Geraint Thomas s'apprête à disputer son 19e Grand Tour en carrière... mais seulement sa deuxième Vuelta ! A 37 ans, le coureur gallois n'avait encore jamais doublé Tour d'Italie et Tour d'Espagne dans la même année. Deuxième du dernier Giro après avoir été renversé sur le dernier contre-la-montre par Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), le leader d'INEOS Grenadiers espère bien prendre sa revanche en Espagne, même s'il ne garde pas un bon souvenir de son dernier passage en 2015 (69e). Mais la concurrence sera encore plus accrue qu'au mois de mai avec la présence du vainqueur du Tour de France Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), mais aussi du tenant du titre Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), qui n'avait pas pu aller au bout en Italie à cause du Covid. Le natif de Cardiff a livré ses sentiments à deux jours du Grand Départ de Barcelone au cours de la traditionnelle conférence de presse d'avant-course.
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00:00 What do you think about the presence of Remco Evolupo?
00:05 What can he change in the Vuelta?
00:10 He's obviously a super strong rider.
00:12 He's another guy who is a favourite.
00:17 The weight of the race will fall on to them a bit as well as Jumbo.
00:22 They're probably the favourites here.
00:24 But he's a phenomenal talent, isn't he?
00:26 I think he's probably more suited to one day, one big effort at the moment.
00:33 I'm not saying he's bad at Grand Tours.
00:35 We won here last year, didn't we?
00:38 I think he's going to be super strong.
00:42 We saw in the time trial at the World's recently.
00:45 He'll be one of the numerous guys that can win, but he's certainly one of the strongest.
00:52 Yeah, good. Obviously, it's the first time I've done two Grand Tours.
00:56 Well, Giro of Vuelta.
00:58 I've done it once before.
01:01 That wasn't a good one.
01:03 I did Tour of Vuelta.
01:04 It was horrible, to be honest.
01:06 Bad race, 2015.
01:08 So, second time I've done the Vuelta.
01:10 A bit more prepared for it this time.
01:12 Looking forward to a solid race.
01:13 It's going to be tough, that's for sure.
01:16 But, yeah.
01:19 The race and also the riders here is strong.
01:23 So, yeah.
01:24 Looking forward to it.
01:27 Jeremy, I can see you're raising your hand.
01:29 Go ahead.
01:33 Hello, can you hear me all right?
01:35 Yeah.
01:36 Weird echo?
01:39 Yes.
01:40 Okay.
01:41 How are you after the time trial?
01:44 Because that wasn't quite what you're expecting.
01:47 What have you been doing, basically, since Stirling and now?
01:54 And how are you feeling post-Worlds time trial?
02:00 I guess that's to me.
02:02 Yeah, sorry, yes.
02:03 It is to you.
02:04 Go on, Thomas, please.
02:07 No, yeah, obviously, I was disappointed.
02:09 I wanted to get a better result than that.
02:10 But, you know, the way the race went, whatever.
02:13 But since then, I went up to Isla, had a good eight days up there.
02:18 Nice little block.
02:19 Just me and Duplass.
02:20 We had our families up there, which was nice.
02:22 Didn't really feel like a camp, to be honest.
02:25 I've been feeling all right.
02:26 Been feeling pretty good.
02:27 Like, some training went all right.
02:30 So it's a bit up and down for me in altitude, really.
02:34 But, yeah, I'm ready to go and looking forward to it.
02:43 I don't know.
02:44 I think I care for my teammates.
02:49 Try to help the guys.
02:52 If I can find one day, or more days, where I can take the decision to go in the breakaway,
03:01 try to find one victory, it can be nice.
03:04 But obviously, day by day, we will see what can happen with the GC rider.
03:11 If they need the support in the bunch or not.
03:15 So I think it's also the first weather.
03:22 In the paper, it's really hard race.
03:25 So we will see what can happen day by day.
03:30 I think just mainly the run-ins, the preparation for the training.
03:35 Because obviously, the run-in to Giro wasn't ideal, with this bacterial infection that
03:44 just kept coming back.
03:45 And yeah, so it wasn't until March we actually had some consistent training.
03:50 Obviously since then, it's all been good, obviously with the Giro, in the legs.
03:53 And then, two-week break and then building up again slowly.
03:56 And as I say, it was strange trying to have two peaks in a season.
04:02 Something I don't normally do.
04:03 It's kind of just one big hit and then I'll apply it.
04:07 But yeah, we'll see.
04:08 We'll see.
04:09 I'm looking forward to it.
04:10 And as I say, I've been feeling all right.
04:13 And the team's here, it's good, motivated.
04:15 And we're looking forward to just getting stuck into the race.
04:20 To be honest, it's the time away from home.
04:22 A lot of training camps.
04:25 These days, altitude has kind of replaced being at home.
04:31 You've got to race at altitude these days.
04:33 And that's quite hard, to be honest.
04:36 Away from the family, I've got a young son and a wife at home.
04:40 So that's tough.
04:43 But yeah, it's one of those things.
04:47 It's quite easy to commit when I know I'm at the very end of my career now.
04:52 It's while I'm in my career, so I might as well commit to this now and see what I can
04:57 do and then I've got the rest of my life to chill and drink cocktails and look after the
05:02 max.
05:03 So yeah, we'll see how it goes.
05:07 But that's definitely the toughest.
05:09 And then just the mentality of it as well.
05:11 I've been two weeks off after the Giro and then slowly building up.
05:17 It's almost like start of season again, but it's June/July, which is kind of strange.
05:21 But that's why altitude sort of helped with that though as well.
05:25 With the mentality, just getting back into it, you're in with the team again.
05:29 So yeah, that's probably that.
05:34 Really experienced with that.
05:35 It's his forte, from team pursuit on the track to individual titles on the road, being super
05:40 strong.
05:41 We got a good team for it as well.
05:43 Castro, Tymon, Diplowski, all sort of able to drive the team, big engines in the team.
05:48 And then even the other boys are still, you know, Omar, Egan and Kim.
05:55 I nearly forgot everyone.
05:57 But yeah, they can still add a lot as well.
06:00 So we're confident we can be up there.
06:02 It's just see how we go on the day.
06:05 If there's rain as well, I'll definitely add another element to it, which will be interesting.
06:11 What do you make of the recent departures from the team in terms of Theo, Martinez,
06:16 Talen, Sivakov, etc?
06:19 Yeah, really big shame to see those boys go.
06:26 You know, I guess one disadvantage of being in such a strong team when you've got boys
06:32 coming through all the time and, you know, salaries going up because they're all improving.
06:36 You can't keep them all, I guess.
06:40 But yeah, you know, Theo, Pavel, spent a lot of time with them this year.
06:45 And didn't know Ben so much.
06:47 But yeah, sad to see them go.
06:50 But you know, we still got a strong group of young guys.
06:54 And then the Alder, Statesman, I guess.
06:57 We still got some good guys in the ranks.
07:00 So yeah, we're confident we can perform there.
07:03 And then when it comes to the tour, I think I just want to get at least three weeks done
07:07 first mate and then have a few drinks and then see what happens there.
07:12 Well, yeah, I'd love to go back to the tour.
07:15 But as a leader and targeting it, I don't know.
07:17 We'll see.
07:18 Look at the room and all that jazz.
07:20 But it takes a bit of time to make that decision.