Look that says my husband’s just won the Tour de France!
Now the Welsh wonder’s set to make millions
BACK in 1995, an inquisitive nineyear-old boy on his way to swimming peered through a fence and spotted his local cycle club training. Geraint Thomas couldn’t wait to give it a shot and within days he was zipping about in his baggy shorts and trainers. Yesterday, the Welshman – now 32 – wore tight-fitting Lycra and the coveted yellow jersey of the Tour de France champion. Waiting for him at the finish line in Paris was the ecstatic wife who has helped drive him to the top of his sport, Sara, 27. Thomas, who sipped champagne in traditional fashion during yesterday’s final Tour stage, described his victory as ‘insane’ and ‘the stuff of dreams’. He spoke of the ‘goosebumps’ he felt riding through Paris watched by hordes of fans waving the Union Jack and the Welsh flag. A proud Cardiff boy with a down-to- earth personality, he said he was now looking forward to ‘normality’ by watching breakfast TV in bed with a coffee. The £445,000 he wins from the victory will be shared with his Team Sky colleagues, but sponsorship from his success is likely to boost his earnings into the millions. With Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome’s success, it is the sixth win in the last seven years by a British rider. A dedicated athlete, Thomas has previously spoken of his frustration over the ‘monkish’ lifestyle needed to get to the top. His career has already brought him two Olympic golds on the track as part of Team GB. But the Tour de France victory will propel the laidback Arsenal fan to sporting stardom. Thomas married his Sara in Cardiff in 2015 and the couple now live in a 15th floor Monaco apartment. She certainly won’t let success go to his head. In 2016 when he completed 20 stages of the Tour de France in agony from a fractured hip, she tweeted that he may have ridden with a broken bone ‘but can’t sort his washing because it “gives him a sore back”’. Even before that fractured hip drama he has been no stranger to the perils of cycling races, having his spleen removed after a freak crash while training in Australia aged 18. He is regarded as a mischievous character in a world of sometimes one- dimensional single-minded athletes where he is known simply as ‘G’. After Kenya-born Chris Froome – four times winner of the Tour – committed the unforgivable slur of referring to him as English in his autobiography, Thomas hit back in his own book by suggesting his team-mate was from South Africa. He now has another important chapter to write.