🗣️ “It just feels like home.” Watch as @GeraintThomas86 talks about his new contract, his future goals and what it means to be part of the Grenadiers. View the full video 📽️: youtu.be/yXjkNzufLXg
"This is definitely my last contract now, but I've thought that for a while" - Geraint Thomas to extend career into 39 years of age with INEOS Grenadiers
CyclingMonday, 23 October 2023 at 15:00
Geraint Thomas had hinted over the past few months that he was likely to postpone his retirement. After a brilliant run in the 2022 and 2023 Grand Tours, the Welshman continues to ride at his best level, and he has renewed with INEOS Grenadiers for two more seasons.
"I still love riding my bike, training, racing, all of it... Other than trying to lose weight and being on weight that's the worst bit," Thomas jokes in a video shared by the British team. "Family is super happy to extend, in my head it's like yeah this is definitely my last contract now, but I've thought that for a while, so never say never. Two more big years, really looking forward to it, hope to help the team sort of progress now. Lot of the guys I get on really well with, I've got childhood mates in Luke [Rowe] and Swifty (Ben Swift, ed.), and [Ian] Stannard in management.
Thomas battled for the Giro d'Italia win this spring and he is happy with the British team. Besides continuing to be a leader, he has over the past years also ridden in support of several other team leaders, and could continue to do the same. The team struggle to keep up with UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma when it comes to the mountains, but the veteran could be key to support the likes of Carlos Rodríguez who may be the team's next big bet for the three weeks.
"I love it here, everything's going well at the moment so it's just like yeah another couple years and enjoy it. Maybe I can go for the classics again, or go for the GC in Grand Tours, or help whoever's gonna be the next guy coming through," he explains. "I think just have a positive impact on the team. I'm at that stage where I'm still hungry to perform, but I'm also happy to help the team, push the form and get back to the top of the sport.
Read also
claps 5visitors 1074
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Nov 05, 13:04
0
Popular news
Latest comments
- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024