LONDON — Britain’s Geraint Thomas said that he hopes to compete at the Paris Olympic Games this summer but only if he feels capable of winning another medal.
Thomas, who won the Tour de France in 2018, competed in the road race at the Tokyo and Rio Games but was involved in crashes at both events.
However, the 37-year-old has had more success on the track, winning team pursuit gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
“I’d love to do one more Olympics, but I don’t want to go and just get another tracksuit,” Thomas told the Guardian in an interview published on Sunday.
“I want to be good enough to be in with a shout of a medal. I’ve got four tracksuits already – I don’t need another one.”
Thomas also weighed in on rider safety, which has become a talking point in the sport after a crash involving two-times Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel among others brought fresh scrutiny on cycling’s governing bodies.
“Everyone’s talking about this now because big-name riders have crashed, but it’s been happening for years,” Geraint said according to Reuters.
“Racing’s got that danger element already, but I feel like it could do so much more to increase safety. There’s road furniture, traffic calming, kerbs sticking out, all that kind of stuff.
“When you’re in it, if I thought about it, I’d be at the back (of the peloton). You wouldn’t be racing, you couldn´t do it.”
The Welshman will lead the Grenadiers team at the Giro d’Italia, which begins in Turin on May 4 and finishes in Rome on May 26.
Supported by an experienced, exciting team, the Welshman, who dramatically finished as runner-up in 2023, returns to the Italian Grand Tour looking to ‘take the race on’ when it gets underway in the first week of May.
Thomas, 37, will headline a squad packed with Grand Tour experience for the 21-stage event that spans 3400 km of racing.
Dutchman Thymen Arensman, who was sixth overall in 2023 and second in the youth classification, returns to play a crucial support role once again for Thomas in the high mountains.
Highly experienced Ben Swift assumes the crucial role of ‘road captain’, charged with executing the Team’s ambitions to race aggressively and seize any opportunities.
Italian fans favourite, Filippo Ganna, will be firmly eyeing up the individual time trials on stages seven and 14 as he looks to add to his running tally of six Giro stage wins – all for the INEOS Grenadiers.
Jhonatan Narváez, who was a stage-winner in 2020 and has shown excellent early season form, makes his fifth Giro d’Italia start.
Newcomer to the Team, Tobias Foss, a recent winner of the opening stage of the Tour of the Alps and a former top-10 finisher at the Giro, will make his first Grand Tour start as a Grenadier.
There’s also a debut Grand Tour for 22-year-old Magnus Sheffield. The American has impressed in one-week stage races, as well as on the time trial bike, and now takes the next important step in his career in Turin.
The Grenadiers line-up is completed by Connor Swift who rides his first Giro d’Italia having completed the Tour de France three times.
“My preparation has gone well and I’m feeling in a great place ahead of the start. We have a strong line-up and there is a good bond with this group. The core is the same as last year’s Giro team, with some great additions for this year,” Thomas said.
“We have spent a lot of time together at training camp; we know what we need to do and are all feeling super motivated to get the job done and deliver.
“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. But that also means all eyes will be on him over three long weeks of hard racing.
“Our plan is to be aggressive, take the race on and look for every opportunity to add pressure and take time,” Thomas noted.
