Geraint Thomas to armchair directeurs sportifs: ‘Get a life’

Geraint Thomas is tired of people criticizing his team’s tactics at the 2024 Giro d’Italia. On his podcast “Watts Occurring,” the former Tour de France winner fired back at the keyboard warriors who questioned why Ineos – Grenadiers rode tempo on Stage 2, which ultimately resulted in Tadej Pogačar launching up Santuario di Oropa to take the win.

“I was on the massage table and I ended up clicking on X, and the first thing to pop up was this dude–I won’t mention his name because I don’t want to give him any extra hits, and he’s just bagging the team, like ‘Why are Ineos riding now? They’re just doing UAE’s job’,” Thomas said to Luke Rowe. “When you’re at the front, you can control the speed. Because you know you’ve only got two or three guys in front of you, rather than 50. There’s just less things that can go wrong, isn’t there? That was the plan, and that was exactly what we did.”

Like everyone at the Giro, Thomas knows full well that Pogačar is the man to beat, and that doing that is not going to be easy. But it’s not impossible.

“Obviously Tadej Pogačar is the pre-race favourite and has a strong team around him, and that changes the dynamic of the race a bit,” he said before the start of the Giro. “But that also means all eyes will be on him over three long weeks of hard racing. Our plan is to be aggressive. To take the race on and look for every opportunity to add pressure and take time.”

The Welshman added that it’s pretty easy to just type stuff when you’re not actually in the pro peloton.

“There are so many people who are like, ‘Oh Pog’s winning. Pog is gong to do this, do that. Why are they even doing this? Bla, bla, bla,” he said. “And it’s like, have you ever done anything in your life that’s really pushed you to an extreme? That you’ve really committed to and given everything to, and not been scared of failing? Or do you just go about your mundane life, in your mundane job, just giving it out to people on Twitter? Get a life, you know what I mean?”

In 2023, Thomas was second at the Giro, losing the maglia rosa on the second-last day, in the final time trial. Primož Roglič beat him in the test, stealing the lead in the race and taking it to Rome. But Thomas is insistent he will give it all to try and win this year.

“Everyone here knows that Pog is a phenomenal rider, but you’ve still got to try. You’ve still got to come here and give it your best,” he said. “Everyone gets here in the best shape they can and tries to get the best result. Knocking people just because they’re not winning, or they’re not beating this phenomenal guy. Give over. Get a life.”

You can watch the Giro on FloBikes.com