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news
Geraint Thomas in yellow, Tour de France 2018 (picture courtesy Anne Martin).JPGFrom Cardiff to Paris - Geraint Thomas's journey to the yellow jersey
Two of Cardiff’s landmark buildings – the City Hall, dating from 1906, and the Senedd, home of the Welsh Assembly and completed more than a century later in 2008, will be lit up in yellow this weekend to celebrate Geraint Thomas’s Tour de France victory. It’s been some journey for the 32-year-old, whose latest success seals his place in the pantheon of Welsh sporting legends.
Born in the Welsh capital in 1986, Thomas attended Whitchurch High School, where he was a couple of years above Real Madrid star Gareth Bale, and former Wales and British & Ireland Lions captain Sam Warburton, both of whom are aged 29.
His start in cycling came at Maindy Velodrome, which lies between Whitchurch and the city centre and where he rode alongside Luke Rowe, Team Sky’s road captain during the past three weeks after making a remarkable recovery from shattering his leg while on his brother’s stage weekend last year.
His talent saw him recruited to the British Cycling Academy programme and success on the track and the road followed, including the 2004 edition of Paris-Roubaix Juniors.
In 2008, he won Olympic gold in the team pursuit at the Beijing Olympics, at which point he was still combining his road and track career, having made his Tour de France debut with Barloworld the previous year when he was the youngest rider in the race.
After the 2009 season, Thomas and Barloworld team mate Chris Froome moved to the new British UCI WorldTour outfit, Team Sky, which also reunited the Welshman with another member of that gold medal winning quartet from Beijing, Bradley Wiggins.
Since joining Sky, the wins have come, initially principally in one-day races - the 2010 national road title, and after several podium places in cobbled Classics and then, victory in the 2015 E3 Harelneke, the year after he had won the 2014 Commonwealth Games road race in Glasgow.
By then, his focus was firmly on stage racing, his first victory coming in the Bayern Rundfahrt in 2011, a race he would also win in 2014. Several other stage race victories have followed, including the two most prestigious outside the Grand Tours - Paris-Nice in 2016 and, this year, the Criterium du Dauphine.
Thomas missed the 2012 Tour de France, won by Wiggins, due to his return to the track to successfully help Team GB defend the team pursuit Olympic title at London 2012, but has ridden every edition of the race since, twice finishing 15th overall while riding for Froome.
At last year’s Tour de France, he took the yellow jersey after winning the Prologue in Dusseldorf, but crashed out of the race when he broke his collarbone after crashing on a descent on Stage 9, just two months after he’d been put out of the Giro d’Italia when he hit a race moto that had been parked on the wrong side of the road.
Thomas has had more than his fair share of bad luck with injuries over the years. A crash on a training ride in Sydney in 2005 led to his spleen being removed, and in 2009 broke his pelvis during the time trial at Tirreno-Adriatico.
He also broke his pelvis in a crash on the opening day of the 2013 Tour de France, but rode on and completed the race.
A lot of the fans of a man many consider to be one of the nicest and most unassuming riders in the peloton will have had their fingers crossed for no repeat of that misfortune over the past week and a half when back-to-back stage wins in the Alps saw him get into yellow – and tonight, they will be celebrating and raising a beer or two in his honour.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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23 comments
What a lovely article albeit ruined by scutters comments trolling for their own agenda bias.
I remember a time on this site before BTBS, Don Simon and Yorkshire Wallet monopolised the comments section. I'm getting more than a bit tired of their bickering...
Although i've only been posting a matter of weeks i have been an avid reader of the site for many a year and over that time there has been many posters who constantly bickered with each other, some were quite funny, a bit like a married couple, whereas there's others who are blatantly abusive for no other reason than they just disagree on a topic.
I must say though BTBS sounds very similar to another poster, who is no longer with us, called superpython59 (i think that was the name) who was also abusive for no apparent reason, is there a link i ask myself
Yet another win for an adopted Monaguesque. Considering its tiny size, Monaco does seem to have an extraordinary success rate in cycling and motorsports, even compared with more pleasant cities nearby like Nice or Genoa.
And what about all the premier league footballers with their offshore management companies so they avoid paying UK tax, does that make their nationality Cayman, Jersey, IOM, Monaco et al. What about other sports high earners who call themselves British but actually pay bugger all tax, Louis Hamilton, any of the golfers, what about high earners in industry who avoid tax, are they now not British.
You're worse than the French that boo team SKY, at least they do it to their face rather than the pathetic keyboard warriors on here!
I think I would happily tell G to his face that he is wrong to live in Monaco, and congratulate him on winning. They aren't incompatible viewpoints.
I wouldn't expect him to live in the UK any more - he is a pro-bike rider and needs mountains and an airport. I would hope he would not be as selfish as the likes of that driver bloke you mention.
Mic drop fkin legend !!
Forgotten to congratulate Aussie owned Team SKY too.
Nothing wrong with English born darren, if you're going to patronise, do your homework for fear of looking foolish.
If we want to play this game then France didn't win the world cup, it's various colonies did.
Where does it stop?
I'm giving dreamlx10 credit in that it was meant to say English born winner rather than English, which to all intents and purposes is the same. I'd say that Australian is irrelevant, Wiggo was born in Belgium, no question about that.
Trolling is only a troll when people respond and you seem intent on making it a troll.
Geraint Thomas 1st Welshman to win Le Tour.
I agree (and am delighted) with the last bit.
I'll take your word for it on the middle bit.
I have to disagree with the first bit. No question that Wiggins was born in Belgium, but that's the part that is irrelevant. If we really are looking for an English born winner as opposed to a person born abroad, but raised in England by his English mother after his foreign father fucked off almost from the start, then I'm out.
A Belgian/Australian, a Kenyan, and now a Welshman, will there ever be an English winner of the Tour ?
I’m no expert, but this is trolling, right?
I don't think so, Eurosport mentioned it yesterday in the form of Geraint being the first British winner being born on the island and I don't think that they're trolls. It's called a fact.
OK. This all goes against my usual nature on here as the inability to discuss without personal abuse being slung drives me nuts, but here we go...
Bradley Wiggins is English. Not every English person was born in England and has English parents. Wiggins actually has an English mother and grew up in London from a very young age, something his accent reflects.
I'm not questioning the facts when it is said G is the first British winner born on the island, but I am disagreeing with the statement that Wiggins is 'Belgian/Australian' (his mother not important then?) and am suggesting that saying that, along with 'will there ever be an English winner of the Tour?' is a deliberate attempt to provoke.
Again, I'm no expert, but this is trolling, right?
(presses 'save', with trepidation and a heavy heart)
[/quote]
I’m no expert
[/quote]
Correct
You class Wiggins as Belgian/Australian due to the fact his father is an Aussie and he happened to be born in Belgium but you neglect to factor in the person who made it all possible by actually conceiving and giving birth to him; his ENGLISH mother. Must try harder, bitter troll.
Did you mean BRITISH mother ?
Wiggins is English and always has been, in fact he's a pies supporter (that's Wigan RL to the uneducated), Froome is British, he has always seen himself as British as do his family, his parents are English, his dad was an England hockey rep at u19, his grandparents are English on both sides. Thomas is Welsh born but it matters not, English/Welsh/Scottish/N.Ireland, they reperesent Gt Britain & NI/UK all the same.
At the end of the day saddos like you and Don Simon only have bitterness in your life, you'll end up hacking your wrists one of these days!
You're a pleasant cunt, aren't you?
Let me know when I'm getting to you
At least a rider born in England won the super combative award...