The “last dance” of Geraint Thomas is played in Cardiff on the south coast of Wales city of factories, ports, sailors and miners but also of cyclists. He has the rock notes of a piece of Massimo Priviero, storyteller without time than with his music he has better than many he knew how to tell the strength and at the same time the fragility that belongs to each of us. Nobody excluded. Geraint Thomas’s cycling, which yesterday came down to the last stage of the Tour of Britain, is a Gaelic rock with swollen and sometimes poignant notes that confuses the harmonies of Tin Whistle, guitars and accordion, of gospel choirs that bring back to the unsuspected faces of revolutionaries of music such as the Chieftain or Van Morrison, a couple, a case.
Geraint Thomas cycling is rock, this music has been in all these years here, Perfect soundtrack for great wins large defeats, large businesses on the track on the track and even large falls, many real, of those that leave the signs on the skin and bones. Never obvious and never banal, not a very champion but certainly a champion who often found himself having to pedal stronger than the “bad luck”. Years ago, in 2015, just to give an example, when he was forced to give a flat rate to the Richmond World Championships for a fall he took it with philosophy: “Patience- he wrote about his social channels- I will look at the rugby World Cup and think about my wedding, not necessarily in this order …”. And so it was: the All Blacks won the title with his high displeasure and he counted at the right wedding with the beautiful Sara who since then has always been at his side in everything and in every race he does.
Strange story that of this 39 -year -old Welsh that Queen Elisabetta years ago appointed officer of the Order of the British Empire for cycling merits. First swimmer, then Rugbysta in the team of his school in Whitchrch, then Pistard for three times world champion and twice Olympic gold in Beijing and London, then Gregario by Chris Froome and then seven years ago crystal clear winner of the Tour de France. Strange story that led him to win a tour of the dolphin, a romantic tour, a tour of Switzerland but less than what he could probably have been able to because it was written in his destiny.
For example in 2020 at the Giro where he was among the favorites. After three stages he had trimmed over a minute to Vicenzo Nibali but in a transfer he had taken a bottle with a wheel and had returned home with his fractured basin. SortEmpre at the Giro, on the streets of Abruzzo in the Blockhaus stage, had also ended up on the ground in 2017 in a carambola against the bike of a policeman stopped on the roadside as well as in 2005 when in Australia he had landed again on the asphalt after a flight caused by a piece of bikes that had detached himself from that of a teammate of his and who had cost him the removal of the spleen. Or like when at the tour when he had made a mistake in a downhill curve and he had not ended up in an escarpment just because he had gone to bang ruinously against a pole that providentally had stopped him. In the bad luck even a little luck. Stuff from cyclists. But Thomas has always put himself back on his feet has always left for falls and defeats. Some sounds like that of three years ago at the Giro when he had to deliver a pink jersey already won in the hands of Primaz Roglic who had beaten him for 14 seconds in the last time trial of Monte Lussari perhaps also because, before starting the climb, the “Mr. G” had the unhealthy idea of stopping to change the bike Ee also the helmet.
Yesterday in Cardiff he pedaled alongside the boys of the Maindy Flyers, his first cycling team and his son. He received the tribute of the whole group that greeted him by raising his bikes and leaving him a catwalk worthy of a champion. End, emotion and tears. End but not entirely because the Welshman will remain at the Ineos with a managerial role by dealing, in all probability, of the management of the youth sector. And maybe he won’t stop completely. A couple of years ago to a journalist of Cycling News who asked him that intentions had after retiring replied without many hesitation: “When I retire from the world of professional cycling I certainly want to face an ironman. Or maybe more than one starting from that in Wales. I think I will need something to do …”. And that the triathlon is in his thoughts and his ropes also confirmed his friend and former teammate Cameron Wurz who trained with him for years under the orders of the team of the Team Ineos Tim Kerrison: “He can swim, obviously he goes strong by bike but also runs to 3 and 40 per kilometer, therefore …”.
So the door is open even if you don’t know (and it is not said) that the Welsh from the face and the bases from beatle He will decide to open it. But in Cardiff, in his part, restless souls live. Like the one that tells of a knight That wanders for the ruins of the castle of Raglan in search of its soul, a spirit that finds no peace and that is said to belong to Sir Charles Somerset who died during the English civil war. The ghost is said to appear on full moon nights, dressed in its fluttering cloak and brandishing an bloody sword. And there are those who swear they have seen him riding a racing bike …