"I probably would have won it as well, without trying to sound like a d*ck" - Geraint Thomas believes he 'definitely would've been 15 seconds better' at the Giro d'Italia if not for a pre-race infection

As the 2023 road season comes to an end, INEOS Grenadiers leader Geraint Thomas has taken time to reflect on a year of ups and downs for the Welshman.

"It feels like I had three good weeks," he recaps on his own podcast, the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club. The high point for the 37-year-old was clearly the Giro d'Italia. Despite losing the Maglia Rosa in heartbreaking circumstances to Primoz Roglic on the penultimate stage, a brutal individual time-trial up Monte Lussari.

"At the start of the year that was my main goal. It was all about the Giro," he recalls. "I think I can be happy with how it went. It actually is a sort of, year to look back on and be happy about. I'll just delete everything else from my memory except that second place in the Giro."

"If I hadn't had the run-in as I did to the Giro and that would've happened, I think I'd look back a bit less fondly but I think I probably would have won it as well, without trying to sound like a d*ck, if I didn't have that infection and missed all that groundwork. I definitely would've been 15 seconds better. Like in the opening TT I wouldn't have lost as much time as I did and all the way through it I would've been that much better."

"Anyway, you can't do anything about it. That's what happened, that's what I had so you just have to deal with it and I felt like we did," he concludes. "We got the best out of it and saved the year."