it will never feature "adequately" on SPOTYslappers6621-12-2024
- Ahhh..... you have to understand the "strange" diversity concepts of the BBCslappers6621-12-2024
- Avoiding him is a good strategy, you get more wins and then you can compete in the TDF relatively relaxed. Pit yourself against Pogi and not only there will be no wins, it will be considerable mental setbackabstractengineer21-12-2024