{"id":371398,"date":"2018-07-30T07:44:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T06:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-switch-that-won-team-sky-the-tour-de-france\/"},"modified":"2018-07-30T07:44:21","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T06:44:21","slug":"the-switch-that-won-team-sky-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-switch-that-won-team-sky-the-tour-de-france\/","title":{"rendered":"The Switch That Won Team Sky the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Geraint Thomas was supposed to support four-time defending champion Chris Froome. But Thomas proved he was the stronger rider and kept the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n

Team Sky spends all year honing every possible detail to win the Tour de France, the race that is practically its raison d\u2019\u00eatre.<\/p>\n

No detail is too small. Sky famously studies hotels along the route to know which ones have air conditioning and which ones don\u2019t. It prepares custom bedsheets for the riders. It invests millions in sports science.<\/p>\n

So it took the peloton by surprise halfway through this summer\u2019s Tour when, all of a sudden, the team that leaves no detail to chance didn\u2019t even seem to know who its strongest rider was.<\/p>\n

The expectation had always been that it would be Chris Froome, the four-time Tour champion coming off a stunning, if physically taxing victory in the Giro d\u2019Italia. At least, it was until the Tour reached the Alps. That\u2019s when his teammate, a 32-year-old support rider from Wales named Geraint Thomas took over the leader\u2019s yellow jersey.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Froome, the most accomplished stage racer of his generation, became a deluxe domestique. And Thomas, who had never won a Grand Tour, morphed into the Sky leader, all the way to victory on the Champs-Elys\u00e9es on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible just to be sat here with this jersey. Insane,\u201d Thomas said ahead of Sunday\u2019s ceremonial stage into Paris. \u201cA big thanks to Froomey\u2026I appreciate having the best stage rider ever riding for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

To…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geraint Thomas was supposed to support four-time defending champion Chris Froome. But Thomas proved he was the stronger rider and kept the yellow jersey. Team Sky spends all year honing every possible detail to win the Tour de France, the race that is practically its raison d\u2019\u00eatre. No detail is too small. Sky famously studies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2520,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-371398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2520"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}