Is Thomas one-tour wonder?

In his final Tour de France, 5-time winner Bernard Hinault, the last Frenchman to win the biggest cycling race in the world, was 32yo. He would come in second behind his prodigious young teammate, Greg Lemond. Lemond was 33 when he hang up his cleats. Another 5-time winner, Miguel Indurain, also retired at 32.

Geraint Thomas, the newly crowned King of the Tour de France, is 32yo. I was wrong when I said that Thomas wasn’t going to win the Tour and I had to eat my share of Humble Pie.

But while I admit that I was wrong, it wasn’t like Thomas rolled over the opposition like what Lance Armstrong used to do in his first four TdF wins. There were still iffy moments even until the penultimate stage- a roadside fan grabbing his arm to bring him down and when he skidded and almost crashed during the stage 20 time trial.

 If his teammate, and 3rd at the podium Chris Froome didn’t crash and lost more than a minute, it would have been a different result for I think that team Principal Dave Brailsford would have prepared a different team dynamics. Also, if runner up Tom Dumoulin hadn’t lost time when he had a mechanical, I think the podium would have been quite different.

Not surprisingly, Thomas is leaning to re-sign up for team SKY, again, sharing leadership with Froome next year. While I think he could have gotten more salary from other teams, I don’t think these teams can give him the structure and the teammates that will help him win his 2nd Yellow Jersey in two years. SKY’s Euro 40million-plus budget is twice as big as their closest rivals.

So I think the decision to re-sign with SKY is a practical choice. I believe that winning another Tour would mean a difference in his legacy. The fact that just like his predecessor, 2012 Tour champion Bradley Wiggins, both started on the track, and was never mentioned as a potential Tour winner, but went on to win the Tour is just beyond incredible!

If somebody were to ask me what chances does Thomas have for the 2019 Tour, I would still give the same opinion that he won’t win it. Well, he’ll win it if Lady Luck smiles kindly on him and frowns on his rivals.

As for Froome, I think he still believes that he has still 1-2 Tours to win and I believe that he can do it. It’s just going to be a bit difficult when your rival is your teammate and good buddy.

Dumuolin is on the up and up but his team should be willing to open up their wallets to get the best domestiques available. If you have noticed, Dumoulin was alone during crunch time while SKY had Froome, Thomas, Mihai Kwiatkowski and Egan Bernal. And how can you beat that?

Like most observers, Bernal is going to be the next big think and that’s why SKY signed him up. I remember US POSTAL signing Roberto Heras for big money as a domestique for Lance  instead of being Lance rival. And it worked!

The Cebu Lady Dragons clinched the women’s title of the Kadayawan Festival Rugby Football tournament the other day in Davao City.

The Lady Dragons torched host team Davao, 12-7, to dominate the event.

In the preliminaries, the Lady Dragons annihilated General Santos, 31-0.

After a short rest, the Lady Dragons led by the veterans Madille Salinas, Mae An Ubaub and Dixie Yu pulled off a huge 21-0 win against also against Davao to reach the finals.

The Lady Dragons are grabbing all opportunities to get more exposure as part of their preparations for the Philippine Rugby Football Union 7’s finals in Manila in October.

Aside from the Lady Dragons, their male counterparts are also expected to join them in the PRFU finals.