Geraint THOMAS

Although he had won numerous championships at the junior level previously, it was in 2004 that Geraint Thomas first captured the headlines when, in the space of a few months, he captured the scratch race title at the World Junior Track Championships and the junior version of the classic Paris-Roubaix road race. He then joined the Under-23 British Olympic Academy and moved to Manchester where he shared a house with Ed Clancy and Mark Cavendish. Unfortunately, a serious training crash in Australia at the start of 2005 necessitated the removal of his spleen and ruined his year, but he returned in 2006 and won a bronze medal in the points race at the Commonwealth Games, representing Wales. Thomas won his first world senior title in the team pursuit at the World Championships in Palma de Mallorca in 2007, and, at 21, was the youngest rider in that year’s Tour de France. The British team, with Thomas as an important part of their success, retained the world title in 2008 and then put in a world record-breaking performance to take Olympic gold in Beijing.