Geraint’s lockdown fundraiser

GERAINT Thomas has been replicating the shifts of an NHS worker – but on his bike.

He set out to ride 36 hours on a turbo trainer in his garage to raise £100,000 for the NHS and he’d passed that sum well before the end of the first of his three planned 12-hour ‘shifts’ on Thursday.

G, as he’s known, had never before spent longer than eight and a half hours in the saddle and, ahead of the charity challenge, he said that, timewise, the 36 hours would be close to eight or nine stages of the Tour.

“Obviously it’s a lot slower, but physically it will be tough and mentally it’s even harder,” he said. “But that’s what I wanted, a challenge.

“The NHS means a lot to everyone,” added Geraint. “We all know someone who works for the NHS in some shape or form and everyone understands the commitment they are making.”

He has close connections with healthcare workers. His best man when he married Sara in 2015 was Ian Middleton, a GP, while his mum Hilary has come out of retirement for a third time to offer her services at Velindre Cancer Centre in Whitchurch, Cardiff.

“She has retired three times, but she keeps going back again,” he said. “When this pandemic came along, she rang them up and said, ‘Do you want me to come back?’ – so she is doing two days a week.”

He was logged in on Zwift, the virtual platform which allowed others to join in for stints of his ride and chat to him on social media, while Wales’ record try scorer Shane Williams, 43, had signed up to join Geraint throughout all three days.

“He’s done Ironman stuff before and he was well into it,” Geraint said about Shane, admitting he’d been “trying to bully” Wales rugby wing George North into doing it. “But he (George) is not having any of it,” Geraint joked.

Thirty-six hours on a turbo trainer is far removed from the three-week Tour itself, which has been postponed by two months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, Geraint finished second to Ineos teammate Egan Bernal and, in 2020, both are targeting the top place again as is four-time winner Chris Froome who’s making a comeback from career-threatening injuries suffered in last year’s Criterium du Dauphine.

The 107th edition of the Tour had been due to begin in Nice on June 27 and finish in Paris on July 19, but the opening stage will now take place on August 29 with the finale on September 20.