Instead Thomas took victory by 28sec from his fellow Ineos rider Richie Porte, with Cavagna’s teammate Fausto Masnada climbing to third, a further 10sec back. “I’m very happy,” Thomas said. “Especially after the little mishap yesterday which wasn’t ideal and made it more of a challenge today. I felt good and it reminded me of when I won the Tour in Esepelette, it was a similar sort of stage. On the last descent they were on the radio telling me to take it easy, don’t do anything stupid. I’m really happy to finish it off.” It was Thomas’s first victory at a race previously won by Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, with the result suggesting his preparations for the Tour de France are going well. “I said at the start of the year my goal was the Tour and every race is building up to that,” Thomas added. “I didn’t really put any pressure on myself to perform early but I seem to have come in to good shape pretty soon and had a lot of good races … “It’s not that I haven’t performed since winning the Tour, I was second [in the 2019 Tour], second in Tirreno-Adriatico [last year] and third in Catalunya so I’ve been up there but it’s nice to get the win and break that duck.”