«I don't know what I'll do next winter – he says Geraint Thomas – I could stay at the Ineos Grenardiers, they have already illustrated to me some roles that I could fill, or I could find space in the media, but I will think about it in due time. The important thing is that I don't miss any more birthdays, weddings, parties... I want to be there for my family, I've lost too much in these years."
The Welsh champion is clear about his intention to retire at the end of the season. He had announced it at the beginning, in fact he had already set the appointment for this year in 2023, after all almost 20 years in the saddle in the world of cycling are enoughYears spent between great victories and numerous adventures: two times Olympic champion and three times world champion with the pursuit quartet and above all the Tour de France won in 2018: "Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of participating in the Tour and the Olympics and winning. But doing it was crazy."
To leave or not to leave?
This is also what makes his farewell two-faced. It's clear that the desire to leave is there, and Geraint has never denied it, but underneath that spark still burns: "Leaving is both beautiful and terrible at the same time. You think about it, you say yes, you can't wait for that fateful last meter to arrive. But then that meter gets closer and closer and you wonder if you couldn't have kept going a little longer.I've been on this swing since the beginning of the season, endless feelings pass through my head, but I haven't changed my mind..."
It's not just a question of age (Thomas is 39), but other factors also play a role. First and foremost, family stability and a sport that's becoming more dangerous day by day. Recently, on a television program in his native Wales, Geraint, along with Sara Elen, recounted an episode from the 2015 Tour: "Stage 16. On the way down from Col de Mause Barguil suddenly swerves and hits me.I crash into a telegraph pole, swerve, and end up over the railing, disappearing from sight on the edge of the road."
Fear of a serious accident
«At the time I was working for S4C, a local Celtic-language station. I was live, but I had seen those images, and I was shocked. I started crying live because no one could tell me what happened to him.. I honestly don't want to live in fear of such accidents anymore."
Is that all? No, there's probably more too. the raw analysis of a cycling that is constantly evolving and that for Thomas has now become too heavyIn this regard, a curious episode, also told by the Welsh champion, dates back to the last Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
"But do you really have to tell me about this now?..."
«We were already going very fast, I was reading 400 watts on average when from behind I heard: “Hi G.Thomas”. I turned around and it was pogacarHe sits down next to me and starts talking to me, telling me about a watch he saw and absolutely wants to buy the next day. I look at it and then look at the computer: we were running at 420 watts! I thought: “But do you really want to talk about it now? I have to stay focused on my breathing if I don't want to lose my rhythm and get disconnected...”. That's why Tadej is in a completely different category."
Geraint has experienced many accidents, starting from February 2005 when during a track training session in Sydney, for the World Cup, he saw a piece of metal from the bike of the person in front of him come off, fall and penetrate his abdomen, causing internal bleeding and a ruptured spleen, which was later removed.Or like the 2013 Tour, when a fall in the first stage cost him a fractured pelvis, yet Geraint kept going and completed that Tour. He finished 140th, in the team he escorted. Froome to the yellow jersey, but everyone celebrates him as if he had won.
The yellow triumph of 2018
On the other hand, his career remains closely linked to the Tour, especially to that 2018 edition where he started as lieutenant to Froome, fresh from his triumph at the Giro d'Italia. The Welshman's form was clear from his victory at the Dauphiné and his conquest of the national time trial title., in fact, the Team Sky staff saw him as the alternative, the plan B. And Froome's crash in the early stages cost him a significant gap. Thomas then took over the reins of the team, and in the La Rosiere stage he went to catch the escapees and rivals. Snow e From the mill and won the stage wearing the yellow jersey, repeating the feat the following day on Alpe d'Huez.
«I had a clear understanding of how important what I had done was – Thomas later said – some time later, when I was on holiday in America and went with my family to visit Alcatraz prison. A guy recognized me and told the others, then I understood how that symbol of the yellow jersey is truly iconic and recognized at any latitude.».
The last ride in his Cardiff
Geraint is ready. Only the last page remains to be written, and the Welshman knows where to do it: at the Tour of Britain, which will end in his hometown of Cardiff: «Closing my career by returning home, in front of my people, will be the most beautiful farewell possible.Twenty years with my eyes fixed forward, watching the road, I think is more than enough. Now I want to look at the world from a different perspective.
