Thomas completes transformation
PARIS — The spits and the jeers.The eggs thrown at team cars. The attempts to unbalance riders while riding up themost grueling climbs.
Geraint Thomas never flinched at whatever fans — or his rivals — threw at him or Team Sky.
The Welsh rider was the steadiest rider from the start, the strongest in the Alps and the Pyrenees. On Sunday he concluded his transformation from a support rider into a champion of cycling’s biggest race by claiming his first Tour deFrance title.
“With the boys, that’s the mainthing for the whole three weeks, we stuck together through some tough times, stayed strong,” Thomas said. “Everything just clicked this race.”
Thomas successfully defended his lead of 1 minute, 51 seconds over second-placed Tom Dumoulin in the mostly ceremonial final stage. Fourtime champion Chris Froome, Thomas’s teammate, finished third, 2:24 behind. Thomas was a support rider for Froome’s four victories but he emerged as Sky’s strongest rider in this race when Froome crashed early on and couldn’t keep up in the mountains.
Sky — and consequently Thomas — became a target due to an asthma drug case involving Froom eat last year’s Spanish Vuelta. Even though Froome was cleared of doping days before the start of the Tour, that didn’t stop some fans from abusing the British team’s riders.
“When there is negativity like that, it brings us as a team closer together,” Froome said.
Thomas stormed into the lead by winning back-to-back mountain stages in the Alps, including the iconic climb up Alpe d’Huez, then defended his advantage in the Pyrenees. During the podium ceremony, Thomas, 32, draped the flag of Wales over his shoulders, then ended his victory speech with a mic drop.
Riding a yellow bicycle to match his yellow jersey, Thomas shared glasses of champagne with his teammates during the casual ride into Paris before buckling down to keep up with the other leaders on the jarring cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees.
“It’s going to take a while to sink in,” he said. “Normally, that stage is really hard but today I just seemed to float around it. I had goose bumps going around there.”