Geraint Thomas shows vital quality as cycling’s great survivor in ‘bonus’ Giro d’Italia

The message from Geraint Thomas expressed the sentiment shared by the rest of the peloton. “Alright son, you’ve had your fun,” Thomas quipped in a post on social media after the third stage of the Giro d’Italia. “Let’s just have a nice quiet day tomorrow?”

It was a comment aimed at Tadej Pogacar, Thomas having spent the final couple of kilometres of stage three clinging to the coat-tails of the pink phenom. It had been a sprinters’ day from the minute the route was unveiled, a first stage favouring the fast men after a gruelling start to the Italian adventure, but Pogacar – as is often the case – wished to rip up the roadbook.

His audacious attack ultimately fell short but it was further proof that he means business having taken the pink jersey a day earlier. It felt instructive that it was Thomas who was able to go with him. This is not a competitive field of general classification contenders on paper, the best of the peloton largely held back for a French battle royale in July, leaving the Welshman as Pogacar’s likeliest rival for a place at the top of the podium in Rome.

“He is the massive favourite, but stranger things have happened,” Thomas told The Guardian ahead of the Giro. “It’s three weeks – it’s different to any other race. Anyone can have a bad day.

“I’m not one to play mind games. I’ll be doing my thing – try to stay consistent, good and strong all the way through.”

Such is his superiority that it may be that the Slovenian canters clear to take his first maglia rosa, but he is unlikely to find Thomas simple to shake off. If the Welshman has proved anything over a road career now in its 18th year, it is that he knows how to stick around and survive. Even amid the misfortune and mishaps that characterised his career for so long, he always carried that Cardiff charm, the sense of a rider content with his lot.

It will be six years this summer since his breakthrough Tour de France yellow jersey but Thomas is still slugging it out at the top of the general classification standings; an anachronism, in a way, among a generation of do-everything freaks who have transformed the sport. His emergence as a Grand Tour winner came just before the arrival of Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard and there is something strangely heartening about the way Thomas has continued to compete, a Welsh terrier nipping at the heels of the pure breeds.

Three more Grand Tour podiums have followed that 2018 Tour triumph. Last year’s Italian near miss after Primoz Roglic’s time-trial surge is still reasonably fresh in the memory. If it was a cruel ending, it did show that another victory is not beyond Thomas’s reach – even if the presence of Pogacar is a complicating factor.

It seems that Thomas is sanguine enough to recognise that second behind the Slovenian would be a fair achievement at this stage of a career beginning to wind down. Great mate Luke Rowe will bow out at the end of 2024 and their popularity as joint podcast Watts Occurring suggests Thomas has a promising second chapter in the media ahead. But he is contracted through to the end of next year, seeking to further goals both personal and collective for an Ineos team in the grips of something of an identity crisis.

When he does finally call time, though, Thomas will look back with pride. Two Olympic golds and a Tour de France win would be achievement enough but a final day looking pretty in pink would only enhance the rosy reflection.

“I can see the end now, and it’s pretty close,” Thomas admitted to BBC Sport Wales last week. “I’ve done 18 years and only got one and a half left. When I was a kid this is what I dreamed of doing, being in the biggest races and competing right at the death of them. So to be here now and in one of the strongest teams, being one of the guys with a real chance of succeeding, it’s crazy really.

“Last year, with all the sort of challenges before the start – this infection that kept coming back, stop-starting the training and things – I was still competitive. To be wearing the [leader’s] jersey for half the race and to lose it on the last day obviously wasn’t ideal. But I feel like Primoz won that rather than me losing the race.

“It’d still be nice to win, obviously, but I’ve done 18 years professionally now, racing. I’ve achieved what I have, and it kind of feels a bit more like a bonus round almost, rather than feeling like I have to prove something.”