Geraint Thomas discusses tour de Flanders , altitude training and the Cataluyna

I'm currently training over in Tenerife at Altitude Camp. We are staying at 2000m on top of the volcano; it's great for training and rest as there's not much else to do here!

My last race was Tour of Flanders. It's my favourite one day race of the year. It was the only cobbled classic that I have done this season. It was hard missing the other races like E3, Gent Wevelgem and Paris Roubaix. Going into Flanders I was confident that missing the build up races wouldn't effect my performance. I was more concerned about getting there fresh and ready to race. I pulled out of Tour of Catalunya 9 days before as I wasn't feeling 100% and hadn't recovered properly since Paris Nice and San Remo.

I felt good during the final hour of racing in Flanders, which was good for my confidence going into the last part of the race. Unfortunately the result I was hoping for didn't materialise. Like I mentioned I was feeling positive and hoping to attack in the final stages but my team mate Kawasaki (or as everyone else likes to call him Kwiatkowski) was already up the road so my hands were tied and options were limited. Up the penultimate climb, the Oude Kwaremont, the race split up when pre-race favourite Fabien Cancellara attacked. I was able to go with him until we caught a few riders, I lost his wheel and some momentum and just like that he was gone. I was in a group of 10, racing for 4th, but we were only a handful of seconds behind Cancellara and Vanmarke (2nd and 3rd place on the road). In these situations nobody in the group really wants to commit to riding the break back so it ends up being a game of cat and mouse and it is because of this that we didn't catch them. I tried to get away towards the end when I attacked around 2km to go, as I wasn't the fastest in that group and needed a good distance to aim for. I didn't manage to hang on and ended up rolling in at 12th place. My team mate and good friend Luke Rowe finished well and was 2nd in the group, finishing 5th, which was a great result for him.

Ah well, there's always next year!

Geraint Thomas