Hi guys,

Ritch Mitch and Rouleur have joined together with Team Sky to produce a set of four cool mugs featuring Cav, Wiggo, Swifty and myself. For your chance to win one of the G man mugs just answer this simple question:

I took the white jersey for best young rider after a brilliant ride on the cobbles on stage three of the 2010 Tour de France finishing in Arenberg. Who won the stage that day?

Please leave your answers on my Fan Zone page on this website.

For more information on the mugs click here…

Good luck!

G

Well it’s been a great start to the Giro!! Yesterday I was obviously a bit disappointed to miss out on the win but Taylor was untouchable, so hats off to him. I think I paced it well and got it all out so I can’t ask for more. Second in the Giro prologue is still pretty satisfying!!

However, today was even better. To take the win with Cav was awesome. It sets us up nicely for the rest of the race. There’ll be no pressure to ‘get that win now’, we will obviously try to get more though.

It was a bit of a shock to the system today to be honest. It’s like any first stage of a Grand Tour, very stressful, especially with the anticipated wind. Nothing major happened though and it was a big bunch kick. I lost the boys with around 10km to go but didn’t stress too much, I just used some other guys to get back to the front. You don’t want to spend any extra energy before the final lead out… I managed to deliver Cav to the final corner in the top 5, which was the plan. It was then a case of going for as long as possible, drag racing with my old Barloworld team mate Robbie Hunter. Cav showed his class and finished it off to perfection.

Hopefully we can continue this good run over the rest of the race!!

G

Geraint produced a superb ride to take second place behind Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) in the individual time trial which opened the Giro d’Italia.

Lithuanian Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin-Barracuda), one of the first men down the ramp in the season’s first Grand Tour, had set the target time of 10 minutes and 48 seconds over the 8.7 kilometres route around the Danish city of Herning.

That stood for much of the afternoon until Manuele Boaro (Saxo Bank) knocked seven seconds off it to move to the top of the standings.

But while he was still conducting his TV interview, Welshman Thomas had roared around the course to cross the line six seconds ahead of him in 10:35.

Geraint, who has spent much of the season on the track and was part of the Team GB team pursuit squad which smashed the world record in winning gold at the recent World Championships in Australia, set a fastest intermediate time of 5:14 after 4.5km which was to stand for the rest of the day.

And despite making the transition from 4km efforts on the boards, he kept up the momentum in the second part of a technical course featuring 17 corners to surge into the lead.

Battle for pink

However he too was only afforded a brief stay at the head of affairs as American star Phinney, who set off four minutes after him, produced a power-packed display on the long drag to the line to stop the clock in 10:26.

No one else was able to get close to that, though Dane Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Barracuda) was later to claim third place, with Phinney’s outstanding performance putting nine seconds and more into the rest of the field as he was the only man to average over 50km/h.

His victory means he’s the first rider in the race leader’s maglia rosa and his team will now look to protect that jersey in Sunday’s second stage which covers 206km around Herning.

Well judged

Speaking to Team Sky after the ride, G said: “I think I measured it pretty well. I tried to carry my speed through the corners, one or two I could have gone a bit faster but, losing by nine seconds, I can’t blame it on a couple of corners.

“I definitely tried to keep a bit back for the last 3k and that headwind and I just emptied the tank all the way to the line. It didn’t feel amazing but I was obviously going okay and am happy to have been up there.”
Thomas, winner of the shorter 3.3km prologue at the Tour of Romandie 11 days ago, admits the transition from the track to the road is a challenge, but one that he relishes: “It’s tough – obviously the prologue in Romandie was perfect for me but I’d also only been back from Australia a couple of weeks so it was nice to get the win there.

“For me personally I just want to take the chances to race hard when I can and these next few days are perfect for that. As soon as we start hitting the climbs I’m not going to be able to be up near the front given all the track work I’ve done so I’m just really looking forward to the next week and we’ll see what we can do with Cav.”

Courtesy of Team Sky

Hi guys,

I have teamed up with Meat Promotion Wales to offer children in Wales, aged between 11-16, the chance to ride the track with me. This will take place after the Olympic Games. It is a really special competition, and all you have to do is think about the link between a healthy diet and an active lifestyle and then create a recipe which must contain either Welsh Lamb or Welsh Beef. I look forward to seeing your ideas and trying out your recipes! Make them as weird and wonderful as you like – just as long as they are healthy!!

G

For further information click here…

Well, that was a good day!! I knew coming into the race that I’d be able to do a decent ride because of all the track work I’ve been doing recently. But, it is one of those where a lot can happen.

Fortunately everything went well. Afterwards you always seem to pick the ride apart, but I was really happy with how it went. It was a nervous 15 mins or so watching the final guys finish. Even though they had wet roads, I still thought someone may go faster as there was only one corner where they’d have had to slow down for. As it turned out I held on and I’m made up to get my first ProTour win!!

For the rest of the race I will return to my usual role of leadout man for Cav, and helping Brad until the road heads upwards. I’ve only been back on the road for a week or so, since the track worlds in Australia. So I’m not expecting to set the world on fire, but it’s all good training for the Giro. But first lets hope we can get a few more wins on the board!!

Well I’ve been flat out since I got back from the Worlds trying to find my road legs! I got home on Tuesday afternoon, and on  Wednesday morning I  was over to North Wales to help promote the Etape Cymru, which is  a closed road sportive which takes in some great roads and beautiful scenery in Wales. It involved a nice ride over part of the route, including the Horseshoe Pass and also a lot  of talking to all the different types of  media present.

On  Thursday I  went  straight out to my flat in Italy for a weeks training camp. There I got a big volume week in, doing around 30hrs. It was a massive shock to the system. On the track we were doing around 10/15hrs a week. This meant I was ‘hunger flatting’ or in cycling terminology ‘bonking’ after 1.5hrs. Thank goodness to my CNP Professional cola gels that kept me going!  I’m feeling a lot better now and starting to freshen up nicely before the Tour of Romandie which has been added to my program recently. I’m looking forward to racing again!!

We have a very strong team going to Romandie so I am sure we’ll be looking to get some good results. I’m going there to help Cav on the sprint day, whilst the rest of the time I’ll be there to help Brad ride for GC. I leave tomorrow for Romandie which signals the start of 5 weeks on the road racing my bike or on the Team Bus… The time away is the hardest bit of being a pro bike rider. Although at least it will give Sa, my girlfriend, time to train our new puppy Blanche!

Keep checking the website for all my latest news and results. Feel free to leave your comments on my fan page. I do read all of your messages!

 G

Check out my interview with Rebecca Ransom from Welsh Cycling, where I talk about 100 days to go!

With one Olympic gold medal already sitting proudly at home, will Geraint Thomas get his second in London this Summer? With 100 days to go, the Games are fast approaching, not that Geraint is counting down the days!

“We never really count down days, like a year to go or a month to go. Our programme is decided and my thinking is I have a race next week and then I’m back on the track. When you think about 100 days, it’s not that long really! I’m sure it’s going to fly by now especially with being on the road and racing now for a few weeks. It is exciting, and the Games is what this year is all about for me, I’m looking forward to it.”

“When I’m together with the rest of the GB team, it’s great. We can almost see it now, its insight. Once 2012 arrived, it became a lot more real. In the past we have just been talking about the games and it always seemed so far away; but now it’s so close. We haven’t got any more racing on the track until the Games, so it’s all go and I’m sure the Games will be here before we know it.”

Team GB Team Pursuit celebrating becoming World Champions in Melbourne 

To read more click here…

The IP and Madison still mean a lot to me though. They are still world championship events and have a lot of history behind them. I was disappointed with my IP, more with the way I rode it rather than the time. I started too hard and came off it towards the end meaning I missed the bronze ride off by 0.2sec. I would have liked to get another ride to put it right but that’s just bike racing. It’s still surprising when a 4.17 doesn’t get you a second ride!!

The Madison was slightly different for me. I hadn’t raced a Madison since before the Beijing Olympics. I also had only ridden my up right bike for 10mins in the last 5 months! The gears were completely different as well. In the team pursuit we use 106+ inches, we rode 94 in the Madison. So with all this in my head I woke up Sunday morning a bit apprehensive about the race. After a chat with Rob Hayles and Ben about how we were going to ride the race and seeing how motivated Ben was, I was up for a good race. As it happened, I had a really bad patch as we were chasing the Aussies who were taking a lap. Luckily I managed to hold it together and come out the other side.  We finished the 200lap race with a silver medal. It was great racing the Madison again, especially with Ben, who is one of my best mates and someone I have raced with since I was 12. It was a great way to end our trip to Australia!

Men’s Madison

Belgium took the world Madison title in a thrilling finale to five days of action in Melbourne, with Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas and Ben Swift bagging a fine silver medal.

The GB pairing’s strategy in the early part of the race was centred around winning key sprints and not contesting others, a ploy which, after four gallops, saw Thomas and Swift top the leader board ahead of early aggressors Germany. The race was shaken up by Austria who were first to take a lap, then completely blown apart by a stunning attack from the Australian pairing of Leigh Howard and Cameron Meyer. The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy followed, the quartet gaining a lap, while GB and other teams chased down. As the dust settled, seven teams, including Swift and Thomas, had gained a lap and despite the Australian’s combativity, Howard and Meyer found themselves lying in third behind Great Britain as the race entered its latter stages.

The big winners in Australia’s mid race shake-up were the Belgian pairing of De Ketele and Van Hoecke who showed the Melbourne crowd how to win a Madison race by stealth, having amassed points early on and followed Australia’s moves when it counted.

Going into the final sprint, the Dutch pairing of Schep and Stroetinga, on zero points, threatened to spoil the party, attacking with fury with 16 laps to go in an attempt to take a lap. This provoked a frantic chase from Belgium, GB and Australia, who had it all to lose. Eventually with the lap board ticking down, it was clear that the Dutch move wasn’t going to stick and Belgium took the title, GB a fine silver, capping an excellent week’s racing from Swift, Thomas and the rest of the Great Britain team.

Men’s Madison Final 50km

GOLD BEL Belgium 24 pts
DE KETELE Kenny
VAN HOECKE Gijs

SILVER GBR Great Britain 18 pts
SWIFT Ben
THOMAS Geraint

BRONZE AUS Australia 11 pts
HOWARD Leigh
MEYER Cameron

4 AUT Austria 10 pts
5 ESP Spain 7 pts
6 RUS Russia 6 pts
7 NED Netherlands 5 pts
8 CZE Czech Republic 4 pts
9 FRA France 4 pts -1 lap
10 ITA Italy 3 pts -1 lap
11 NZL New Zealand 1 pt -1 lap
12 SUI Switzerland 0 pts – 1 lap
13 GER Germany 14 pts – 2 laps
14 DEN Denmark 2 pts – 2 laps
HKG Hong Kong DNF
13 KAZ Kazakhstan DNF

We went to Australia looking to win the worlds. Most importantly though we wanted to improve from our World Cup performance in London. We knew the sort of time we were going to do but unsure of what the Aussies would produce. In London we were convincingly beaten but going into the worlds we all knew we were in ‘a good place’. At the same time it is all part of the build up to the Games. We’ve always said from day one that the Games is everything this year. If we lost the world cup and worlds but won the Games we’d take that any day of the week. But racing is racing, and racing the worlds is massive in it’s own right! We were all super motivated and quietly confident that if we put a ride together that we were capable of then the Aussies would struggle to beat us.

It couldn’t have turned out any better. A world best qualifying time, which was 3 sec faster than we qualified in Beijing, albeit that ride was very controlled, followed by a world record and a win in the final. It was extremely close and we were over the moon to pull it off. We’ve watched it back on the internet and what a race it was! At the time we didn’t really know how close it was. We knew the ride we could do, so went out to ride as fast as possible.

However, it all nearly came crashing down on the last lap. We had an aggressive strategy which meant Ed and Pete were spent by the time they’d done their turns. Unfortunately they ended up hitting the front an extra time which meant the speed came right off and we lost 0.7sec in a lap. To be honest it was great that this happened, as it showed us a lot and we have learnt more about each other. 

A special mention must go to Andy Tennant who rode the qualifier and Ben Swift, who narrowly missed out on selection. Both were great team mates and contributed to the team massively. It will be the squad that wins the Games in London not just the 4 guys who ride the final. Now it’s time to put the hard yards in on the road before we return to the track in June, for the final push to London. I really can’t wait!!