City plans Tour victory celebration for Geraint
A HOMECOMING celebration for Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas will take place in Cardiff this week.
Full details of the plans to welcome Thomas back to Cardiff have been revealed.
The 32-year-old achieved one of the greatest feats in Welsh sporting history last week when he pedalled up the Champs-Élysées in the yellow jersey.
It was the end of the three-week, 21-stage race that sees riders jostle for one of the most famous titles in sport.
Thomas will be honoured with celebrations in the Welsh capital – his home town – this week when he returns from his home in Monaco.
The public are welcome to come and cheer home their local hero.
Before the main public event in Cardiff city centre, Thomas will be formally congratulated on behalf of the nation by the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, and the Llywydd of the National Assembly for Wales, Elin Jones, at 4.15pm until 4.30pm.
The Tour champion will then be brought to the bottom of St Mary Street in Cardiff city centre by 5pm.
Accompanied by a peloton of young riders from various cycling clubs, Thomas will cycle up St Mary Street before going onto a stage, located outside the castle walls, to speak to the crowd.
Thomas’s success has seen him hailed as Wales’ new sporting king – and he has even had a poem written about him by Max Boyce. The 74-yearold icon from Glynneath, who penned Hymns and Arias for rugby fans, wrote The Boy Who Climbed a Mountain for Thomas. Here are the first lines...
‘There’s a pillar box in Cardiff, where the mayor has arranged
To buy some tins of yellow paint, and have the colour changed
And down in Cardiff city hall, I’ve heard the council say
We’ll change the name of the Severn Bridge, to the Geraint Thomas Way
Now Whitchurch High are justly proud, and they love to tell the tale
How he carved his name in the wood of a desk, like Warburton and Bale.’