May 27, 2023 at 10:25 PMUpdate: 6 minutes ago
Geraint Thomas is quite disappointed after the blow he received in the Giro d’Italia on Saturday. The Briton was humiliated in a climbing time trial by Primoz Roglic, who doubled and is almost certain of the overall victory.
“If you had told me in February or March that I would be second, I would never have believed you and I would have been very happy. Now I am devastated”, Thomas was disappointed. At the beginning of this year he was hardly involved in the preparation races, so that he was not counted among the top favorites prior to the Giro.
The INEOS Grenadiers leader started the 18.6 kilometer climb time trial with a 26 second lead over Roglic in the standings. In the end, he took forty seconds longer to race against the clock than the unchained Slovenian.
As a result, Roglic will start the final stage on Sunday with fourteen seconds ahead of Thomas in the standings. The flat stage to and from Rome normally no longer causes time differences.
“In the end I’m happy to lose the jersey by a big margin,” said Thomas. “To be beaten by one or two seconds would have been really sad. At least now he has completely destroyed me.”
Photo: ANP
‘Didn’t have the best feeling on the bike’
At the first intermediate point, Thomas was only two seconds behind Roglic, but after that the difference grew. Even due to equipment failure, the leader of Jumbo-Visma did not get upset.
“I felt pretty good going uphill,” said Thomas. “I don’t want to make excuses, but I didn’t have the best feeling on the bike. Primoz deserves to win. Kudos for what he did, because he also had some bad luck along the way and still made it.”
Klassement Giro d’Italia
Primoz Roglic (Slv) 82:40.36 Geraint Thomas (GB) +0.14 João Almeida (By) +1.15 Damiano Caruso (Now) +4.40 Thibaut Pinot (Fr) +5.43 Thymen Arensman (Ned) +6.05 Eddie Dunbar (Ier) +7.30 Andreas Leknesund (Noo) +7.31 Lennard Kämna (Dui) +7.46 Laurens De Plus (Bel) +9
:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/QDS45AG4QNFLJMUUIPTILMFH5Y.jpg)
:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/EX2QQU6BIBEHHBKM54NPHLCYLM.jpg)
