British veteran Geraint Thomas, winner of the Tour de France in 2018, announced Monday that he had extended, at the age of 37, his contract with the Ineos team for two additional seasons. “I still love being on the bike, running and training with my friends – I love every aspect” of life as a cyclist, commented the Welshman in a press release from the British team. “Even if you should never say never, in my mind it is my last contract. But I know that I still have two good seasons in my legs,” he added.
Thomas, still third in the Tour in 2022 and second in the Tour of Italy this year, is now committed until the end of 2025 with Ineos. This will then be “G”’s sixteenth season in the jersey of the British team, formerly Sky, which has dominated the last decade of cycling. The ex-track rider, double Olympic team pursuit champion, first helped Chris Froome to win four Tours de France before winning the 2018 edition himself. The following year, his teammate Egan Bernal succeeded him on the prize list but since then the Ineos team has not managed to win the Grande Boucle.
This year, the young Spaniard Carlos Rodriguez, 22, finished in fifth place. Once announced at Movistar, it should continue with Ineos. “The team’s ambition is to return to the top of the podium in the Tour de France and Geraint will do his part to achieve this objective while we are banking on some young talents at Ineos,” declared Rod Ellingworth, one of the bosses of the British team. Thomas, who also has a Paris-Nice, a Dauphiné, a Tour de Suisse and an E3 Grand Prix under his belt, wants to “remain highly competitive in everything”, whether on the classics he would like to find again, on the general classification of a Grand Tour or simply “help whoever is next to break through”.
