\n The penultimate stage of the professional cycling race, that was also the swansong for Wales\u2019 former Tour De France winner Geraint Thomas, started in Pontypool Park on Saturday, September 6 before finishing in the Olympic rider\u2019s home city, Cardiff, the following day.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Torfaen council leader, and cycling fan Anthony Hunt who took part in a fun cycle from the canal basin in Pontypool to the start and along part of the route with other members of Pontypool Road Cycling Club, praised the event at the council\u2019s September meeting and support from council staff.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n He said the tour had taken in Torfaen and Monmouthshire and said: \u201cA big thank you to the staff of the council who went above and beyond to deliver such an event for Torfaen and Wales.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cPontypool Park was packed for the start and with a great atmosphere as there was throughout the course and at the finish.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n He also said the support of local people had added to the event: \u201cSo a big thank you to all the local people as well who made it such a special weekend and I had great feedback from the organisers and from the riders and, importantly, from the fans who travelled to see the race including groups from as far a field as Belgium who said they\u2019d be back to visit our area so that just goes to show the importance of such events and providing that positive image for the area.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n At the Tuesday, September 16 meeting the Labour leader also thanked those who\u2019d attended the reopening of the council run Greenmeadow Community Farm, in Cwmbran, on the weekend said\u00a0and it was \u201cgreat to see children enjoying themselves\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The penultimate stage of the professional cycling race, that was also the swansong for Wales\u2019 former Tour De…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-145563","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\/145563","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=145563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}