FRENCH BREAD OF HEAVEN

Welshman Thomas cleans up in Paris and helps to wash away the dirt thrown at previous champions

GERAINT THOMAS is the clean face of cycling who has scattered the clouds around Team Sky.

As Britain’s third winner of the Tour de France since 2012 was crowned on the Champselysees, it was like a call to arms for a bruised sport’s dirt-diggers to lay down their shovels.

Thomas does not suffer from asthma and has never applied for a therapeutic use exemption to take banned substances.

In a race where the winner has been stripped of the title for assorted doping offences nine times in the last 20 years, cycling’s Prince of Wales refuels only on bowls of rice.

And as he slipped on the Yellow Jersey, which fits him like an emperor’s robes, Thomas admitted: “I’ve certainly got the taste for it.”

Six times in seven years Brits have rolled into Paris as masters of a three-week showpiece of endurance, but their achievements have not been accepted with unqualified reverence.

Sir Bradley Wiggins was been stalked by politicians, anonymous accusers and Russian hackers, while fourtimes champion Chris Froome’s salbutamol case followed him across France.

Thomas, however, has a spotless reputation to go with the new £4million-a-year contract until 2021 tabled by his employers. Team Sky, whose whiter-than-white mission statement had long since faded to greyer-than-grey, struck gold when they signed him.

And when the champion rolled into the capital’s boulevards, serenaded by thousands of Welsh emissaries in good voice, it felt like a ceasefire in the fusillade of cheap shots aimed at cycling.

Of the last 146 stages in France’s showcase bike race, a British rider has worn yellow in 89 of them – all but one (Mark Cavendish at Utah Beach in 2016) in Sky’s colours. Their domination generated jealousy of their £31m budget and resentment of their mantra, The Only Way Is Ethics.

But Thomas, a double Olympic champion on the track, will be a poster boy for home-grown, champion athletes on the road.

He is popular in the peloton, as the barrage of goodwill messages – including one from Swiss Olympic time trial gold medallist Fabian Cancellara – sending his mobile phone into meltdown attests.

“It’s really nice to get texts off guys on other teams,” said the 32-year-old. “It gives you a good feeling when fellow riders congratulate you and they are genuine about it. Fabian Cancellara just messaged me, and it’s nice when you get that from people you’ve raced with who achieved so much.

“I’ve certainly got the taste for it. This year I’ve really enjoyed racing for stage wins and being aggressive – almost racing on instinct.

“The first stage I won was purely based on that. It wasn’t planned, it just happened. It would be nice to win more Grand Tours, but if I do nothing for the rest of my career, I can be happy.”

Team Sky may need to revise upwards some of the numbers in their contract offer to Thomas, but he was in no mood to haggle when sipping champagne on the procession into Paris.

He has had too many snapshots for the family album to absorb to worry about a nought here or there on his payslip.

Thomas said: “What happens next year? I don’t know – I haven’t thought about it. I’ll have to in the next couple of weeks, but at the moment I