Geraint Thomas has never been the type to suffer from stress. Even in the face of a career of bad luck, he has always made light of adversity and has been able to handle the pressures of elite sport with a dry, Welsh sense of humor.

But this year's Tour de France is something different. His hair cut, styled by his wife in keeping with his pre-Tour ritual, is the same, and his legs are as thin as they were at the Grande Palais, but there is a distinct change in his demeanor. If anything, he appears less stressed. He used to be laid back, but now he is almost level.

Thomas, who started the Tour de Suisse with Tom Pidcock leading the way and won the overall, stepped into a conference room at the Ineos Grenadier chain hotel outside Copenhagen on Wednesday and calmly told the media his dreams and hopes for the next three weeks.

"I'm pretty calm," he said. 'I'm going to have fun. I'm pretty relaxed, although it's hard to say that when you're elbowing people at 60 km/h in the wind and swearing at them.

The biggest factor seems to be age, or rather maturity. Thomas turned 36 last month and is about to take on his 12th Tour de France. He added that his 22-year-old debutante teammate Tom Pidcock not only looks very young.

Thomas, meanwhile, admits that he is "closer to the end of my career than the beginning," but doesn't seem to be feeling the ever-increasing pressure.

"It's clear I won this race," he said of his 2018 Tour win. 'Right now I just want to enjoy this race.'

Another major factor is that Thomas can count on two hands the number of days he has been considered - by his own team management - as a potential Tour de France leader. Throughout the season, Rod Ellingworth has spoken of the Welshman as the domestique of Adam Yates and Dani Martinez, and, more importantly, as a Welshman who may or may not even make the starting line.

Until his victory in the Tour de Suisse 10 days ago, Thomas had had a season of obscurity. And that was despite a good spring performance that was effectively blown up in smoke when he crashed in a speed bump early in the Tour.

Thomas rode the last few races before starting to negotiate a contract extension. The new contract was not, of course, as lucrative as the one he had signed as Tour de France champion, but Thomas' position had changed noticeably, and his job description was revised to include an old rewind plan to "mentor the team's younger riders."

But Thomas was probably not ready to give up all his personal ambitions. He believed that even if he did not get paid, he could put himself in the position he needed to return to leadership again.

"Since November, these two have led the team. Personally, I hope to be there when it's time and have a positive impact on the race. When it comes to the finals, who knows?"

"I've been working with them for a long time.

Thomas admitted that the opening week of the Tour, which features time trials, wind, and cobblestones, suits him better than Yates and Martinez, who were recently hit hard by COVID-19. However, there was no tension at all about who of the two would end up at the top of the trifecta.

In fact, Thomas' relaxed demeanor extended throughout the press conference, which was something new in itself for a team whose media relations at the Tour are often testy.

This is a new ineos, one that invests in young people and follows a more adventurous style of racing. As Thomas points out, that may be necessary under the circumstances, but that approach will be reflected for the first time in the Tour.

"The big difference is that we don't have a winner. In the past it has always been (Chris) Froome, Brad (Wiggins), myself, and Egan (Bernal) who have been the big favorites. Now Primosz Roglic and Tadej Pogaczal are the MVPs of the last few years," Thomas explained.

"We can't run the same way anymore. If we pull all day and set the tempo and go man-to-man, they're hard to beat. But we have the numbers here and we want to use them in the right situations to our advantage. That's the big change."

Thomas apologized for his "runaround" on Sunday, when he refused to give numbers to his and his teammates' aspirations for the three weeks in Paris. In fact, he listed the widest possible range of results, from "stage wins" to "times in yellow," "podiums," "wins," and "top 5."

"Who knows," he said, and by emphasizing the importance of "process," he was uttering an old Sky phrase. He added that "a lot of things go right and wrong in the Tour," and described the opening week as "pure luck."

And that is why Thomas is so calm. Thomas has won before and has been burned before.