Thomas has to settle for time-trial bronze after crash

Geraint Thomas has endured many bone-breaking crashes during his career but it was an innocuous tussle with a metal barrier which cost him a shot at Commonwealth gold in the Black Country.

- LAWRENCE OSTLERE

With around 50 technical turns to navigate, this was a time-trial course to reward those who risked pushing to its ragged edge, but Thomas was punished for overcommitting as he ran wide and lost his rear tyre before spilling over the feet of a steel fence early on the 37km route. The Welshman dusted himself down to win bronze, finishing half a minute behind Australia’s Rohan Dennis who took gold and a few seconds behind England’s silver-medallist Fred Wright.

The race against the clock was billed as a battle between Thomas, fresh from a podium finish at the Tour de France, and Dennis, twice a time-trial world champion, who won silver ahead of Thomas’s bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and organisers deliberately positioned the duo last down the start ramp.

But Dennis’s natural speed combined with his ability to stay upright proved a winning combination as around him rivals lost control on the twisting route from Wolverhampton’s West Park south to Dudley, across to South Staffordshire and back to the finish at the park. New Zealand’s Aaron Gate twice almost fell on a fast downhill section while England’s Dan Bigham went flying into barriers which clung on to his bike like a spider’s web despite his efforts to rip it free, forcing him into a bike change which cost precious time as he finished 12th.