The official announcement is expected in the third week of June but Cyclingnews understands that Great Britain's four-rider team for the Tokyo Olympic Games will comprise Geraint Thomas, Tao Geoghegan Hart, and Adam and Simon Yates after the selectors and the British Olympic Association (BOA) rubber stamped the selection.
Two of those four riders will compete in the men’s individual time trial, with Thomas and Geoghegan Hart likely fill to those two spots. Teams can be altered due to medical reasons in the next few weeks, for example, if a rider sustains an injury in a race or falls sick.
That four-man selection means that there is no place for the likes of Chris Froome, James Knox, Hugh Carthy, Tom Pidcock, Luke Rowe, and Alex Dowsett. Pidcock is hoping to compete in the mountain bike event at the Olympic Games and therefore was ineligible for a place in the road team under Olympic rules.
An initial selection was made and presented to the British Cycling selectors on May 18 and, at that point, it looked increasingly likely that Froome would miss out.
At the end of April, the men’s road coach Matt Brammeier told Cyclingnews: " I don’t select it but I can say that I think Chris is a long way off. He has said himself that he’s not there yet and he needs more time to get up to speed and to get to a level where he’s fighting for that spot."
Since then, Froome has not been able to replicate his best form and has even stated that he will not be in contention to challenge for the Tour de France yellow jersey. He has won medals in both of the last two Olympic Games but Brammeier, who would not comment or confirm the line-up when contacted by Cyclingnews, appears to have made a selection based on current form rather than reputation.
Thomas finished on the podium in the recent Critérium du Dauphiné and won the Tour de Romandie just a few weeks before the final selection was made. He will lead Ineos Grenadiers at the Tour de France at the end of the month, while Tao Geoghegan Hart will make his debut in the French Grand Tour.
The 26-year-old won the rescheduled Giro d’Italia last Autumn and finished 10th in a supporting role at the Dauphiné. It’s likely that he will provide cover and team duties on the demanding Tokyo course.
Adam Yates is the only rider on the team not scheduled to race the Tour de France, with the second half of his 2021 campaign built around the Olympics and the Vuelta a España, where he will link up with this year’s Giro d’Italia winner Egan Bernal.
Simon Yates is the only rider not on Ineos Grenadiers’s books to make the team. The 28-year-old finished third overall and won a stage in last month’s Giro d’Italia and has been hunting an Olympic spot for the last few years.
"I didn’t grow up wanting to win the Tour or anything like that; I grew up wanting to be an Olympic champ, especially on the track," he told Cyclingnews earlier in the year.
"Obviously, my career evolved into something else but I still dream of going and competing in the Olympics. It just so happens that the course is good for me and I dream of winning the gold."
