After his good Tour in 2015, Geraint Thomas’ performance was highly anticipated at the 2015 Tour de France. After his victory at Paris-Nice, some observers even marked him out as podium contender behind his leader Chris Froome. In any case, Team Sky had a plan B but it did not work out to perfection for the Welshman who finally finished in fifteenth place.

Even though he equaled his 2015 result, Thomas tells Cyclingnews that his preparation failed. The mistak mainly involved a very important weight loss just before the Grand Départ. 

“Looking back I could see the mistakes that I made with losing too much weight, too quickly, while doing a load of training,” he tells the site.

The effects of this weight loss were added to other factors, first of all his mental state since Thomas began to doubt himself because of poor results. After his success at Paris-Nice, the Welshan abandoned in Catalonia and did not really make any impact in Romandie. He looked better at the Tour de Suisse but the difficult weather conditions (rain and cold) and the difficulty of the course which was very mountainous took the best of him. 

“Suisse wasn’t great and it certainly knocked my confidence,” he says. “Well I’m Welsh so I’m used to the rain, but it was tough after seven days of that. That just took me a while to regroup mentally as well as physically. Going into the Tour I wasn’t sure how I was going to ride. When I’ve gone to the Tour before I’ve been confident but this year it was totally different. I just pushed it too far with the weight loss, losing the last bit too quickly.”

The problem of weight and confidence and a huge workload at the Tour de Suisse drained him and Thomas did not arrive in the best conditions on the Tour. As a result, he wants to change program in 2017 and has recently announced his desire to do the Giro. 

What will not change is his season start in Australia. Since 2011, Thomas has done the Tour Down Under, something that seems to work well for the Sky rider who won a stage and led the race in 2013.