Geraint Thomas' Tour de France success doesn't shock Sir Dave Brailsford – his season has been built around it

Sport360 staff 16:12 29/07/2018
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  • With his rider, albeit a new one, set to be crowned Tour de France champion once more, Sir Dave Brailsford will be as pleased with Geraint Thomas’ success as anyone else.

    But while the Welshman’s soon to be confirmed win will have come as a surprise to many, it doesn’t shock Brailsford – after all, Thomas’ entire season has been planned around the race.

    Thomas went in to the race as Team Sky’s other ‘protected rider’ and the man renowned for being the ultimate domestique will complete his win in Paris on Sunday.

    “In December we decided his season should be based around peaking in July. He did it perfectly,” said Brailsford.

    “It couldn’t have climaxed in a more emotional way. It seemed like such a long race and on a knife edge for the last few days and then all the emotion came out.”

    The 32-year-old took control of the race by winning two stages in the Alps in the second week of the three-week race – taking the leader’s yellow jersey after winning Stage 11 and refusing to let go of it.

    On the following day’s Stage 12 he won again, becoming the first Briton to claim victory on the fabled Alpe d’Huez.

    Thomas was equal to numerous challenges from second-place Tom Dumoulin in the Pyrenees in the final week, while defending champion Chris Froome faltered.

    In a penultimate stage time trial on Saturday that world champion Dumoulin would have been looking at as a way to eat into Thomas’ advantage and add the Tour to his 2017 Giro d’Italia title, the Dutchman was left to feed on scraps, making up only 14 seconds to Thomas.

    Tour convention dictates the yellow jersey is not challenged on the final, processional, stage in Paris, so Thomas knows he only has to cross the finish line to become the third Briton to win the race – after Sir Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and Froome’s subsequent quartet of wins.

    Like his compatriots before him, success for Thomas at the Criterium du Dauphine – an excellent indicator of form heading into the Tour – proved a good omen.

    Wiggins won the week-long race in 2012 before going on to triumph in the Tour and Froome has won the Dauphine on three occasions, each time then going on to add the Tour title.

    “Psychologically he went into the Tour with great self-confidence and a quiet assuredness and he just quietly went about his business, chipped off every day and then found himself in the yellow jersey,” added Brailsford.

    It's been a tough Tour for defending champion Chris Froome.

    It’s been a tough Tour for defending champion Chris Froome.

    While Froome will have gone in looking for a fourth successive Tour title and become holder of all three Grand Tour titles – he won 2017’s Vuelta a Espana and the Giro in May – Brailsford says the 33-year-old deserves huge credit for assisting Thomas.

    He was widely expected to join Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault on five wins.

    But his hopes of also matching Merckx’s record of four consecutive Grand Tour victories were ended in the Pyrenees in the final week.

    Brailsford added: “The person who deserves a mention is Chris. We had two leaders – Chris was the actual leader, Geraint the protected second leader.

    “And the moment it dawned on him that he wasn’t going to win, Chris immediately switched to the support of Geraint.

    “All the focus was on Chris and that let Geraint just get on with his business and when the pressure did come he had Chris at his side, and he supported him with such grace that it gave him a calmness that helped him through.”

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