Thomas firmly on course
Welshman on the brink of sporting immortality
As the 2018 Tour de France enters its final stage, the cyclist’s friends and teammates recall a ‘pretty straightforward guy’
Almost everyone who has played a formative role in the life of Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas describes him as a quiet, modest man with a mischievous sense of humour. But this weekend he stands on the brink of the kind of sporting immortality that only a few extremely talented athletes reach.
Thomas heads into final competitive stage of the Tour de France, the world’s hardest and most prestigious bicycle race, in the leader’s yellow jersey. If he holds off competition from the Dutch rider Tom Dumoulin in the hilly time trial in the Basque country, he will be able to enjoy a celebratory glass of champagne on the ceremonial ride to the finish line in Paris.
Not only will he be riding into cycling history, he will be starting a new life as a sporting superstar. He will become the first Welshman and only the third British cyclist to win the Tour since the gruelling near-threeweek-long race began at the dawn of the 20th century.
It may not be an easy transition. Sir Bradley Wiggins’s Tour victory in 2012 may have brought him untold wealth and acclaim — far exceeding that of all his then seven Olympic medals — but he loathed the attention and longed for things to go back to normal.
Yet many of the people who knew Thomas in his early days, as first a budding track and then talented club cyclist in Cardiff, are convinced that he will remain the same unassuming boy with a wry smile who beat riders twice his age.
His former childhood coach, Debbie Wharton, who trained him at the Maindy Flyers velodrome in Cardiff in the early 1990s, says he won’t let fame go to his head. “I don’t think it will change him at all. He’s already coped tremendously well with his Olympic success,” Wharton says.
He told her to keep fighting and said well done to her little brother for being such a good brother. It had the whole family in tears.” Debbie Wharton » Thomas’ former childhood coach
Video message
It seems he never forgets those who have helped him reach this defining moment. Despite the intense exertion of cycling 2,082 miles over 21 stages, he has taken time out to send a video message to Wharton’s 14-year-old daughter, who is ill. “He told her to keep fighting and said well done to her little brother for being such a good brother. It had the whole family in tears,” she says.
Andy Hoskins, who cycled with the teenage Thomas at Cardiff’s Just in Front cycling club, says he will cope well with the inevitable media storm if he wins. “I think Geraint will thrive on it. He’s just a pretty straightforward guy,” he says.
Hoskins remembers Thomas winning races when he was under 16, but also putting aside his own ambitions to help his teammates. “Geraint was in a winning position, but he let one of his older clubmates take the win. He realised this guy wouldn’t get many more chances. As well as being talented, he is selfless.”
Thomas’s modest character was already apparent at Wales’s largest comprehensive, Whitchurch high school, which has a remarkable record of producing great athletes, including Real Madrid footballer Gareth Bale and former Welsh international rugby player Sam Warburton. Headmaster Huw Jones-Williams says Thomas did not have the same profile as Bale and Warburton at the school: “The quiet, silent ones can end up being the superstars of tomorrow. He was not a shouter or a gloater.”
But Jones-Williams says that Thomas now stands on the verge of becoming arguably Wales’ greatest ever sportsman: “If he wins, then he will further secure his place among the world sporting elite of any era.”
The athletics legend called Michael Johnson came to town. Even though well past his sporting prime, Johnson waltzed in with a bagful of promises — which if followed, could greatly alter the sporting landscape of the UAE and the region.
Johnson, who was in Dubai earlier this week to oversee the opening of Michael Johnson Performance (MJP) at Mina Rashid in Bur Dubai in October, is now offering his experience and expertise in order to fulfil the dreams of a nation in touching sporting pinnacles internationally.
First launched in McKinney, Texas, in 2007, MJP is an internationally recognised leader in athletic development and improvement. The facility is meant to offer members the ultimate fitness experience with individual personal training sessions, group fitness classes, sports medicine and nutrition, and athletic development programmes for young athletes, and high-performance training programmes for professional athletes all under one roof.
Given his pedigree of four Olympic gold medals and another eight World Championships gold medals, it is no vain boast when Johnson comes calling. More than once he has stood apart to prove his uniqueness of being considered one of the greatest and most consistent sprinters in the history of track and field.
As part of the build-up to the 2012 London Olympics, Johnson made a documentary, Survival of the Fastest, for Channel 4 which investigated the dominance of Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean sprinters. Among other things, the programme touched on the rather controversial aspect that one of the side effects of the slave trade may have been to accelerate natural selection as only the very fittest could survive the brutal process, resulting in a population predisposed to superior athletic performances.
“I doubt I have reinvented Einstein’s theory,” Johnson admits to Gulf News in a chat after inspecting the 38,750 square feet facility located in the heart of Mina Rashid in Bur Dubai. “I think what we have been able to do in the MJP is to really be innovative through so many different sports. We are not unique to athletes or basketball or football and the focus is on every aspect such as speed, strength, power, agility and stamina for any sport. What makes us unique is that working with athletes from 35 sports from 20 countries we are able to learn a lot from the athletes and coaches and we apply these learnings to all other countries.”
Over the past decade MJP has evolved as a global leader in sports performance works with numerous Olympic teams and football clubs, including English Premier League (EPL) sides Manchester United and Arsenal, and has operations in more than 20 countries around the world. MJP became a reality in Dubai due to the persistence of Adnan Al Abbar, Senior Vice-President at DP World Group Planning and Project Management, who is keen to provide every citizen of the UAE with an opportunity to excel in his chosen sport through the launch of this new venture.
“Our programmes are designed to help anyone be the best that they can be,” Johnson says matter-of-factly.
“Obviously the earlier we can start the better chance we can have to help that person reach their potential. In terms of being that ideal sportsperson, you need to have natural ability, be one of those humans who was born with a unique athletic supremacy. Once you have this, then you’ve got to have the attitude, but that comes later,” he affirms.
Born and raised in Dallas, Texas as the youngest of five children, Johnson’s parents were a truck driver and a schoolteacher. But that didn’t stop the lean, young boy from setting high goals for himself since he began running competitively at age 10. At Baylor University, the promising Johnson was coached by Clyde Hart who put him on the path to several NCAA titles in both indoor and outdoor sprints and relays. Among his early collegiate feats, Johnson broke the school record for the 200 metres in his very first race with a time of 20.41 seconds, and in the 4×400-metre relay he clocked a leg at 43.5 seconds.
Since those early beginnings, Johnson has run the 200 metres in under 19.80 seconds six times, and he has run the distance in less than 20 seconds on an amazing 23 occasions. He holds nine of the top-50 200-metre performances of all time. In addition, Johnson has run 22 400m races in under 44 seconds while going on to hold 22 of the top-50 and five of the top-10 400-metre performances of all time. Over the course of his amazing international career, he twice set the world record in the 200 metres, three times set the world record as part of the 4 × 400-metre relay team, twice set the indoor 400-metre world record, set the outdoor 400-metre world record once, and set the 300-metre mark once.
“Being in sport is not a job when a child is 8 or 9 years old. The idea is to bring them along slowly and methodically while developing their athleticism that will eventually help them in reaching their potential. This is a process and this is the same way I was able to develop as an athlete. I was trained to be the best 12-year-old or 13-year-old. The pressure part of it came later on,” he adds.
Tailored programmes
“Not all of the kids that we are working with are going to become professional athletes in their chosen sport. They are just trying to enjoy the sport they are participating in at the moment. Parents are the primary roots to recognise that as long as their kids are involved in sports they are going to be better students in school, they are going to likely stay out of trouble and that they are going to be more mentally prepared for life because of the lessons they learn on the field. In Dubai too, we will be offering programmes that are specifically tailored to young kids, designed to help them enjoy sport and be active and have fun at the same time. Of course there will be some of those kids who are talented and who will have a future in sport,” Johnson says.
I think what we have been able to do in the MJP is to really be innovative through so many different sports. We are not unique to athletes or basketball... the focus is on every aspect such as speed, strength, power, agility and stamina.”
Michael Johnson | MJP founder