Geraint Thomas Why I’d love to beat Harry Kane to SPOTY award
After his maiden Tour victory, Geraint Thomas is up for the challenge on BBC’S flagship show
Geraint Thomas had no inkling of what was to come when Sir Dave Brailsford stood up to address staff at Team Sky’s winter training camp in Majorca on Tuesday night. He could tell it was going to be something big because the atmosphere in the room “changed in an instant”.
But with the ink still drying on a new contract, which Thomas only agreed in the wake of his historic Tour de France win in July, he certainly did not expect Brailsford to announce that Sky plc was pulling the plug at the end of next year.
“It wasn’t nice to hear,” he admits of what was arguably the biggest bombshell to hit cycling since Lance Armstrong kicked back on Oprah’s sofa in 2013. “But you know, on reflection, I think it’s a huge opportunity for us. To start again. We have a great package to sell. It’s not second-hand flip-flops that we’re flogging here. These are some pretty decent trainers.”
Just how decent will be determined by the market, of course. There have been doubts expressed this week that Brailsford will be able to find a partner prepared to dip quite as deep into its pockets as Sky did (£180million over 10 years).
But the sentiment could not have summed Thomas up better: cool, calm, dry sense of humour.
Whatever the popularity of Sky, the way they have dominated the sport over the past eight years – the methods they used – there is no doubting Thomas’ appeal. It is why he is one of the big favourites to land tomorrow’s BBC Sports
Personality of the Year gong, behind only Harry Kane in the betting at 3-1 (“I’m a massive Arsenal fan, so I’m hoping for their support,” he confides).
Despite the ambivalence of many fans towards Sky, the outpouring of goodwill when Thomas won the maillot jaune this year, after years of pulling for Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, felt genuine. Here was someone who had his spleen removed following a particularly nasty training accident as an 18-year-old, who came back and won two Olympic gold medals as part of Great Britain’s pursuit team, who buried himself for a succession of leaders (riding through the pain of a fractured pelvis for Froome in 2013), who crashed out of consecutive grand
‘It wasn’t nice to hear about Sky. But on reflection, I think it’s a huge opportunity for us’
tours in 2017 when he was finally given the chance to lead Team Sky. And not a therapeutic use exemption in sight.
Thomas appeared as surprised as anyone by the reaction to his win, which perhaps explains why he inspired it in the first place. He was himself throughout, celebrating with a mic drop on the podium in Paris, hitting the beers with his team-mates and then ending up in bed with his wife, Sara, and a packet of Welsh cakes.
And while the 32-year-old has enjoyed some of the trappings of celebrity since – an appearance on The Graham Norton Show here, a photo opp alongside Lionel Messi at the Nou Camp there – it has never felt forced. You get the sense he is happy just to enjoy it while it lasts. “I don’t feel I’m a Brad or anything,” he says when asked if he feels like he has not broken through into the mainstream now. “You know, he was the first, and it was the London 2012 Olympic year and he was so in the spotlight, plus he definitely likes to be a bit rock and roll.
“He has that swagger, you know? Calling Sue Barker ‘Susan’ and all that. It’s mad that I’ve emulated him. I’ve won the Tour. But no, I don’t feel I’m a celebrity.”
He admits, though, that he is enjoying the attention, albeit there have been times when he and Sara have questioned whether it is all worth it. “I don’t mind it when people come up to me and say, ‘Well done.’ That’s lovely. The bit that’s weird is stuff like I’ve had a load of ebay people hounding me. Just sort of getting you to sign stuff which they can then sell. Like, they turned up at the homecoming [parade in Cardiff after the Tour]. I signed a few, but he kept coming back and the security was trying to get him to leave and he wouldn’t go away.
“Then he turned up at the Arsenal game on the opening day of the season, with about seven or eight of his mates. I signed a couple and said, ‘That’s it, I’m not doing any more.’ But they wouldn’t leave me and Sara alone. She was getting annoyed. And then afterwards it was like, ‘How did they even know we were going to be there?’ You
start getting a bit paranoid.” Thomas also found himself at the centre of a storm over the use of helmets after telling a reporter that he would make it compulsory to wear them in London. He admits now that he had not really done his homework and it had taught him “a valuable lesson”.
On the whole, though, he is pretty relaxed about it all. He says he is not worried by the future, about whether Sky can find a new partner. He “can’t do anything about it anyway” and just wants to prepare as well as he can for next season, when he will again take on Froome at the Tour.
Thomas’s second book, rushed out this autumn, The Tour According to G [Quercus, £20], made headlines when Thomas revealed the extent to which Sky had favoured Froome in the early part of this year’s Tour, admitting to tensions in the camp when it was made clear to him that his team-mates would not wait if he suffered a puncture or a mechanical in the team time-trial. “F------ hell guys, that’s a bit s---,” Thomas told them.
His protests fell on deaf ears, with Froome not speaking up in his defence. There are no hard feelings. “To be fair, if the shoe was on the other foot I would probably have been the same,” he admits. “Like when Richie [Porte] crashed out later in the race, I was genuinely sad for him. But on the other hand, that is one less guy to worry about.
“I think we [he and Froome] will be cool next year. If the same call was made in the TTT [team time-trial] I might be a bit …
“But I think the best thing that could have happened was letting Froomey do exactly what he wanted in the whole race, because then there was no question [about Thomas’ win].
“And I think he accepted it more as well, which was good with me and the whole team. Whereas I think if he’d been told to work for me, then for sure you would have had more of a Brad-froomeytype friction.”
That is all for another day, though. For now, Thomas’ focus is on SPOTY. He flies over from Majorca tonight ahead of tomorrow’s ceremony at Birmingham’s Genting Arena.
What would it mean to him to become only the fifth cyclist (after Tom Simpson, Sir Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish and Wiggins) and only the fifth Welshman (after golfer Dai Rees, show jumper David Broome, boxer Joe Calzaghe and footballer Ryan Giggs) to win?
“I’m not going to lie,” he says. “It would be incredible. It’s one of those things, even as a kid at Christmas time, it’s the one thing you always made sure to watch. You see the names on there and just being amongst them would be amazing.”
With SPOTY not actually revealing the nominees until tomorrow – a new departure this year – Thomas is not sure who he is up against. He will not even confirm he is on there.
“There are a lot of potential contenders,” he reflects. “Dina Asher-smith, Kane; I’m a big fan of Anthony Joshua. I went to his fight in Cardiff last year. Lewis Hamilton, although I’m more of a Motogp man myself – [there is] more overtaking.
“I’m looking forward to meeting them all. I think you just have respect for what they have achieved. You understand the sacrifices they have gone through because you’ve been through the same thing. There is a lot of mutual respect.”
He smiles. His competitive instincts kick in. “I think having Wales’ support would be big, though. Obviously, if I’m the only cyclist, that could help as well – hopefully and then, as I say, I’ll try to get Arsenal’s support up against Kane!”
‘I don’t feel I’m another Brad. He was the first and he likes to be a bit rock and roll’