The British cyclist is now far behind in the general classification, 12 minutes and 34 seconds behind the leader Sepp Kuss, and as a result, he is expected to focus on stage victories in the Vuelta a España. Although he has very different things in mind: recovering as best as possible from a serious crash, he says in his podcast Watts Occuring.
“Kim Heiduk went past me and crashed, I couldn’t move. I hit some sort of stone wall, and it hurt a lot. Mostly my knees. I couldn’t get up for a minute, but Fraile and Bernal helped me.”
Moments later, in the same stage, Thymen Arensman abandoned after a serious crash, following INEOS Grenadiers’ loss of Laurens De Plus in the team time trial. “Fifteen seconds before Thymen’s fall, I thought: this is stupid and dangerous, what are we doing here? And then they fell. I managed to avoid that fall, but Thymen was less lucky. Fortunately, his injuries were not so serious.”
“And in the following days, everything hurt, so it’s still not going well. On Saturday, I lost time in the final stages, so I can focus on the stages of the second and third week. So far, we haven’t had much luck,” Thomas concluded.