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news
Geraint Thomas in yellow, Tour de France 2018 (picture courtesy Anne Martin).JPGSir Bradley Wiggins on how Geraint Thomas's life will change after Tour de France win
Sir Bradley Wiggins has spoken of how Geraint Thomas’s life will change following his Tour de France triumph yesterday, saying it’s “bigger than the Olympics.”
As the first British rider to win the Tour de France, his victory coming in 2012, and owner of five Olympic gold medals – one, in the team pursuit at Beijing in 2008 secured riding alongside the Welshman, Wiggins is well-placed to offer his former Team Sky colleague advice.
Speaking in the fourth and final episode of The Bradley Wiggins Show for Eurosport, which you can watch in full below, Wiggins said: “He’ll feel the same inside, but people’s perception of him will change everything will be different from now on.
“He won’t be able to walk down the street in Wales now without people coming up to him. I think he may now be Wales’ biggest sports star.”
He continued: “I think winning the Tour is bigger than the Olympics. With the Olympics you share the honour with others, and would have been further down the pecking order with Mo Farah, and others higher up.
“But here it’s all about Geraint. We’ve watched it evolve over three weeks. We’ve seen it build up, we’ve watched him every day with that raw emotion.
“As the next few weeks go on, I think the public will want to get to know him more. He’s an incredible guy with a great sense of humour. Get a pint in him and he is the life and soul of the party.”
Wiggins cautioned however that Thomas would not be able to be perhaps as much the life and soul of the party than he may have been in the past.
He said: “He’ll probably have a few drinks tonight at a team meal. Normally they’d be getting pretty wasted but Dave and the team will be telling him: be careful now because you are the winner of the Tour de France, you can’t roll round on the floor and be sick like you have done in the past, you’re the winner of the Tour de France now because you’ll be in the papers tomorrow morning.”
Wiggins added: “Everything you do now becomes a news story. You discover that pretty quickly.”
Watch over 35 UCI World Tour events, including the World Championships, plus all three Grand Tours and the five monuments, live and on-demand on the Eurosport Player. Visit www.eurosportplayer.com for more information.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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11 comments
I think G is a little different to Wiggins personality wise, yes winning the tour will change things a bit for him, but I think he's a little less of a prima donna and will likely cope with it a lot more effectively. And as has been mentioned, he has no TUE type skeletons in the closet (unless it's a big lie that probably isn't worth the risk) that could cast aspersions on his success.
I hope he hadn't finished negotiating his contract extension, I'd expect there to be a few more numbers in the salary asking price now as I'm sure there would be interest from quite a few other teams, the selling power of his personality and likeability would be a big draw for them.
you mean trying to get in on adverts selling breakfast cereal, clothing, banking, hair products. cyclists earning power is a relatively short one, I'm sure his investment portfolio choices are well taken care of but he has to maximise his earnings whilst he's the latest flavour.
When he eventually retires he can then become an occasional pundit - maybe for the track (whilst Hoy is good he's a bit PC one dimensional for my taste) and do the usual round of motivational speeches, dinners, supermarket openings etc.
He comes across as a top bloke, I hope he does well out of it all, however there are a few on here who've already shown their colours regarding his theoretical tax paying status who likely hopes he doesn't earn a crumb/gets a slap off the taxman.
Idle speculation time.
Swap Chris Froome for Bradley Wiggins but keep everything else the same (i.e. Fifth Tdf, etc.).
Would Geraint Thomas have been allowed to win?
Would Wiggins, as soon as it became obvious that he couldn't win, have found an excuse to step off his bike and leave the race, rather than support Thomas?
Discuss.
and there I was thinking Chris Froome was british.
Without wishing to be a pedant, Chris Froome won bronze, not gold, at the Olympics.
That was just me being dumb and misreading the text. He's won bronze twice.
At least G won’t be batting off questions about doping and won’t be leaving people wondering how someone can go from a 4000 metre rider to a 3 week grand tour winner in a few years then not be able to maintain that new found ability.
Don't worry, cyclingtips have already questioned it!
...
Who asked him.
I presume the people on Eurosport did.