Thomas not expecting ‘freak’ crash to affect him in hard days ahead at Tour
Geraint Thomas (Ineos) says he is okay after he crashed around one hour into Tuesday’s stage 16 at the Tour de France.
The defending overall champion went down solo while rounding a bend with around 130 kilometers to go in the 177-kilometer stage. His left side took the brunt of the fall. Although it was not a soft landing, Thomas was quickly back up, and after an Ineos mechanic arrived with a new bike, he remounted and made his way back up to the peloton.
“I just had one hand on the bars and then the gears jumped and jammed. I got thrown off my bike. Not ideal,” Thomas said after the stage. “I just took off an old scar so it was just new skin bleeding. I just got thrown off on a corner.”
???? Crash for @GeraintThomas86! But it doesn't appear too serious for the defending champ, who is soon back on his way. ????
???? Plus de peur que de mal pour Geraint Thomas. Après une chute, le tenant du titre repart sans trop de difficultés. ????#TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/EjCivc9aBC
— Tour de France
(@LeTour) July 23, 2019
Thomas finished the stage safely in the bunch without any further incident, but he did receive medical treatment for a scraped left knee at the team car during the stage.
“It was just a freak thing, but I’m all right,” he said of the high-speed crash. “I saw the doctor and he sprayed some water on me.”
Thomas is no stranger to crashing hard at the Tour de France, having hit the deck on multiple occasions over the past several years. Tuesday’s fall marked at least the third time Thomas has hit the deck this Tour.
The 33-year-old Welshman came out of the Tour’s second rest day in second overall, 1:35 back on race leader Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step), and remains there after stage 16. The race is headed into the Alps in the coming days, but Thomas will at least have one more intermediate stage to heal up before a brutal trio of high-mountain stages.
Asked if he expected the crash to affect him moving forward, however, Thomas responded that he did not, and said, “It looks worse than it is.”
Thomas was not the only GC contender to crash on a stage 16 that delivered a bit more drama than the flat profile and sprint finish might have suggested. Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) crashed hard with around 30 kilometers to go. Unlike Thomas, the Dane did not remount and continue, and has since abandoned the race.
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