"A great teammate, a great leader and a wonderful person" - INEOS Grenadiers pay tribute to Geraint Thomas after retirement announcement

After much speculation, Geraint Thomas made it officially official earlier this week, that at the end of the 2025 season, the Welsh INEOS Grenadiers leader will be retiring from professional cycling. A long-time servant of the British based team, tributes have since been pouring in from Thomas' teammates.

"He's a great teammate, a great leader and a wonderful person - always with a great sense of humour," commented fellow former Tour de France winner Egan Bernal ahead of the Clásica Jaén on Monday. "I have vivid memories of racing two Tours with him, the one in which he won and then the one I won the following year and he got second. I just wish him all the best for the rest of his career and for everything else, too."

Michal Kwiatkowski has got to know Thomas well over their many years together at INEOS and the pair have become good friends in the process. "I'm just happy that I was part of it for the few years we raced together. I have great memories, victories, training camps with him - it was great to have G there alongside me. He's had a great career, and it'll be nice to finish off this last year together in some races," the Polish former world champion told Cycling News. "We've already done the Tour Down Under together, we had some fun down there already and it'll be good to do some more races between now and the end of the year."

Although incredibly successful over the years, Thomas has also been the victim of many a bad crash or bit of bad luck. As such, Kwiatkowski believes the Welshman deserves a lot of praise for his perseverance through adversity. "It's impressive - looking at him, he goes through very bad moments, but he always bounces back. So I know how hard he works, he always reached the top again. It's not easy at his age, it would have been easier if he was 25, of course, but he's not and he's still got it. He still got back on top again," explains 'Kwiato'. "He's a tough man, very robust. I will remember him as being unbreakable."