Cycling: Geraint Thomas conquers the Tour de France

“Brits used to flock to France to buy holiday homes in the Dordogne,” said Paul Hayward in The Daily Telegraph. “Now they go over there to win the Tour de France.” First it was Bradley Wiggins; then Chris Froome. And this Sunday, Geraint Thomas, like his predecessors riding for Team Sky, became the latest British cyclist to join the Tour’s winners’ club. He is the first Welshman ever to win cycling’s biggest race. This was a “meticulously planned” victory, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian. But it was also a “slightly accidental one”. When the Tour began, Froome was still Sky’s leading cyclist; Thomas was a mere “underdog”. Yet over the following three weeks the 32-year-old went from strength to strength, and by the time he reached the Champs-élysées on Sunday, he resembled “a conquering king”. Thomas hasn’t exactly come out of nowhere, said Tom Cary in The Sunday Telegraph. At the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, he took gold in the team pursuit; he has won a number of important road races, among them Paris-nice and the Critérium du Dauphiné. But on the Tour, he had previously been “the embodiment of a loyal domestique” – to Wiggins and then Froome – and “few were able to see beyond that”. For years, Thomas was perfectly happy to play second fiddle to Froome, his old friend, said David Walsh in The Sunday Times. But last year, “something changed”. He realised that his career so far was “likely to leave him unfulfilled”; at 31, he was “running out of time”. He toyed with moving to another team, but Sky gave him “protected rider” status for the Tour, ensuring he didn’t have to sacrifice his own ambitions for Froome unless it was absolutely essential. He made the most of that when Froome crashed on the first stage, losing 51 seconds. In previous years, Thomas would have waited. “Not this time.” He seized the advantage, and was “tactically astute” thereafter, riding “the most brilliant Tour”. Yet at times he was still willing to play the lieutenant: on a later stage, he “ushered Froome clear” and let him attack.

“Even Team Sky’s army of boffins underestimated Thomas,” said Josh Burrows in The Times. Long after he took the yellow jersey they still expected him to “crack”. But he couldn’t have been better prepared for the Tour. Earlier this year, he went on three different high-altitude training camps. Then, after the Dauphiné, he went on a reconnaissance trip, which allowed him to have a test run at riding the key stages for the Tour. Thomas benefitted from a dose of luck too, said William Fotheringham in The Observer. An unusually large number of star cyclists were involved in accidents on the Tour: Richie Porte, Vincenzo Nibali and Nairo Quintana all saw their chances evaporate – or had to pull out altogether. For once, Thomas – a cyclist “legendary” for his injuries over the years, including a broken pelvis and smashed collarbone – got off scot-free.

At a time when cycling, and Team Sky in particular, have a credibility problem, Thomas is a godsend, said Tom Fordyce on BBC Sport online. It’s hard to imagine a more down-to-earth champion: he’s “amiable, never cocky, consistently self-deprecating”. And he hasn’t been caught up in any of Sky’s controversies, said Matt Lawton in the Daily Mail. Bradley Wiggins was accused of abusing the medical exemption system; Chris Froome of using the asthma drug salbutamol unethically. But when Thomas fractured his pelvis on the 2013 Tour, he just took painkillers – and stayed in the race. Still, four months after a “damning” parliamentary report that said Sky had “crossed an ethical line” with its use of medications, it will take more than this victory to dispel the “scepticism” surrounding the team.

There must now be “legitimate questions” over Froome’s future, said Oliver Brown in The Sunday Telegraph. Thomas’s victory looked less like an “aberration” than the handing over of a baton. At 33, Froome risks being written off as “yesterday’s man”. But Thomas is just a year younger than his team-mate, said William Fotheringham. He will only have a couple of chances to win a second Tour – and he has suggested that he might return to oneday races instead. As a Tour de France specialist, and four-time champion, Froome is exceptional: in the modern era, most cyclists have won the Tour “only once”.

“It’s hard to imagine a more down-to-earth champion”