A brace of agreeable human beings

THURSDAY’S edition of the Western Mail had a photograph of Sam Warburton on the front page – and Geraint Thomas on the back. The juxtaposition was rather wonderful. Most of us are aware of Sam’s impressive achievements, but Geraint’s triumphs tend to slide under the radar.

Watching highlights on ITV of Geraint take the yellow jersey after his splendid ride on Stage 11 of the Tour de France, one of the English commentators remarked how he’d had a career full of special moments and this would be up there with his other impressive achievements – and we tend to forget how successful he has been, first on the track before transferring to the road, with gold medals at both Olympic and Commonwealth levels, not to mention the aforementioned yellow jersey collection.

But both Warburton and Thomas share something quite unusual in sport.

Not only are they admired, respected and liked by their fellow professionals, not to mention a rightly cynical media, but you won’t hear proper supporters speak ill of them.

In fact, they share a somewhat old-fashioned quality rarely talked about these days, especially in the ultra-competitive world of sport and entertainment: they both come across as rather nice people. And you don’t get many of those to the pound.

Finally, your editor-in-chief Paul Rowland wrote that Sam Warburton, when sharing a room with Dan Lydiate, would often talk about tractors (rather than politics, I guess).

Well, anyone watching the Tour de France will see a lot of tractors in various guises along the way, indeed, one of the most memorable sights so far this year was a display of eight forage harvesters, four parked either side of the road, with their chutes forming a guard of honour as the riders rode under.

Now you don’t get to enjoy sights like that in other sports.