Geraint Thomas set to add Tour de France victory to his Olympic gold medals
GERAINT Thomas has broken down in tears after a composed time trial performance ensured he would win the Tour de France.
GERAINT Thomas has broken down in tears after a composed time trial performance ensured he would win the Tour de France.
Thomas will seal the biggest win of his life on Sunday on the Champs Elysees after finishing third in Saturday’s hilly 31km race against the clock.
The Welshman was 13 seconds behind Team Sky teammate Chris Froome and 14 behind stage winner Tom Dumoulin - the same trio that will stand stand on the Champs Elysees podium.
Thomas, who had kept his emotions in-check since since seizing the yellow jersey on Stage 11, started crying as the enormity of his achievement sunk in.
“I can’t believe it. I’m welling up, man. I don’t know what to say. It’s just ... overwhelming. I didn’t think about it all race, and now suddenly... I won the Tour. Man,” Thomas said.
“I felt good, I felt strong. I felt really good, actually. I heard I was up and maybe I was pushing it a bit hard on some of those corners. Nico (Team Sky sports director Nicolas Portal) told me to relax, take it easy and just make sure I won the Tour. And that’s what I did.
“I can’t speak. It’s just incredible. I believed I could beat the guys here, but to do it on the biggest stage of all, over three weeks, it’s insane. The last time I cried was when I got married. I don’t know what’s happened to me.”
It is Team Sky’s sixth Tour title in eight years, but in Thomas they have a fresh face poised to stand on the top step.
The Welshman’s win was fully deserved after he won two stages, both of them summit finishes in the Alps, and answered every challenge his rivals threw at him.
And as a long-time domestique working in the service of others, this is his overdue moment in the spotlight.
Dumoulin’s win in French Basque Country was made all the more impressive after an early morning “wardrobe malfunction” threatened to ruin his day.
The Dutchman lost his world champion skinsuit, forcing Team Sunweb officials into a panicked rush to find a last-minute replacement.
“This morning we found out that we lost the skinsuit, so Etxeondo, our sponsor, they’re from the Basque Country on the Spanish side and they made a new one. They were sewing it this morning,” Dumoulin said.
“I always give some stuff at the beginning of the Tour to the bus or the truck so that I don’t need to carry it around for three weeks. My bag with all my skinsuit and everything got lost. It was a bit of a panic.”
Froome, who had earlier finished more than a minute faster than Roglic to take back third place overall, was ahead of Dumoulin at every checkpoint until the finish line.
“That’s crazy. I didn’t know anything about the split times. I still thought Froome was one second ahead of me when I crossed the line,” Dumoulin said.
“Everyone was saying I was second by one second. Wow, what an amazing last day.”
Roglic had won many admirers for his aggressive initiative, but fatigue appeared to catch up with him at the end of what is only his third three-week race. He will finish fourth, with Lotto Jumbo teammate Stephen Kruijswijk back in fifth.
“I did what I could. I’m happy with it. It was what we could manage at the moment,” Roglic said.
“For sure there are no regrets. It has been a crazy Tour. I’m really happy and proud.”
Sunday’s largely ceremonial 115km stage into Paris will see Peter Sagan awarded a sixth green jersey, while Julian Alaphilippe will be crowned the king of the mountains.
Frenchman Pierre Latour is the best young rider.
THOMAS DESTINED FOR GREATNESS
At 32, the new Tour de France champion is everything but an overnight success.
Growing up on the outskirts of Cardiff, Wales, Thomas started bike racing at 10, and his exceptional qualities did not remain unnoticed for long.
“I first saw him when he was about 13 or 14 and he joined me at 17,” says Rod Ellingworth, the performance director at Team Sky who also trained Thomas as a British team coach. “You could see straightaway he was just flying round the track, he was pretty good. As he joined the junior program, you just knew he was going to be pretty talented.”
Thomas’ first successes came on the track.
In 2006, he was the youngest member of the British pursuit team that competed at the world championships.
In 2008, he won the Olympic gold medal alongside Wiggins.
Four years later in London, with a second gold medal secured in the same event, Thomas left track cycling to focus on road racing.
Described by his coaches as a dedicated professional with a healthy and a balanced lifestyle, Thomas had already showed immense skills on the road from winning the Paris-Roubaix junior race in 2004.
“Geraint’s ambition was classics first,” Ellingworth says. “Then he rode the Tour in 2007 and three years later he wore the white jersey (for the best young rider). He had this ambition to win the Tour in the back of his mind.”
Riding for the Barloworld team at the time, Thomas was the youngest cyclist to start that 2007 Tour when it began from London.
“He spent most of the time at the back of the peloton that year and nobody thought he would finish the race,” Brailsford recalls. “He still made it. It showed his character.”
Thomas, who is nicknamed “G” in the peloton, finished 140th, second to last.
Years later, he signalled himself as a potential Grand Tour winner when he won the week-long Paris-Nice in 2016.
According to Ellingworth, that victory ahead of two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador was a turning point.
But Thomas, who has been a Sky rider since 2010, went through pain and injuries the next season, being forced to retire from the Tour and the Giro because of crashes.
He still wore the yellow jersey at the Tour after winning the opening time trial but broke his collarbone in a downhill crash in the Alps.
“This year, he arrived at the Tour in very good shape and his win at the Criterium du Dauphine in the build-up gave him a confidence boost,” Brailsford says. “This victory was of great importance.”
As in previous years, Thomas started the Tour to help Froome try and win for a record-equalling fifth time. But Froome crashed in the first stage and lost time, then cracked in the Pyrenees while Thomas’ tremendous form was rewarded with impressive wins in the Alps.
Sky, and particularly Froome, were subject to abuse during this tour after Froome was cleared of a doping case only days before the start.
But Thomas looked immune to the boos and jeers that accompanied them through this 3350-kilometre odyssey.
He won back-to-back mountain stages and became the first British rider to win at the Alpe d’Huez.
He sealed his victory with a third-place finish on Saturday in the challenging time trial.
“He is really laid back, but not like he does not care,” Ellingworth says. “He is really detailed about what he does. He is really confident in himself and uses his people very well. You don‘t mind going the extra mile for him.”
Thomas lives and trains in Monaco with his wife but often returns to Cardiff to socialise with friends and family.
For a long time, he had a reputation as a party boy, always up for a few beers while watching a rugby match.
“Like much young British guys, he likes a drink or two, but he is not wild,” Ellingworth says. “When he was with me full-time, we lived in Manchester or in Italy. I encouraged him to get out and get it out of his system, in a way. He just enjoys life. He also got older, he got married, and things have settled down.”
Now he’s at the peak of his career but out of contract with Sky at the end of the season. Thomas has yet to decide on his future with the British outfit.
Brailsford is confident he will remain a Sky rider, while Ellingworth insists Thomas’ “mental abilities” and love for bike racing will spur him to continue.
“He is loyal, I never had any doubts about it. When the team needed him, he was always there,” Brailsford says. “After all these years spent giving to others, he finally got rewarded.”