Geraint Thomas admits cost of Tour de France time trial gilet blunder: 'I'm still angry'

Geraint Thomas emerged from the inquest into his time trial gilet blunder and admitted: “It's a bit raw – I'm still angry.”

Battered by strong crosswinds but otherwise unscathed, Thomas escaped a massive pile-up inside the last mile-and-a-half after the Tour de France peloton crossed the Great Belt Bridge into southern Denmark.

The carnage included Thomas's Ineos Grenadiers team-mates Dani Martinez and Filippo Ganna, although it had no bearing on the bunch sprint which followed. In a reduced front group, Fabio Jakobsen – whose blistering form denied Britain's Mark Cavendish potentially record-breaking encore on Le Tour – won stage two in a breathless finish after the 125-mile long haul from Roskilde to Nyborg.

But Ineos were still smarting from the 2018 Yellow Jersey winner's gaffe at Friday's prologue in rainy Copenhagen, where Thomas forgot to remove his thermal body-warmer before tackling the 8.2-mile course. In his podcast Watts Occurring, Thomas relived the time trial drama with road captain and fellow Welshman Luke Rowe, who revealed team-mates on the Ineos battle bus were astonished by what they saw on TV.

Rowe said: “We're in a team that spends hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, on aerodynamics. And on the biggest stage, the biggest race, Geraint goes to the start line a bit chilly, so he sticks his nice warm gilet on. Not the most aerodynamic bit of kit, but you were nice and warm, weren't you?”

Thomas, who had promised to go “full gas” against the clock in Copenhagen, simply did not realise he was still wearing his life jacket – and nor did the staff helping him up the ramp. “Neither of them noticed, either,” said the double Olympic gold medallist. “It's not their fault – I should have known I had a