"I'm not going to miss them!" - Geraint Thomas battles through final TT of Tour de France career

The 2025 Tour de France is a year of finals for Geraint Thomas and on stage 13, the Welsh former Maillot Jaune winner took part in his final ever Grand Tour time trial. Whilst he once would have been targeting the win on such a day, this time around the INEOS rider was saving his legs for days to come.

"Yeah, I'm not going to miss them!" Thomas admitted in a post-stage interview with ITV Sport. "It wasn't full gas but just getting up it. But yeah, the atmosphere was great and I enjoyed in a weird way."

As mentioned, Thomas isn't riding for GC at his final Tour, instead hoping for one last stage win from a breakaway if the opportunity allows. As a result, the mountain time trial was not a day he had targeted. "It's obviously more chilled," he says, comparing riding the Peyragudes in a more relaxed manner this year. "But yeah, the atmosphere is really good, similar to a road stage if not better really. When I did it last time I think it was 2022 right? I felt a lot better that day to be fair," he laughs.

With the wider INEOS Grenadiers team having a pretty disappointing Tour de France so far, the days are counting down for Thomas and co to get that stage win on the board. "We've obviously got two big days coming now. So that was the reason for going relatively steady today. But we'll see what we can do," the 39-year-old concludes. "Tomorrow is obviously a super tough day. I don't know if it's the queen stage but there's certainly a lot of climbing. And then a breakaway day to Carcassonne you would expect."

"We just need to keep trying, keep doing what we're doing. After about a week of racing we turned it around a bit, but yeah, we've been doing what we wanted, but the final result is the only thing that is lacking. So we'll just keep trying."