Having ridden well this year in races such as Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders, where he was second and tenth respectively, Geraint Thomas is now building his form gradually with a view to being in peak condition for the Tour de France.
The Sky Procycling rider took a break after the Classics and is currently competing in Switzerland. “I am now at the Tour of Romandie...I am here to ride for the lads and build into the race,” he said. “I’ve had a pretty heavy start to the year and the Tour is still a long way off so I’ve got to be careful not to over do it. The prologue went pretty well considering what I’ve already done.”
Since the race against the clock, where he was a solid 13th, he has ridden for his team-mates. Ben Swift took fourth on today’s stage, winning the bunch sprint behind Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and two other breakaway riders, and might have picked up his fourth win of the year had the bunch been fractionally quicker with its chase.
He has another chance to test his strength against the clock in tomorrow’s time trial, then the team will try to ensure a bunch sprint win on Sunday’s final stage.
Thomas will likely help out in trying to put Swift in a strong position. His big focus is not on what happens now, but rather what occurs in the summer. “The first third of the season has flown by, and it has gone pretty well I think!” he said. “Now the plan is building up to the Tour de France in July.
“I had a couple of easy weeks where I returned to Manchester and just did ‘normal’ stuff, although I always seem to be more tired after a little break than if I’m riding.”
Thomas used his brief time away from training to get some other things done. On Saturday he visited the Maindy Flyers and Cardiff Ajax clubs he was part of before, and was also filmed by ITV for an Olympic programme.
He will appear on Question of Sport on BBC One on the second of May, and the show will be repeated four days later.