'Possibly La Vuelta' - what's next for Geraint Thomas?

There are few riders better than Geraint Thomas at proving people wrong. 

Just days after celebrating his 37th birthday, the Welshman rode to his highest ever placing at the Giro d’Italia, finishing second in the overall standings and narrowly missing out on the top step. 

His form is strong, his climbing ability looks better than ever, so what's next for the former Tour de France champion? Looking ahead on his podcast, Watts Occurring, Thomas revealed details of his upcoming race calendar, which could include a GC assault on the Vuelta a España. 

“This week, [I’m going to] pretty much shut it down,” he said, “and then just get going again. Nationals will be the next race, so [I’m] looking forward to that.” 

After the British National Championships, where he has previously won both the road race and the individual time trial, the Ineos Grenadiers rider will travel north to Scotland for the Road World Championships, due to take place this August. 

“I think the Worlds will be the next sort of big target, being in the UK, it’s a big one, isn’t it?” He said. “So [I’ll] maybe target the TT or something there.”

Thomas’s last outing in the Worlds individual time trial came in Imola, Italy in 2020, when he finished fourth. At the recent Giro d’Italia, the Welshman once again proved his calibre against the clock, finishing runner-up in the time trials on stages nine and 20, the former to Remco Evenepoel by a margin of just nine hundredths of a second.

As for the Welshman’s Grand Tour targets, his calendar is still undetermined. "Possibly [La] Vuelta, but we’ll see what happens," he said. "I’m not going to commit to anything just yet, but I’ve already done the Vuelta once and it wasn’t a good experience, so it would be nice to go and have a better one."

Currently, it seems unlikely that Thomas will compete in this July’s Tour de France, having made no allusions to it in his plans on his most recent podcast. The 2018 race winner placed third last year, but could now be absent from the race for just the second time in the past decade. 

“The Tour is the biggest bike race in the world, so it’ll be hard to miss it,” he told Cycling Weekly last December. “If I didn’t do it again, it’d be weird.

“If 2021 had been my last, it would’ve ended on a bit of a sour note, so it wouldn’t have been as nice looking back on it.

“If [the 2022 edition] ends up being my last ever Tour, at least it was an enjoyable one.”