{"id":634623,"date":"2026-06-12T09:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T09:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634623\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T09:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T09:56:17","slug":"its-never-plain-sailing-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634623\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s never plain sailing, is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nHowever, Director of Racing Geraint Thomas<\/a> has emerged as the voice of reason among the tensions with their dual leaders, insisting that race incidents happen and it’s better in the stage race than at the Tour de France – where Vauquelin and Onley are expected to spearhead their GC ambitions.”It’s good these things go wrong now and you\u2019ve got to be able to put things right quickly and react well together, think about these things and have confidence in each other and be honest with each other,” Thomas said afterwards.<\/a>Thomas stresses importance of “bigger picture”\u00a0<\/p>\n

While admitting that it’s difficult to manage an ambitious group of riders heading to the Tour de France, Thomas insisted that the focus is very much on the ‘bigger picture’ – a viewpoint difficult to see in the heat of battle.<\/p>\n

Thomas continued: “This group is a new group together which is going on this journey to try and win the Tour de France eventually and get the best performance they can. It’s never plain sailing, is it? There\u2019s always ups and downs and that brings the guys together as well. I’m happy as the boys were strong today.<\/p>\n

“The call the DSs made on the road was to wait for Oscar, luckily he got his chain on pretty quickly but it means the stage win and the leader\u2019s jersey for K\u00e9vin went. If you look bigger picture, we’re second and third on GC and this race is going to be won in the mountains by more than a couple of seconds, but it’s tough as everyone wants to win.”<\/p>\n

Vauquelin and Onley in strong position<\/p>\n

Thomas, however, is happy with their preparations and results so far in the WorldTour stage race. Vauquelin and Onley sit in second and third respectively and just twelve seconds adrift of leader Alex Baudin.<\/p>\n

With some tough mountains to come, and top contenders like Paul Seixas and Isaac Del Toro looming behind, Thomas predicts both of his leaders have plenty more to show – even if that may have to wait until July in France.<\/p>\n

Thomas added: “We have two GC cards now and still all to play for. Kevin is still on the way up and I don\u2019t think he\u2019s in top shape yet, so we expect him to make a step after this race.<\/p>\n

“Oscar has had really good training blocks but in the races he\u2019s had one thing or another to deal with like illness or crash and he\u2019s not really got to show that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" However, Director of Racing Geraint Thomas has emerged as the voice of reason among the tensions with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,52530,122061,200887,37460,101,209408,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-634623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-geraint-thomas","tag-kevin-vauquelin","tag-netcompany-ineos","tag-oscar-onley","tag-sports","tag-tour-auvergne-rhone-alpes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}