ANALYSIS | The moments that made Geraint Thomas a British sporting legend

Yesterday, Geraint Thomas bid farewell to professional cycling on a fitting stage, at home in Wales, completing his final race at the 2025 Tour of Britain. The 39-year-old Welshman ends a 19-year career that has spanned track and road, humble support roles and Tour de France glory. Famously self-deprecating, Thomas might downplay the fanfare, but the spotlight rightly falls on a rider who gave so much to others’ victories while amassing plenty of his own. This analytical look back covers his journey from an eager Cardiff schoolboy to an Olympic champion, Tour de France winner, and a beloved figure in British cycling. It examines the highs and the lows, that defined Thomas’s career.

Geraint Howell Thomas was born on 25 May 1986 and raised in Cardiff, Wales. Growing up on the outskirts of Cardiff, Thomas lived just a stone’s throw from the Maindy cycling track. “If I didn’t live so close to Maindy or if I didn’t live in Cardiff, I may never have ridden a bike, never have had the career I had, the life I’ve had,” Thomas reflected to the BBC.

By 2006, he was on the British Cycling Academy and even earned a stagiaire (trainee) spot with pro team Saunier Duval, gaining valuable experience on the road. Thomas then signed his first professional contract with the Barloworld team in 2007, setting the stage for the next chapter of his journey.

Before fully focusing on road racing, Thomas built an impressive palmarès on the track, contributing to a golden era for British track cycling. As a team pursuit specialist, he claimed three World Championship titles and was part of Great Britain’s all-conquering team pursuit squads at the Olympics.

He struck Olympic gold in Beijing 2008 and again on home soil at London 2012, each time helping Britain’s quartet smash the world record en route to victory. Those back-to-back Olympic gold medals underscored Thomas’s status as an elite track rider. He also accumulated multiple Commonwealth Games medals on track, including a gold, representing Wales. Thomas’s track success earned him an MBE in 2009 at just 22 years old, and later, after his Tour de France heroics, an OBE in 2019.

Thomas entered the top tier of road cycling just as a cycling revolution was underway in Britain. He made his Tour de France debut in 2007 at age 21, the race’s youngest rider that year, but his break came in 2010 with the launch of Team Sky.

Thomas was signed to the ambitious new British team from its inception, beginning what would be a 16 year stint with the team (Team Sky later becoming Team Ineos and Ineos Grenadiers). In Sky’s debut Tour de France in 2010, Thomas immediately made an impact: he won the British National Road Championship that year and then wore the Tour’s white jersey of best young rider after a strong first week.

Over the next few seasons, Thomas became a dependable domestique deluxe for Sky’s grand tour leaders while still developing his own abilities. In 2013, he famously rode the Tour de France with a fractured pelvis, crashing on stage one yet soldiering on to Paris in support of Chris Froome’s first yellow jersey.

By the mid-2010s, Geraint Thomas had proven himself a true all-rounder. He could muscle over cobblestones in Flanders, drill a team time trial, or pace high mountains in the Alps. In 2015, Thomas hit new heights with a breakthrough classics win at E3 Harelbeke, becoming the first British rider to win that prestigious Belgian one-day race. In the 2015 Tour de France, he played a crucial support role to Froome’s win and impressively held 4th place overall himself as late as stage 18, showing he had grand tour potential himself.

He carried that momentum into 2016, which saw him clinch Paris–Nice, one of cycling’s biggest week-long races, with a victory over Alberto Contador. With another repeat win at Algarve and strong showings in the spring, Thomas was now viewed as a legitimate stage race leader. He still dutifully aided Froome to another Tour de France title in 2016, even while finishing 15th overall himself.

All the pieces fell into place in 2018, the crowning year of Geraint Thomas’s career. The season began strongly with podiums at Tirreno–Adriatico and the Tour of the Algarve, and a victory at the Critérium du Dauphiné, the most important Tour de France warm up race. Even so, Thomas entered the 2018 Tour de France officially as a co-leader alongside Chris Froome.

There was nothing “co” about the leadership however.

Midway through the Tour, in the high Alps, Thomas attacked to win Stage 11 (La Rosière) to take the yellow jersey, and then won again atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez on Stage 12. Those back-to-back mountain wins, especially conquering Alpe d’Huez in the maillot jaune, were iconic moments that symbolized Thomas’s transformation from helper to champion.

He carried the race lead unflinchingly through the Pyrenees and into Paris, defending against all challengers along the way. On July 29, 2018, Geraint Thomas became the first Welshman ever to win the Tour de France, joining Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome as only the third British male to do so.

His victory was celebrated across Britain. Riding to the Champs-Élysées with a Welsh flag draped over his shoulders, Thomas cemented his status as a national hero. That winter he was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, edging out Formula 1’s Lewis Hamilton and footballer Harry Kane in a public vote. A month after the Tour, 8,000 fans packed Cardiff Castle for his homecoming celebration, and the Welsh National Velodrome in Newport was renamed the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome in his honour.

Thomas’s journey to the top was anything but smooth, and even after reaching it, he continued to experience cycling’s cruel twists of fate. Broken bones became an unfortunate theme throughout his long career. In addition to the 2013 fractured pelvis (which he astonishingly endured through the entire Tour), he crashed out of the 2017 Giro d’Italia as co-leader after a freak incident with a stray motorbike, ruining a shot at the podium. Just weeks later in the 2017 Tour de France, after a brilliant opening time trial win that put him in the yellow jersey for four days, Thomas crashed on a descent during Stage 9 and exited with a broken collarbone.

He kept picking himself up. In 2019, wearing dorsal number 1 as defending Tour champion, Thomas faced another challenge: a crash before the Tour and the rapid rise of a young teammate named Egan Bernal. Thomas battled through the Alps in a leadership duel that was ultimately decided by weather-shortened stages. He finished second overall in the 2019 Tour while helping Bernal secure the win, even fending off France’s Julian Alaphilippe to do so. Gracefully accepting the runner-up spot, Thomas proved himself a team player yet again, though he had firmly established that 2018 was no fluke.

The following years saw more twists. The pandemic-disrupted 2020 season saw Thomas target the Giro d’Italia instead of the Tour, only to crash on Stage 4 after hitting loose debris, suffering a fractured pelvis and an agonizing exit. Undeterred, he came back in 2021 to win the Tour de Romandie and contend at the Dauphiné, but bad luck struck at the Tour de France where an early crash left him injured and out of GC contention.

In 2022, at age 36, when many riders contemplate retirement, Thomas hit another late-career high. He won the Tour de Suisse, becoming the first Briton to do so, and then rode a brilliantly consistent Tour de France to place third overall behind much younger stars (Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar).

Thomas’s final GC battle came at the 2023 Giro d’Italia, and it encapsulated the highs and lows of his career. He led the race for several days and entered the penultimate stage in the pink jersey, only to have victory snatched away in the final time trial by a surging Primoz Roglic. Thomas finished a heart-breaking second by just 14 seconds.

Through all the ups and downs, Geraint Thomas remained a constant presence on Britain’s premier pro team. As Team Sky evolved into Ineos Grenadiers, Thomas became the core of the team: a road captain, mentor, and link to the squad’s founding ethos of excellence. Such was his leadership, that rumours suggest he will be moving into a management role in 2026.

Fittingly, Thomas chose to conclude his career on his own terms. He announced earlier this year that the 2025 Tour of Britain would be his final race, a “farewell tour” winding from England to his hometown of Cardiff: “I just feel so lucky to be able to call time on my career on my own terms, when I’m finishing and even more lucky to decide where as well”

The Tour of Britain last week turned into a rolling celebration of his career, huge crowds turned out daily for autographs and selfies, far more interested in Thomas than the race’s outcome. Ever modest, Thomas balanced racing with soaking up the adulation: “It’s racing, but I’ve also been enjoying it and doing the whole fan thing because I feel like it’s going to be the last time that I do it… I’ve been enjoying it because soon people won’t be asking for selfies and autographs.”

On Sunday, 7 September 2025, Geraint Thomas rolled down the start ramp one last time and a few hours later crossed the finish line in Cardiff to close out his professional racing days. He admitted beforehand that “it’s obviously going to be emotional come the end in Cardiff… to finish my career when I want is rare for an athlete, so to be able to do that on home roads and into Cardiff, I feel really lucky.”

Sure enough, as he completed the final stage, tears flowed from Thomas, from his family and friends waiting at the line, and from countless supporters lining the streets of the Welsh capital. Wearing a special red dragon-emblazoned jersey designed for the occasion (complete with a sketch by his young son on the back), Thomas took a slow lap of honour in Cardiff.

Geraint Thomas retires as one of Britain’s most decorated and influential cyclists, and his legacy extends far beyond his race results. He was part of a golden generation of British cycling, emerging from the same grassroots that produced stars like Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish.

Thomas’s career has been closely intertwined with British Cycling’s rise on both track and road. His longevity (nearly two decades at the elite level) meant he bridged eras: from the Beijing and London Olympic domination, through Team Sky’s Tour de France dynasty, and into the present day where a new wave of British talent is rising.

One moment sums up the sort of rider Thomas was more than most. The day after his Giro 2023 heartbreak to Roglic, most riders would have hidden and sulked in the shadows. Not Geraint Thomas. As the race came to a close, he led out his friend Mark Cavendish to sprint for victory. That sort of action is what makes Thomas a true champion and legend.

Thomas will be remembered as much more than an athlete who won big races. He was the reliable lieutenant who could bury himself on the front of the peloton for a teammate’s cause, and also the champion who never forgot his roots at the Maindy track in Cardiff. As young teammate Sam Watson put it, “All the British guys – the likes of G, Wiggins, Froome, Cav – were on TV and inspiring. It’s special being in the race with G now… You learn from him by watching what he’s doing.”

Looking ahead, Thomas isn’t straying far from the sport. He has hinted at moving into a management or mentorship role with INEOS Grenadiers after hanging up his wheels. With his vast experience, affable personality, and respect within the community, he seems destined to continue shaping British cycling’s future off the bike.

Geraint Thomas once said of the Tour de France, “I dreamt of racing it, of winning it, but I never for a second thought I would. Kids from Cardiff don’t ride the Tour.” Yet he did ride 14 Tours, and he won one. In doing so, the kid from Cardiff became a legend far beyond it.

Thank you, Geraint Thomas, for the memories, the inspiration, and the example of what a true sportsman can achieve. Diolch, G!