Thomas was consumed by thoughts of missed Tour de France stage win during the finale: "This feels like redemption"
Thomas was consumed by thoughts of missed Tour de France stage win during the finale: “This feels like redemption”
He was the standout winner of Giro stage number five: Benjamin Thomas, who, from a disguised early breakaway with three others, managed to outsmart the peloton and ultimately sprinted to victory. The Frenchman racing on behalf of Cofidis looked back on his performance with sheer joy in the flash interview, marking it as the first season victory for the French WorldTour team!
“This felt like an endless team pursuit,” chuckled the winner, who is also known for his skills in track cycling. “We were a perfect breakaway group. I can hardly believe it. The finale was incredibly tough, we had to keep pushing hard continuously. It’s unbelievable.”
Thomas was familiar with the roads in and around Lucca
According to 28-year-old Thomas, he realized about ten kilometers from the finish, with the leading quartet – which also included Michael Valgren, Enzo Paleni and Andrea Pietrobon – that they could actually contest the win. “At that point, we still had a fifty-second lead and I started to believe in it. The wind was at our backs, so we could use that against the peloton. At sixty kilometers per hour, everything happens very quickly, but the wind was definitely in our favor. The peloton really struggled to close the gap.”
Thomas had once been close to a stage win in the Tour de France (in Carcassonne, to be precise), but he just missed out on the victory there. When asked, he acknowledges that this victory does feel a bit like sporting redemption. “During the last ten kilometers, I often thought about that Tour stage to Carcassonne. I kept thinking: maybe this time it is my day. The finale was very exciting, especially due to Pietrobon’s late attack. I took the risk by gambling and not closing the gap. That turned out very well in the end. I’m at a loss for words. It’s really amazing, all the more so because this is all familiar territory for me. I had knowledge of the course, and that definitely helped me.”