Ineos Grenadiers leader Geraint Thomas is prepared to race aggressively on this weekend’s queen stage at the Giro d’Italia.
Sunday’s stage 15 is the longest and toughest stage of the race, counting 222km and 5,400m of elevation gain, with a mountaintop finish in Livigno.
Speaking on his podcast, Watts Occurring, the Welshman says he expects it to be a “big, big day.”
“[The plan is] obviously to be ready to be aggressive if the moment’s there and the legs are good. But just race the race, you know?” he told co-host and teammate Luke Rowe.
“For sure, we’ll have some sort of plan at the start, but I think it’s definitely a day where you want to try and have a good day. We’ll see what happens.”
Thomas currently sits in third in the general classification, two minutes and 56 seconds down on the race leader, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), but only 16 seconds off Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) in second place.
Some of that time, he hopes, he will be able to claw back in Saturday’s flat individual time trial. “Obviously the TT’s the TT,” Thomas said. “You just go and ride as quick as you can. Hopefully I’ll do a lot better than the last one.”
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In stage seven’s individual time trial, the 37-year-old had “one of those days“, finishing tenth and ceding his second place overall to Martínez. “I tried to ride within myself,” he told the Eurosport TV cameras post-stage. “Then when it was time to go, I felt OK, but just lacked it a bit. I couldn’t get on top of it over those kickers, and it is what it is.”
Speaking on his podcast on Thursday evening, Thomas looked ahead to the upcoming mountains stages, which are likely to make a difference to the general classification.
“Sunday is just a big day,” he said, adding that he expects the queen stage to involve around 6 hours of racing. “Then it’s a rest day after that at altitude, as well. There’s a big block coming up, and we’ve got a lot of climbing in the last week as well.”
Mimicking a Belgian accent, Thomas then continued: “The Giro starts this weekend, eh? The Giro starts.”
