Geraint Thomas’ boss is hopeful the battered Welsh rider will be ft for the Tour de France after being forced to withdraw from the Giro d’Italia.

The Team Sky ace quit just before the start of Friday’s stage 13 having suffered knee and shoulder injuries in a crash five days before.

Thomas had tried to carry on – even finishing second in Tuesday’s time trial – but the injuries finally took their toll as he lost over a minute in a couple of flattish stages.

Now the 30-year-old will be aiming for the Tour de France which starts on July 1 as he looks to help team-mate Chris Froome with a fourth Yellow Jersey.

Sky boss Dave Brailsford said: “The way he dealt with the impact was typical Geraint.

“He deals with those things in a very professional and classy way.

“It’s easy to underestimate the impact of a crash because he hit the ground pretty hard, at over 50 kilometres an hour and caused some damage.

“He’s is one of the toughest and he can take a lot of pain, he’s got a very high pain threshold but at a certain point, you have to take action because he doesn’t complain about it.

“Just because he doesn’t complain about it doesn’t mean it hadn’t had an impact.”

Thomas – who rode the whole Tour with a cracked pelvis in 2013 – had seen his Giro hopes wrecked when another rider clipped a police motorbikes and careered into the group.

He was lying second at the time and well in contention.

“It was not a difficult decision at all to abandon,” added Brailsford of Thomas, who flew to Manchester to have his injuries checked out.

“He couldn’t continue quite frankly. He was in a lot of pain and you can see that from stage 12, he was dropped in the final on a flat stage.

“He was suffering quite a lot and it was quite an easy decision after that.

“It’s a disappointing one when you look at the bigger picture. However, he needs to get that knee sorted out and he needs some good medical care, to have a full assessment and treatment.

“We have to look after him and do the right thing and hopefully he bounces back and he’ll be looking to do the Tour de France.

“He’s in good shape physically so I think you just need to readjust to have a little break mentally as anybody would want to.

“And then you a build up again and hopefully coming to the Tour with the same condition that he had for the Giro which would be pretty exciting.”