{"id":7162,"date":"2018-07-29T19:34:58","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T18:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/?p=7162"},"modified":"2018-07-29T19:34:58","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T18:34:58","slug":"geraint-thomas-wins-the-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/geraint-thomas-wins-the-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Geraint Thomas Wins the Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/29846927948\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Geraint Thomas - Tour de France 2007 - London - Prologue\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/861\/29846927948_f992366f85_o.jpg\" width=\"1491\" height=\"998\" alt=\"Geraint Thomas - Tour de France 2007 - London - Prologue\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It has been thrilling over these last three weeks to see one of cycling&#8217;s real Mr Nice Guys <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cycling\/44998961\">win the Tour<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>I couldn&#8217;t say exactly when I first became aware of him, but Britain&#8217;s success on the track meant that I&#8217;d seen him pick up medals ahead of his gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as part of the Team Pursuit &#8211; something he was to repeat in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>In 2007, he took part in his first Tour de France, as part of the Barloworld team that also featured a certain Chris Froome. I was out in London and the next day, Kent, to watch that Tour start in Britain that year, and digging through my pictures from the time, he features.<\/p>\n<p>He finished second last in that Tour, but he was much heavier, and was only 21 (the same age as Egan Bernal is today &#8211; suggesting that the young Colombian will be an extraordinary future talent). But he did finish, which was the important point.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/43717479901\/in\/photostream\/\" title=\"Geraint Thomas - Tour of Britain - London - 2008\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/934\/43717479901_652c56292d_h.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1120\" alt=\"Geraint Thomas - Tour of Britain - London - 2008\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In 2008 he was still riding for Barloworld at the Tour of Britain &#8211; Team Sky remaining at that point a twinkle in Dave Brailsford&#8217;s eye.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/42813642475\/in\/photostream\/\" title=\"Geraint Thomas - 2014 National Road Race\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/934\/42813642475_78c2ca9c78_b.jpg\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" alt=\"Geraint Thomas - 2014 National Road Race\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Flash forward a few years, and Thomas was at the National Road Race in Abergavenny. I somehow managed to get there and back for a day trip to watch that competition. These days Sky doesn&#8217;t always let their riders race the nationals because it&#8217;s a week ahead of the Tour and injuries can happen. That day, the race was swamped with Sky riders &#8211; Peter Kennaugh beating the rest, with only the Yates brothers preventing complete Sky domination.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/43717482131\/in\/photostream\/\" title=\"Geraint Thomas - 2015 Tour de France - Stage 10\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/850\/43717482131_e6af2d1c93_h.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" alt=\"Geraint Thomas - 2015 Tour de France - Stage 10\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A year later, and I was out at the Tour in the Pyrenees where with Froome already in yellow, they entered the mountain stages properly. It was very warm on the roadside that day &#8211; and had been when I&#8217;d ridden a few km up the mountain before pulling over to conserve energy and water, and to wait for the race.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of years ago, his book came out and I went to an entertaining Q&#038;A. As with these things, there was a long queue to get the book signed, and I was towards the back. The queue moved slowly because everyone wanted a picture &#8211; something he was happy to do. I wasn&#8217;t going to bother, but the guy next to me in the queue basically bullied me into it. I had to take a picture of him after all! <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m quite pleased I got that photo! (I also got him to sign a copy of the photo just above, which now hangs on a wall at home.)<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adambowie\/29846927048\/in\/photostream\/\" title=\"Me and Geraint Thomas\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/942\/29846927048_71431b40d2_c.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"800\" alt=\"Me and Geraint Thomas\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A great day, and a great rider. A fantastic sense of humour, and it doesn&#8217;t harm that he&#8217;s an Arsenal fan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been thrilling over these last three weeks to see one of cycling&#8217;s real Mr Nice Guys win the Tour. I couldn&#8217;t say exactly when I first became aware of him, but Britain&#8217;s success on the track meant that I&#8217;d seen him pick up medals ahead of his gold at the Beijing Olympics in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[224,56,892],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7162"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7167,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions\/7167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}