Geraint Thomas showed us today why being an all-rounder in this sport allows capitalisation on various race scenarios.
Thomas firmly planted the proverbial mallet to its platform today when he attacked with more speed than all of his competitors up the penultimate, and essentially lonesome, KOM of the day.
Thomas was the second to last attacker up the previously feared Corkscrew Hill. However, as we discussed yesterday, time can mean nothing in this sport, but timing is everything.
The Welshman dropped all-but-nobody on the climb, showing us that the British actually can ‘go the distance’, which leads me to the search for other conclusions as to why the population of GB hasn’t been increased faster over history.
The Great Wale used his mixed bag of talents to cover all angles of the finale to today’s race.
Upon retrieval of maximum points over the KOM it looked as if he were to time trial to the finish alone, but the slower than expected descent (not very steep plus hindering winds) rendered his retrieval near imminent from the crest of the climb, thus producing a front group of four with six kilometres to go.
If I can’t win solo, I’ll just beat them in the sprint. You would have had to be been missing 9/10ths of your frontal lobe to not recognise that Thomas’ catch was fair, because his sprinting prowess from years of track racing well exceeded that of his breakaway counterparts anyway.
Such was the scenario as The Quartet (not the film, but the front-group) worked in harmony for the last six kilometres before The Great Wale ‘slingshot’ his way into a two bike-length gap with 450m to go and onward to victory.
“I’ve had a good, consistent winter…I worked really hard” Thomas recounted, not too out of breathe after the shortest (yet not slowest) Tour Down Under stage on record. “Tomorrow is hard enough, so we’ll just have to see what happens.”
There it is. The three angles of an all-rounder. Climb. Time Trial. Sprint. It’s fairly simple to describe, and fairly difficult to achieve. This sort of autonomy and self-sufficiency comes a little from his track background but also his genetics.
Let’s have a quick look.
First, his frame isn’t too heavy to climb. Yes he has shredded off some kilograms of muscle since the London Olympics last year when he won gold in the team’s pursuit, but he was never going to be Chris Hoy or Andre Greipel. So that’s a tick in the climbing box.
Secondly, after years in the velodrome, his training would have consisted of many hours of uphill big gear strength and endurance efforts (80-90% of max heart rate, 30-60rpm cadence), unquantifiable standing 1-5 kilometre track efforts teams and solo, and a fair few flying 1-2 lap high speed efforts.
This training provides the groundwork for time trailing and sprinting, and given the short and sharp nature of todays climb – about as long as an individual pursuit – this sort of climb was designed for the all-rounder in best early season form.
Yesterday, we presumed today would unfold just as it did, albeit I had some skepticism. Regarding tomorrow though, I am less concerned about my predictions.
Stage three will contain no large and angry 60kmh bunch sprints. The stage roads are constantly undulating, the distance is longer with 139km, the weather is hotter at 30 celsius, and rider legs are more fatigued.
Tomorrow we can expect a small group or a solo break away to take home the golden clams in a hopefully exciting entire stage. Given that in my book, aggression equals excitement, I’m hoping for a decimation, a spontaneous implosion and a complete and utter dematerialisation of the peloton from the word ‘go’, to see who comes out on top.
We can only pray.
Find Adam on Twitter @adamsemple
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