Geraint Thomas wins the Tour de France 2018

Geraint Thomas won the 2018 Tour de France on Sunday, thus completing the biggest victory of his career so far, while Alexander Kristoff won the 21st and final leg of the race in Paris.

Thomas took the leader's yellow jersey after winning stage 11 never gave up, adding to his lead over three days in the Pyrenees and challenging the challenges of Sunweb's Tom Dumoulin, who eventually finished second and his teammate Sky Chris Froome, who finished third overall.

At the end of the Tour, Thomas led Dumoulin at 1:51 and Froome at 2:24. The 32-year-old will be the first Welsh to climb the Tour de France podium. But his victory is the sixth in seven years for Team Sky, who first won with Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and with Froome in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

After a largely ceremonial stage in and around Paris, the riders arrive on the Champs-Elysees and start the first of eight laps of a 7 km circuit between the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries Garden. It is then that the last races of this year's Tour have really started.

Getty Images Tim de Waele

A breakaway of six men was taken up in the last lap, and the teams sprinters increased the pace to continue a last attack of the Belgian champion Yves Lampaert. A group caught him just 220 meters from the line, and from there, Kristoff came out of the steering wheel to reach the finish. He narrowly beat John Degenkolb and Arnaud Démare, winner of stage 18, in the final sprint.

But Thomas, his assured victory, sipped champagne and joked with his teammates as he finished comfortably with the peloton a few seconds later, winning his first Tour de France title.