Geraint Thomas

He became the first Welsh rider to compete in the race since Colin Lewis in 1967.

Thomas received great support from Welsh fans at the opening of the race, with several following the entire race.

Geraint Howell Thomas, (born 25 May 1986) is a Welsh professional racing cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam, Wales and Great Britain.

He is one of the few riders in the modern era to achieve significant elite success as both a track and road rider, with notable victories in the velodrome, in one-day racing and in stage racing.

Thomas had an early win on the road at the 2004 Paris–Roubaix Juniors and later had a senior victory at the 2010 British National Road Race Championships.

Following some successes in under 14 and under 16 events, including National Championships, his first notable success came when he won silver medal in the points race at the 2004 UEC European Track Championships, at that time a junior and under-23 event.

Thomas became a member of British Cycling's Olympic Academy.

He won the Carwyn James Junior Award at the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year ceremony.

Thomas competed at World Cup events around the world, and was training in Sydney, Australia, in February 2005 when he crashed after the rider in front of him hit a piece of metal in the road which was flicked up into Thomas's wheel.

He suffered internal bleeding after the piece of metal entered his body during the fall, rupturing his spleen which subsequently had to be removed.

He rode most of his races of 2006 for, but towards the end of 2006 joined as a stagiaire.

He also rode a few races, such as the Tour of Britain, for the Great Britain squad.

On the track, he has won three World Championships (2007, 2008, and 2012), and two Olympic gold medals (2008 and 2012), while on the road he won the 2018 Tour de France becoming the first Welshman and third British rider to win it.

His early successes were in track cycling, in which he was a specialist in the team pursuit.

Thomas made his Tour de France debut at the 2007 race as the youngest rider in the race as picked up one of the three wildcard spots allocated for the race.

He was nominated for the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year award in 2007.

The winners were announced on 2 December, and Thomas came third in the public vote.

Thomas did not compete in the Tour de France, instead, he rode the Giro d'Italia earlier in the season before returning to Britain to concentrate on preparations for the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

On discovering that the flags of non-participating nations would not be allowed at the Games, Thomas said: "It would be great to do a lap of honour draped in the Welsh flag if I win a gold medal, and I'm very disappointed if this rule means that would not be possible."

On 17 August, Thomas was a member of the Olympic team pursuit squad which broke the world record in the heats with a time of 3:55.202, beating their Russian opponents comfortably to go through to the final ride-off for silver and gold.

The following day, on their way to winning the gold medal, the British Team pursuit broke their own world record in a time of 3:53.314, beating their Danish competitors by 6.7 seconds.

Thomas had been a possible contender in the individual pursuit, but opted not to ride both events as he did not want to compromise the efforts of his team.

He had also been considered to compete in the Madison with Bradley Wiggins but it was Mark Cavendish who was selected to do so; Chris Boardman stated that "Geraint keeps surpassing people's expectations".

Following the disqualification of fellow teammate, Moisés Dueñas, from the Tour de France, Thomas expressed his strong anti-doping opinions on his blog on the BBC 6-0-6 website: "...if someone is fraudulent in a business, wouldn't they be facing a prison term? I don't see how riders taking drugs to win races and lying to their teams is any different. Bang them up and throw away the key!"

He won three World Championships and was Olympic gold medallist twice, in 2008 and 2012.

In the same year he won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, becoming the first Welshman to win the award since Ryan Giggs in 2009.

Leaving track cycling to focus solely on the road, he subsequently found success in both one-day/classic races such as the 2014 Commonwealth Games road race and the 2015 E3 Harelbeke, and in one week stage races, most notably at the 2016 Paris–Nice, the 2017 Tour of the Alps, the 2018 Critérium du Dauphiné, the 2021 Tour de Romandie and the 2022 Tour de Suisse.

In cycling's grand tours, Thomas was initially a lead domestique to Chris Froome in his victories.

He completed his first Tour de France, finishing 140th of 141 finishers.

He won the first stage of the 2017 Tour de France, an individual time trial, to become the first Welshman to wear the Tour's yellow jersey.

He later crashed in that race, as well as in the 2017 Giro d'Italia.

Thomas became the first Welsh person to win the Tour de France when he won the race in 2018.

He gained the yellow jersey by winning stage 11, extended his lead by winning stage 12, and retained the lead for the remainder of the race.

In 2019, he confirmed his Grand Tour pedigree when he reached the podium again, having finished runner-up in the Tour de France behind teammate Egan Bernal.

In 2022, Thomas became the first Welshman to win the Tour de Suisse and later that year recorded another podium finish at the Tour de France, placing third.

A fourth grand tour podium, and a first outside of the Tour de France, was won in 2023 as Thomas took second place in the Giro d'Italia, losing the race lead to Primož Roglič on the penultimate day.

Notable for his all-round ability and adaptability rather than mastery of one specialism, Thomas has been competitive in individual time-trials, on the cobbles, in the Spring classics and in the mountains of Grand Tours, where he was the first rider in the history of the Tour de France to win at Alpe d'Huez while in yellow.

Born in Cardiff, Wales, Thomas attended Whitchurch High School.

He began cycling with the Maindy Flyers Cycling Club at Maindy Stadium at the age of 10, where he rode with future Team Sky teammate Luke Rowe, before going on to ride for other local clubs, Cycling Club Cardiff and Cardiff Just in Front.

His first race bike was a blue Giant.