Geraint Thomas never looked for the limelight. A loyal domestique for most of his career, the Welshman often rode in the service of others, pulling into the wind at Grand Tours and collecting bottles for his team-mates. When opportunities arose for him to lead, though, he made sure to take them.
This Sunday, Thomas called time on a 19-year career as one of the greats of British cycling. Across those two decades, he won 25 times on the road – most notably the Tour de France in 2018 – and enjoyed success on the track, too.
5) Beijing Olympics 2008
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Twenty-two years old and fresh-faced, Thomas’s first major victory was one of his biggest: Olympic gold in the team pursuit.
At the Beijing Games in China, more than 5,000 miles as the crow flies from his hometown of Cardiff, Thomas was part of a quartet with Bradley Wiggins, Ed Clancy and Paul Manning that smashed the Danes in the final, and kickstarted a golden era in team pursuiting for the Brits.
On his Olympic debut, Thomas and his team-mates broke the world record twice on the way to the title; once in the semifinal, and then in the final. He would go on to successfully defend the gold medal four years later in London, again breaking the world record twice.
4) British National Championships (2010)
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It was a Team Sky 1-2-3 in the road race at the British National Championships in 2010, Thomas leading the results ahead of Pete Kennaugh and Ian Stannard.
The race played out like a Classic. Having whittled down the field, the three team-mates charged towards the final lap of a circuit in Lancashire, where their team boss, Dave Brailsford, pulled alongside them in a car to congratulate them. Stannard was dropped soon after, leaving Thomas and Kennaugh to jostle to the finish, the Welshman opening up his sprint first to take his maiden elite victory at 24 years old.
“Life couldn’t be much better,” Thomas said afterwards. “The Nationals is something that everyone dreams of, myself included, and it has always been in the back of my mind.”
The following week he travelled to the Tour de France, where he raced for the first time in the national bands.
3) E3 Harelbeke (2015)
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Never before in the almost 60-year history of E3 Harelbeke had a Brit won the race.
Thomas, winner of Paris-Roubaix Juniors in 2004, was part of a breakaway move with Zdeněk Štybar and Peter Sagan, the rider who would go on to win the World Championships later in the year. Inside 5km to go, the Welshman charged up a flyer, attacking on a nondescript residential road in Belgium. He then ducked into the wind and ploughed ahead to the line.
The victory, in the end, was resounding. Twenty-five seconds separated Thomas and Štybar in Harelbeke. The Team Sky rider’s opportunistic nous revealed another tactical feather in his hat. History was made for Great Britain.
2) Tour de France stage one (2017)
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There was perhaps something homely about the rain in Düsseldorf during the Tour de France’s German Grand Départ in 2017. Thomas may not have known the banks of the Rhine River well, but the wet roads of the route that lined them were akin to those of South Wales. They suited him to a tee.
The Tour that year opened with a 14km individual time trial. Home hopes were pinned on Tony Martin, who was the world time trial champion at the time. Faced with such testing conditions, Thomas revealed afterwards that he “didn’t know what to expect”. His tactic? “I just went out there and rode hard.”
What that earned him was his first Grand Tour victory – a narrow five seconds ahead of Stefan Küng in second, and Martin eight seconds adrift – as well the coveted yellow jersey.
Thomas went on to keep the jersey for three more stages. Little did he know what would follow in 12 months.
1) Tour de France stage 12 – Alpe d’Huez (2018)
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“Alpe d’Huez, man,” was about all Thomas could muster in the stuffy Alpine air of 19 July 2018. At 32 years old, the Team Sky rider had just taken the biggest victory of his career, and the one that would become forever tied to his legacy.
Stage winner the previous day to La Rosière, Thomas had earned himself what many thought would only be a stint in the yellow jersey. On his team, too, was defending champion Chris Froome, who would surely take over later in the mountains. Thomas couldn’t hold on, could he?
Alpe d’Huez would bring the testing ground for that question. Pitched at 1,860m altitude, the mountain’s 21 hairpins made it one of the Tour’s most feared climbs. To win there is to write your name into legend, each rider earning a plaque bearing their name on a bend.
Towed by his debutant team-mate Egan Bernal, Thomas climbed unscathed through the hairpins. He then came into the finale alongside Tom Dumoulin, Romain Bardet, Mikel Landa and Froome, with one left-hander to take them onto the finishing straight.
It was here that Thomas’s racing instinct kicked in. With 200m to go, he swung wide to the right-hand side of the road, whipped around Landa, and took a jump on the pack. Hands gripping the drops, he then rose out of the saddle and kicked away. His now iconic celebration, fists clenched by his side, marked the first victory ever by a rider wearing the yellow jersey at the Alpe’s summit.
“Can we just go to Paris now?” Thomas said afterwards, but continued to pledge his allegiance to riding for Froome. Whether he meant it or not is now trivial. The record books tell us Thomas would go on to win the Tour, with less than two minute’s advantage over Dumoulin. Froome came third.
As he took to the stage in Paris, a yellow jersey winner, Thomas managed the occasion with his usual relaxed demeanour. “Vive le Tour,” he smiled to the crowds, then held out his microphone and dropped it on the floor.
Honourable near-misses
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Across his career, Thomas made a habit of winning major stage races. His palmarès counts overall victories at the Critérium du Dauphiné, Paris-Nice, Tour de Suisse, Tour de Romandie, and, of course, the Tour de France. But it wasn’t only his wins that showed his class.
Five times the Welshman finished on the podium of Grand Tours. After his yellow jersey triumph in 2018, he placed runner-up to team-mate Bernal the following year. Still, even more impressive was his third place in 2022, when he finished behind Tadej Pogačar and winner Jonas Vingegaard.
At the time, Thomas was 10 years older than his podium companions, but doggedly tapped out his own rhythm to stay in contention. “I made it look easy, didn’t I?” he later joked to Cycling Weekly.
Less than 12 months on, at the 2023 Giro d’Italia, Thomas came within seconds – 14, to be exact – of winning a second Grand Tour, ultimately losing out to Primož Roglič. The 37-year-old’s runner-up place made him the oldest podium finisher in the race’s history, beating his own record from the year before.
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