Tour de France 2018: The story behind Geraint Thomas' rise to the top revealed

AP

Where do you track back the origins of Tour de France success? Geraint Thomas may still have some obstacles to face between now and potential Paris glory but, for him, it all started in a swimming pool.

Each week, the nine-year-old would attend swimming lessons with his friend Michael Davis at Maindy Stadium in Cardiff but, as he spilled out of class one day, his hair still wet, his eye was caught by a cycling session.

The following Thursday, he switched his trunks for the saddle for a session at his first cycling club, the Maindy Flyers. Michael’s father Alan said: “Cycling just wasn’t in his family and it’s not an exaggeration to say without Maindy Flyers he wouldn’t be riding a bike today.”

Geraint, Michael and another friend, Chris Gould, were thick as thieves on and off the bike. Today, Michael works for Google while Chris set up his own building business.

To everyone, though, it quickly became clear that Thomas, whose idol then was German professional Jan Ullrich, was a class apart in that trio.

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For Davis Sr, he recalls how even aged 13 he was blown away by Thomas’s work ethic. “It wasn’t just that,” he said. “He had the speed, strength and power but also the psychology. If he lost — and that was rare — he never threw out the dummy. He’d ask what he needed to do to win the next time.”

It is a theme that has spanned his life. There was one particular Cardiff racing weekend where he switched the handlebars on his bike between races.

Such was the thirst to get back in the saddle, he failed to tighten them enough and they came off the bike mid-race. As Davis recalled: “He never did that again!”

But there was a tenacity from the off. Davis took him to his first junior race in Beaconsfield as a 16-year-old, two years junior to most of the field. He just blew the rest of the peloton away.

Darren Tudor has seen a raft of top-quality riders come through the system as head coach of Welsh Cycling but Thomas was the first.

He will be in Paris on Sunday to hopefully cheer home Thomas to victory in the yellow jersey.

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For him, there is a solitary race that stands out which best sums up Thomas. He was riding in an event called the Five Valleys, a 100-plus mile race when in the infancy of his career and against a host of elite riders.

Impressing by staying with the elite, he was dropped on the final climb and look spent.

He recalled: “What’s funny is that most people would have said ‘I’m done’ but he kept pushing and on the flat caught them and sailed past for the win. I don’t think they could believe it.

“Sure, he was super naturally talented but he had this amazing hunger and drive, a desire to win that’s still huge. You can use all the stereotyped words like grit and determination but I think maybe the best word is hardness.”

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That hardness has been required for the litany of crashes he has experienced from his two-wheel infancy to last season when he retired from both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. In addition, there was the ruptured spleen in Australia in 2005 and he finished the Tour de France in 2013 with a fractured pelvis.

Tudor was standing with the former head of British Shane Sutton, then with the Welsh Cycling set-up, when the pair first laid eyes on Thomas in a 40-lap scratch race in Maindy. Sutton remembered: “I turned to Darren and said ‘this guy’s the next Bradley Wiggins’.” The next day he was signed to Elite Cymru, which meant a £4,000 grant, most of which was spent on buying a new bike.

“He’s in the old-school mould,” added Sutton. “He has a hard-work ethic, the tenacity of a lion, there’s nothing fancy about it, just good old G. And I think he’s truly one of the best all-round riders we’ve ever produced.”

To many, it may seem Thomas is an overnight Grand Tour success but it has long been in the offing, often undone by misfortune. There were the indicators from winning Paris-Nice in 2016 to victory in this year’s Criterium du Dauphine, a race Froome has won three of the four times he has been crowned Tour de France champion.

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And there has been no shortage of success in the velodrome too, with Olympic gold in 2008 and again in 2012. Sutton laughs at the recollection of that first gold: “He was still a kid really and before the final he was like ‘we’re going to smash the world record’ he was so pumped up. I remember having to keep his feet on the ground.”

Thomas has, for the most part, had his feet on the ground thanks to his parents Howell and Hilary. Dad was described by Davis as the perfect cycling parent.

“He never put pressure on him, there was never screaming or shouting,” said Davis. “He was just supportive. It’s rubbed off on him. You saw it after he won Alpe d’Huez and his first words in the TV interview were just ‘Alpe d’Huez man’. I loved that.”

There are no shortage of riders he has helped to inspire. Elinor Barker, Olympic champion on the track with three world titles, has a photo with Thomas aged 10 at Maindy Flyers

“He’s an inspiration to most riders,” she said, “And for me the big thing is I’ve followed almost exactly the same path as him so it’s nice to see someone having done that have success at the very highest level.”

Thomas regularly returns to Maindy Flyers. After last year’s Tour of Britain Cardiff stage, he got the Team Sky bus to turn up the following day and rode out with the kids. Barker continued: “Like my parents, his insisted he finished his A-levels so there was something to fall back on. He didn’t need it but it made him pretty level. There’s no airs or graces, he’s just very cool, calm and collected.”

If successful, Thomas will get a huge reception in Cardiff after the race and Barker hopes it will emulate the welcome home for Wales’ football team after Euro 2016.

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As for Sutton, he believes it will be cheered the length and breadth of the professional peloton: “He really is one of the special ones. Everybody loves G and quite right too. He’s an absolute gem.”

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