Tokyo 2020: Geraint Thomas eyes Olympic medal after tough Tour de France
- Published
Geraint Thomas won team pursuit gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics
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Geraint Thomas has said that he feels "better than expected" following the demands of the Tour de France and subsequent travel to Japan ahead of the Olympic Games.
Thomas, the 2018 Tour de France winner, finished this year's race in 37th spot.
The 35-year-old's attention now turns to Tokyo and the Olympic road race on Saturday before the time trial next Wednesday.
"I feel that I'm recovered well," he said.
"I was able to go easy the last couple of days of the tour, or as easy as you can in a race like that. The jet lag, I don't feel too bad.
"Obviously there's a big difference between racing and training but I've done all I can to be as good as possible on Saturday."
Thomas endured a frustrating Le Tour after a crash early in the three-week race and admitted it had been the "hardest tour I've done mentally".
But the Welshman said it would be an "amazing" achievement to win a medal on the road at the Games.
"It would be massive personally, especially after the bad luck I had earlier in the tour," Thomas added.
"I've committed so much this year for these five weeks. But as Steve Peters, the psychologist would tell me, life's not fair and you don't always get what you want.
"You've got to go out there and do your best. As long as you prepare as best you can and you get into the racing and you give everything then that's all you can do.
"Hopefully it works out. If it doesn't then certainly it will be disappointing. I've just got to stay positive and see what happens."
Thomas won track gold at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, but is searching for his first Olympic medal on the road.
"In the road race so much can happen, so much that can go wrong and so much that can go right," Thomas told BBC Sport Wales.
"The time trial is a bit more purely physical. If you're good and you've got the legs then you go fast.
"On the road race there's a lot more tactics and other things come into play.
"In Rio I came close and ended up crashing the last corner of the descent when I was in the mix for the medals, which was frustrating and it will be great to put that right.
"But saying that you just never know, so we'll see."
Tokyo will be Thomas' fourth Games, but he says he is still excited by the prospect of appearing at the Olympics even under the current Covid-19 restrictions which saw the Games postponed for a year.
"It's still exciting for sure and it was the first sort of thing I fell in love with, even before cycling, were the Games and I wanted to be part of it," Thomas said.
"There's definitely a different feel to it this year because we're in a hotel and not in the village.
"We're the only people here - I haven't seen any other bike riders in the hotel. I've seen a few on the course, but that's it.
"It's definitely different to the previous three.
"It is strange because we only leave the hotel to go training and the rest of the time we're in here. It's just so different.
"I feel fortunate they are going ahead and are still on and we can go out there and represent Team GB and try and bring home a medal or two."
