A solid ride by Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) during the first mountain top stage of the Volta Catalunya on Wednesday showed he has retained his strong Tirreno-Adriatico climbing form, and has propelled the Welshman onto the provisional podium of the seven-day stage race. Last year Thomas abandoned mid-way through the Volta, but this time around, with Thomas having skipped Milano-Sanremo - where he crashed heavily in 2016 - the Catalan race is a very different ballgame for the Sky rider. At La Molina, the Welshman benefited from hard work by Pete Kennaugh and Mikel Nieve on the long but very uneven ascent, before marking stage winner Alejandro Valverde closely as the road kicked up in the last kilometre. Thomas ultimately claimed sixth on the stage after Valverde and Dan Martin tore away for the win and is now third overall, 44 seconds down on new race leader Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team).ADVERTISEMENT `It`s not the hardest of climbs and the way the wind was it was hard to make a real solid pace with everyone,` Thomas told a small group of reporters as he warmed down. `And then obviously, that kick up at the end - I lost a couple of positions and on the last corner I got stuck on the wrong side of [Alberto] Contador (Trek-Segafredo) and the wrong side of the barriers. Not that I would have won, but you just want to get it all out.` As for why Team Sky were driving so hard, Thomas explained, `We just wanted a hard day. On paper, today and Friday are the real GC days, although a lot can happen in a race like this on any day. We wanted to try and make the most of it, but the conditions and the climbs didn`t quite play into our hards. But we`ve got a strong team, everyone`s racing well, and we`ll try and get something every day.` As for the Classics, he said, he was going to miss racing them `for sure. I might just not watch them.` Jokingly, he added, `It`s Flanders next week and I`m still thinking in my head maybe I should ask Tim [Kerrison, team coach] c ...
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