Now the sky’s the limit
TEAM PREPARE £3M DEAL AFTER STUNNING TOUR DE FRANCE WIN Welshman plans to keep feet on ground amid all the fame.
Geraint Thomas thinks life has been “insane” since he stood in the yellow jersey and proudly held aloft the Welsh flag on the podium in Paris as Tour de France champion – but the madness may just be beginning.
The likeable softly-spoken 32-year-old, who lives in Monaco, will have to get used to transforming from kingmaker for Chris Froome to the king himself, and that won’t come easy, according to 2012 Tour de France champion and former Team Sky team-mate Bradley Wiggins.
“He’ll feel the same inside but people’s perception of him will change,” Wiggins said on Eurosport.
“Everything will be different now. He won’t be able to walk down the street in Wales now without people coming up to him.
“I think he may now be Wales’ biggest sports star.”
Being described as Wales’ top sports star is some accolade for Thomas, the one-time shy schoolboy from Cardiff’s Whitchurch High School, which also produced the three years younger duo of former Wales and British and Irish Lions rugby captain Sam Warburton and Real Madrid football superstar Gareth Bale.
“It is insane, all of us close to each other and incredible for a school in Cardiff,” Thomas told Channel 4 News earlier this week.
Wales have begun celebrating its latest sporting hero on the eve of his win – illuminating its ancient castles spread out across the land in luminous yellow, the colour of the winner’s jersey.
However a humbled Thomas – who said seeing the reaction on Twitter after he had stepped off the podium was “bonkers” – hopes he will be able to manage fame in the same way as Chris Hoy, the British track cycling legend he regards as a mentor.
“I have no idea what it will be like but I saw Chris Hoy after the win – he was super nice,” he said.
“He is a massive role model as he hasn’t changed and is still down to earth and who you want to be like.”
Further accolades may be in the offing for Thomas and he is already second favourite behind Harry Kane to be named the prestigious BBC Sports Personality-ofthe Year in December – a sizeable popular vote from Wales alone could swing it his way – while an honour from Queen Elizabeth II cannot be discounted either.
At his age one last lucrative contract awaits him and even though he feels great affinity with Team Sky and their boss Dave Brailsford, sentiment will not dictate his decision about a new one as his present deal terminates at the end of the year.
The Daily Telegraph claim Thomas will be offered a deals worth £3 million a year by Sky.
“I will listen to other teams of course but I have been with people like Fran Millar (director of business operations) and Dave Brailsford since I was 17 and they are like family to me.
“But they have to come up with a good deal, it is an exciting time,” he said. – AFP Geraint Thomas’ success in the Tour de France highlighted once again that despite being a nation of just over three million, Wales produces its fair share of great athletes.
Here AFP Sports picks out four memorable sporting achievements by Welsh athletes:
Joe Calzaghe
Boxer known as “The Pride of Wales” – although born in London – his family moved to Wales when he was two. Trained by his Italian father Enzo he would retire in 2009 with an unblemished record of 46 wins in 46 bouts and as the undisputed super-middleweight world champion – he held the WBO version for almost 11 years – and was world light heavyweight champion, beating two legends in Bernard Hopkins and then defending it against Roy Jones Jr. Impressively, he fought both in the US and was floored in the first round in each bout only to come back and win. “There are no more mountains left to climb,” said Calzaghe when he retired.
Jade Jones
Known as “The Headhunter”, Jones (right) won two Olympic taekwondo gold medals in 2012 and 2016. “To be a double Olympic champion seems surreal,” said the engaging Welsh girl from the town of Bodelwyddan in North Wales. She will be eternally grateful to her grandfather Martin Foulkes when, only eight, he said taekwondo would be excellent for self-defence and by her own admission she was getting to be a “bit naughty”. She is targeting a third Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2020.
Lynn Davies
He certainly earned the nickname “Lynn the Leap” when aged just 22 he won the Olympic long jump gold medal in Tokyo in 1964. Competing in pouring rain, Davies (above) – who had only taken up the event when he moved to Cardiff from his village of Nantymoel – held his own against the then world record holder and 1960 champion Ralph Boston of the United States and the former record holder, the Soviet Union’s Igor TerOvanesyan. Davies was in bronze medal position before seizing the lead with his penultimate jump of 8.07m and neither of his rivals were able to pass him. He remains the only Welsh athlete to have won track or field Olympic gold. “The Welsh gods were looking over the stadium because it was truly Welsh weather,” he recalled years later.
Ian Woosnam
Golfer Woosnam (right) won the 1991 Masters in Augusta. Part of a golden generation – Seve Ballesteros, Bernard Langer, Sandy Lyle and Faldo – Woosnam, 33, became the first Welshman to win a Major. The world No 1 arrived at the final hole tied with Tom Watson and Jose Maria Olazabal, who was in the pair ahead but who bogeyed the 18th to fall back. Watson then double-bogeyed and Woosnam made par as he sealed victory.
The Ring’s