"There’s no panic by any means" - Tao Geoghegan Hart happy with return to racing following broken pelvis

Lidl-Trek signed Tao Geoghegan Hart on a three-year deal right after the Briton suffered a broken pelvis at last year's Giro d'Italia. It was quite the risky transfer, but Hart has shown good recovery and form at his debut in the Volta ao Algarve.

“...It was 65km for the breakaway to go and then one of the best riders in the world decided that he was going to kick it off with around 50km to go with Ben Healy trying to hold on behind him," Hart commented following the last day of the Portuguese race to GCN. "It’s as you would expect with teams chasing, up and down all day with steep little climbs and hard tarmac. I was feeling better than the last few days but still missing that real big acceleration but it’s not too bad."

After nine months away from competition and several months off the bike due to a big injury, certainly not bad. The Briton finished 12th in the overall classification, but where it meant the most - the hilly stages - he finished seventh and close to the best in both. “I don’t think the GC is really the thing to look at. I passed the week without any issues. I wasn’t too far off on the rhythm. For sure I’m going to take a lot from this because the things that I was missing were the things you really get from racing," he says.

A very modest time-trial is what threw him off the Top10. "I wasn’t that far off in those hard, intense moments. I was missing a little bit but that’s normal for the first race of the season. I started last year on the front foot with a win and okay I wasn’t close to the win this week but I was in the right ballpark and I’ll take that," he adds. "There’s no panic by any means. There’s definitely a lot of work to do, most importantly yesterday with the time trial but it’s been a nice week and I’ve been really happy to start with the team.”

By any means a successful return to racing, for a rider that over the past few years has not always shown consistency. Lidl-Trek has invested heavily into the 2024 season and he hopes to build form towards the Tour de France. Where will be his next race? “Actually, we’ve not decided yet. We’re going to do a call with the team this week and discuss this race," he answers.

"There are tentative plans but we need to take it step by step and see how I recover. For sure it will be one of the week-long WorldTour races. It’s going to be another big step from this in terms of the peloton, speed and level. It was a hard week here but it will be another step to do seven days," Hart concludes.