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Where do you find the origins of the success of the Tour de France? Geraint Thomas may still have some obstacles to face between the current glory and the glory of Paris but, for him, everything started in a swimming pool.
Each week, the nine-year-old boy took swimming lessons with his friend Michael Davis at Maindy Stadium in Cardiff but, as he overflowed the class one day, his hair was still wet, his eye was caught by a cycling session.
The following Thursday, he changed his trunks for the saddle for a session at his first bike club, the Maindy Flyers. Michael's father, Alan, said: "Cycling was not in his family and it's no exaggeration to say without Maindy Flyers that he would not cycle today. hui. "
Geraint, Michael and another friend, Chris Gould, were thick as thieves on and off the bike. Today, Michael works for Google while Chris creates his own construction company.
For everyone, however, it quickly became clear that Thomas, whose idol was then the German professional Jan Ullrich, was a class apart in this trio. (EPA)
For Davis Sr, he remembers that even at the age of 13, he was blown away by Thomas's work ethic. "It was not just that," he said. "He had the speed, the strength and the power but also the psychology.If he lost – and it was rare – he never dumped the mannequin.He asked what? he had to do to win next time. "
It's a theme that has gone through his life. There was a particular Cardiff race weekend where he changed the handlebars on his bike between races.
That was the thirst to get back on the saddle, he missed enough tightness and they got out of the bike -course. As Davis recalls, "He never did it again!"
But there was a tenacity of departure. Davis took him to his first junior race in Beaconsfield as a 16-year-old junior, two-year junior on most of the pack. Darren Tudor saw a series of high quality runners arrive as Welsh Cycling's head coach, but Thomas was the first.
He will be in Paris on Sunday. to hope to encourage Thomas to victory in the yellow jersey.
For him, there is a lonely race that best sums Thomas. He participated in an event called the Five Valleys, a race of 100 miles and more early in his career and against a crowd of elite riders.
Awesome staying with the elite, he was dropped on the final climb and
He Remembers: "What's Fun, It's That Most people would have said "I'm done," but he kept pushing and catching them.I do not think they could believe it.
"Of course, he was very talented naturally, but he had this hunger and this incredible dynamism, a desire to win that is still enormous. You can use all the stereotyped words like guts and determination but I think maybe the best word is toughness. "
This hardness was required for the litany of accidents that he experienced on his two wheels at last season when he retired from the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France. In addition, there was the rupture of the spleen in Australia in 2005 and he finished the Tour de France in 2013 with a fractured pool.
Tudor stood with former British leader Shane Sutton, then with the Welsh circuit, when the pair first set eyes on Thomas in a 40-lap scratch race at Maindy. Sutton recalls, "I turned to Darren and I said that this guy was the next Bradley Wiggins." The next day he was signed at Elite Cymru, which meant a £ 4,000 grant which the bulk was spent on buying a new bike. ] Read more
"He's in the mold of the old school," Sutton added. "He has an ethic of hard work, the tenacity of a lion, there is nothing extraordinary, just the good old G. And I think he's really the one." 39, one of the best all-around riders we have ever produced. "
Much, it may seem that Thomas is a success of the Grand Tour overnight, but he has long been on the horizon, often defeated by misfortune. There were the indicators of the victory of Paris-Nice in 2016 to victory in the Critérium du Dauphine this year, a race Froome won three of the four times he was crowned champion of the Tour de France.
AFP / Getty Images)
And there was no shortage of victories at the velodrome, with the Olympic gold in 2008 and again in 2012. Sutton laughs at the memory of this first gold medal: " He was still a kid and before the final he was like "We are going to break the world record", he was so excited, I remember having to keep my feet on the ground. "
Thomas, for the Most of them had their feet on the ground thanks to his parents Howell and Hilary Davis described Davis as the perfect cycling parent
"He never put him under pressure, he was screaming never and never shouted, "said Davis." He was just supportive. This is erased on him. You saw him after winning the Alpe d'Huez and his first words in the TV interview were just "Alpe d'Huez man". I liked that. "
The riders that he helped to inspire are not lacking." Elinor Barker, Olympic champion on the track with three world titles, has a picture with Thomas 10 year old at Maindy Flyers
"He is a source of inspiration for most pilots, "she said, almost exactly the same way as it is so nice to see someone who did have it success at the highest level. "
Thomas regularly returns to Maindy Flyers. After the stage of the Tour of Britain Cardiff last year, he received the Team Sky bus the next day and went out with the kids. Barker continued: "Like my parents, he insisted that he had finished his A-levels so there was something to fall back on." He did not need it but it made him rather to If all goes well, Thomas will receive a huge welcome in Cardiff after the race and Barker hopes that it will become the welcome home for the Wales football team after Euro 2016. .
As for Sutton, he believes that the length and breadth of the professional peloton will be filled: "It's really one of the specials. Everyone loves G and is right too. It's a real gem. "
