With ongoing difficulties establishing himself as a leader at Team Sky, Geraint Thomas says he is willing to listen to offers from other teams. The Welshman’s 2018 programme will be based around Chris Froome’s, yet he remains keen to lead a team in a Grand Tour – even if that means moving elsewhere.
Thomas has been with Team Sky since its inception in 2010 and while he earned the right to race this year’s Giro d’Italia as team leader, he could only expect to play second fiddle to Chris Froome in that race next year with his team-mate seeking to win three Grand Tours on the bounce.
“I’m certainly going to listen to some teams,” Thomas told BBC Sport Wales. “Trek-Segafredo have shown an interest and there are some other teams as well. I certainly want to sit down and listen to what they’ve got to say.
“I’m not getting any younger. I don’t feel old, but I’m 31 now and I probably only have three or four more years at the very top, so I want to make the most of those. I’m not saying I want to leave or I’m going to but I certainly want to sit down and see what everyone has got to say.”
Froome’s participation in the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France does of course leave an opening for a team leader at the 2018 Vuelta.
Thomas is keen, but also suggests that the team may end up being more reliant on its back-up leader at the Tour given Froome’s unfamiliar preparation for the race.
“His whole preparation is totally different to normal and you just never know how he will be. He might be on his knees at the end and we might need that second back-up guy to be there and be good. So that’s a nice goal to have.
“Obviously Froomey will still be the leader going into it but it might be more of a chance for me to have more of a go myself. The Vuelta after that could be a potential race for me to go into in the full team leader role.”
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Thomas hopes that plans will be firmed when he sees Dave Brailsford at an upcoming training camp.
“He’s texted me a few times and we’ve got a training camp next week so we’ve certainly got time to have a chat.
“It’s a team sport but at the same time every individual in that team has their own goals and aspirations, what they want to do in their career.
“I’d love to go to a couple more Grand Tours as a leader and fully target them and just see what I can do, whether that’s ninth, winning one, third or fourth, whatever really. It would be something I would really like to go for before hanging up my bike, so to speak.”
18 thoughts on “Geraint Thomas ‘listening to offers’ as he struggles to fulfil goals at Team Sky”
Sky’s greatest
Sky’s greatest superdomestique / plan B option / all-rounder (well, before Kwiato arrived) but he’s just too damned nice.
Simon E wrote:
I’d say he’s just too damned unlucky!
He is nice, he’s a great speaker too, very intelligent and funny. But he’s proper hardcore on the bike, as tough as they come. He just needs to lose that bad luck though, he’s ALWAYS on the receiving end of some crash or other.
Whatever training Froome had to improve his downhilling, GT needs as well!
crazy-legs wrote:
He is not unlucky, it is bad judgment and positioning, he hits the deck too often for it to be luck, he is the type of person who you don’t want to ride next to in a bunch, you know that sooner or later he is going to come off.
He has to hope Froome doesn’t
He has to hope Froome doesn’t double up.
It’d be good to see him
It’d be good to see him leading another team. It’d make supporting him a bit less of an internal conflict.
Reckon he’d do well at Team
Reckon he’d do well at Team Wiggins Don…
Maybe, but he’d get limited
Maybe, but he’d get limited support from me.
When you’ve been training to
When you’ve been training to be a jack of all trades mostly in a supporting role a grand tour title is going to be a really difficult peak to hit. As seen before one day races are his best chance and the odd stage if it’s all gone astray for the team. People were bigging him up as having a shot in 2016 but when you’ve spent much of your efforts supporting the no.1 rider it’s clear he’d fade away come the really steep stuff.
Basically he can’t be both, either he accepts the SD with the odd crack elsewhere or move to a team that puts him as their main dude.
At his age he’s a bit late for that IMHO and has burnt his oars to be a GC contender by playing yhe SD role for too long. That’s the choices you make, comfortable position with decent whack and recognition but limited opportunity for personal glory.
If he’s thinking about
If he’s thinking about switching he should do it now. I don’t understand why anyone with GC aspirations would sign for Sky while Froome is still there. Whether Geraint has a Grand Tour win in him we just don’t know, but he definitely won’t get one playing second fiddle to Froome for the rest of his career
MarkBowl wrote:
no but Sky may choose to offer him more reward, if they think theres competition for his super domestique services
Awavey wrote:
More money is always tempting but you’re not remembered for the size of your pay check
MarkBowl wrote:
In the end, you’re not remembered at all… so really, the size of your pay check is all there is.
I’d love to get to the bottom of why Thomas falls off so much. Its not bad luck, it happens too often for it to be simple bad luck.
So is it positioning, is it risk perception, is it a lack of fundamental body strength to take the hits? If you could crack that nugget, Thomas would be at of very close to the top of the world. I wonder if either Thomas or his management see if that way?
Think I’m mad… I give you two examples. Peter Sagan… very rarely falls off. Primarily because he has the risk perception and technical skills to avoid it . I remember him losing his front wheel in a prologue a few years back.. he nonchalantly unclipped, dabbed and saved it. Would Thomas have broken a collar bone there? Possibly.
I also give you Marck Cavendish. On top form, Cavendish wins races for fun, with a consistency that no one apart from Sagan can match. However, when his form dips, Cavendish tends to end up on the ground and injured. He can’t always be unlucky when his form is bad and always lucky when his form is good, so he is the factor that dictates his accident rate.
Its the same with any job –
Its the same with any job – you’re not going to be the head of sales while there’s already a very successful person in that role. Learn what you can from them and move on. He should have done that years ago.
It is worth noting that he is
It is worth noting that he is well enough paid to have moved from Cheshire to Monaco. Being a domestique hasn’t been all a labour of love.
But it would be good to see what would happen if he was leading a team. I suspect he isn’t good enough – too much falling off and too many bad days – but there is only one way to find out.
Edgeley wrote:
Am sure that would be entirely for training and nothing to do with keeping as much of his Sky salary away from the taxman as possible…
Grahamd wrote:
Ah yes. It is remarkable how much better for training Monaco is than other places close to the southern Alps like Nice or Menton.
I think he’s realising in 5
I think he’s realising in 5 years he’s going to have not too much to show for the talent he’s got, except for a massive house and a phone number bank account.
He could always pick up on
He could always pick up on the, soon to be, vacant team leader slot at Team Sky