Having just recovered from a crash sustained during the Commonwealth Games, Geraint Thomas hopes to bounce back in the upcoming World Championships as he is expected to participate in all three elite men’s events.

“I’ve been selected so I’m going to ride and it’s still about representing your country, so I’ll give it one last bash for the boys,” Thomas told Cyclingnews as he travelled to Ponferrada, Spain.

Thomas has enjoyed a season of ups and downs, but despite suffering from numerous crashes he managed to improve in one-day classics as well as a stage racer and certainly climbed up the hierarchy of the Team Sky squad.

In such circumstances it came as no surprise that the 28-year old Welshman was selected to represent both his squad and Great Britain in the upcoming World Championships, even though he participated in only two races following his Commonwealth Games accident.

“I was going downhill on my time trial bike, hit a stone and my hands came off the bars. I took off a lot of skin from my hand and it certainly wasn’t ideal.”

“I’ll admit that going into the Canadian races I wasn’t too confident of even finishing the races because I’d had two weeks with almost no training, with around four rides before leaving. That crash knocked me back a bit but I got through the races and then last Monday I received an email saying that I was selected,” he said.

Visibly struggling to keep up with the best in two Canadian classics last week, Thomas is aware that he may lack form to become a factor in the individual time trial and road race, but still hopes to give his very best to represent his country.

When it comes to team time trial event, the 28-year old Welshman claims that Orica-GreenEDGE and Omega Pharma – Quick Step will be obvious favorites, but believes that Team Sky brings the strongest possible squad to the event and they might be able to cause some surprise after claiming third spot last year in Florence.

“I think we’ve got a strong team. It’s perhaps not our strongest either because Froome and Kennaugh would add to the TTT if they were riding but at the end of the season it’s hard to get the 'A Team' together but with the riders we’ve got I still think that we can give it a good go.”

“The main thing is that everyone here is motivated. It would be nice to be on the podium again but we all know that it’s going to be tough. There’s Omega of course, and I know a few of the boys in Orica and they’re obviously targeting this. They’re the favourites but anything can happen, and especially with Brad stepping into the team because you can take a lot from that.”

Asked about British team’s strategy for the road race, Thomas openly admitted that he wasn’t sure which card they are going to play but Ben Swift might be one of their options unless the race gets too hard.

“Around the Tour time I think we had Swift as our leader and I think that’s still the plan but I’ve not talked to the team about it recently. I know that Swift has been targeting the race for a while and having seen some of the rides he’s done this year he can certainly climb and sprint well. I think he’s got a good shout and Kennaugh and Froome will be strong too.”

“It can’t be much worse that last year,” Thomas told Cyclingnews.

“But it’s not about having a point to prove. We just want to show what we can do and finish off the year in a better fashion. There were a few things that came into it last year, with the weather and all, but hopefully we can get stuck in and show that jersey.”