Thomas criticizes role of two teams and motorbike interference: "The Visma guys agreed with me"

“We knew UAE wanted that stage,” the number 89 in the day's results began his story. "I spoke to Pog (Tadej Pogacar, ed.) yesterday during the stage. I won't say exactly what he said, but I had the feeling he was ready to go for it. Even with his crash at the end of the stage (on Wednesday, ed.), we thought they would give it a try. But we didn't want to let them get away with it. So we said, ‘Guys, try to get into the breakaway.’"

Thomas himself failed, but INEOS Grenadiers had five riders in the group of 52 with Carlos Rodriguez, Connor Swift, Tobias Foss, Axel Laurance, and Thymen Arensman. "I attacked a few times, but I dropped back. You know how it goes... Actually, since 2015, I've consistently been near the top of the classification, so you enter a zone where you're too far behind to follow the attacks. Then there's a split and you think, "I have to go to the front.’ But it had already happened, so I just waited. Then I saw this group go, and I heard on the radio that we had five. They did a great job of creating a gap."

As Thomas already knew, the peloton wasn't going to let the breakaway get away. The experienced rider was surprised by the roles some of the teams played. “Carlos (Rodriguez, ed.) started the day with a deficit of five and a half kilometers,” the Brit winks. "No need to worry about that. Just let UAE do the chasing. They'll do it anyway. But EF and Uno-X both gave two men. That seemed like a waste to me. Defending tenth place with nine days to go? No way. Just let UAE wear their men out," he says, sounding somewhat critical.

That wasn't the only thing that surprised Thomas on Thursday. “The peloton still consisted of 100 riders, and it was stretched out. The motorbike was maybe 20 to 30 meters ahead. At 54 kilometers per hour, you get a slipstream, that's for sure,” says the experienced rider. “Everyone was complaining. I rode over to Visma and asked the guys, ‘Is it just me, or has that motorbike been there all day?’ They agreed with me.”

“But it's not the riders' fault,” Thomas believes. “If the motorbike is there, you're going to use it. It's a known problem in cycling. The guys on the motorbikes are just doing their job, which is to get footage, but that can change the race.”