![\"Geraint](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/skysports-geraint-thomas-tour-of-britain_7013800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGeraint Thomas ended his illustrious cycling career with an emotional finish to the Tour of Britain in his home city of Cardiff.<\/p>\n
The 2018 Tour de France champion, who also won two Olympic gold medals on the track, had been given a given a guard of honour before the start of the final 122.2km stage – fittingly held at the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome of Wales in Newport.<\/p>\n
Thousands of spectators lined the route to show their appreciation for the 39-year-old, as the riders headed past the local club where Thomas started cycling as a child as well as his parents’ house, with a climb of Caerphilly Mountain before finishing on North Road in central Cardiff.<\/p>\n
Dutchman Olav Kooij eventually took another stage win for Team Visma ahead of British duo Samuel Watson and Fred Wright, while Groupama’s Romain Gregoire claimed the overall general classification victory.<\/p>\n
Sunday, though, was all about Thomas’s farewell – his Ineos Grenadiers team wearing a special jersey designed by the Welshman, who was clapped over the finish line for the final time.<\/p>\n
“It is emotional,” Thomas said to Welsh broadcaster S4C as he fought back tears while standing alongside his son Macsen.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Thomas was given a guard of honour in his final race<\/p>\n
“It is the pinnacle isn’t it, just finishing here. I am struggling to even speak. I knew I would be emotional, but this is special.<\/p>\n
“It has been amazing. I don’t get to race for Wales much, but any country I was in, it felt like I was representing Wales anyway.<\/p>\n
“This support now has just been incredible. Riding in [towards the finish], I was just choking up on the bike. It was an incredible atmosphere.”<\/p>\n
Thomas – who had started riding for the then Team Sky since its inception in 2010 – finished in 80th position in the final general classification standings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geraint Thomas ended his illustrious cycling career with an emotional finish to the Tour of Britain in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-121264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}