Britain’s 2018 Tour de France winner, riding for Ineos Grenadiers, had fallen in cold and wet conditions while challenging Canada's Michael Woods for the penultimate stage win and race lead.

But today he easily made up the 11 seconds lead gained by Woods as he produced an expected final flourish in the time trial around Fribourg to win this International Cycling Union (UCI) WorldTour race.

Thomas finished third, 17 seconds behind the winner on the day, Remi Cavagna of Deceuninck-QuickStep, who finished in 21min 54sec, and 11 seconds behind second-placed Stefan Bissegger of EF-Nippo.

In a post-race interview with CyclingPro the previous day following his fall in cold and wet conditions, Thomas said that his right hand had slipped off the handlebars as he tried to change gears mid-sprint, causing him to crash.

"I had no feeling whatsoever in my hands and I tried to change gear but instead I just lost the bars," he said.

"It’s so frustrating because even if I had just stayed in that gear and came second place -  but to deck it there, I feel like a right whopper."

While Thomas was on the ground, Ben O'Connor, riding for AG2R Citroën, had passed him for second place, but he managed to get up and cross the line in third, 21 seconds behind Woods.

But Thomas’s time of 22min 11sec was more than enough to see him top the general classification with 17 hr 59 min 57 sec, with team-mate Richie Porte of Australia, who finished fifth today at 20 seconds back, second overall, 28 seconds behind him.

Italy’s Fausto Masnada, riding for Deceuninck-QuickStep finished overall third, 38 seconds back, after taking sixth place today, and Marc Soler of Spain, riding for Movistar, was a second behind him in fourth place.

Woods, who had led going into the final day, finished fifth overall, 43 seconds back, with O’Connor sixth on 45 seconds.