The Long Goodbye

A data-driven look at Geraint Thomas’s nineteen year professional cycling career, spanning track and road, sacrifice and leadership, Grand Tour success and enduring influence.

Zain Hirani, December 2025

“Yeah, I’m broken.”

In a moment of striking candour on his podcast, Geraint Thomas admitted that his final race marked the end of more than a competition. It was the end of a life shaped almost entirely by cycling.

Not having a tomorrow morning defined by training, recovery and routine must be a strange reckoning for someone whose life has revolved around the sport since his junior years. Cycling is a peculiar contradiction. It is fiercely individual, yet relentlessly collective. Whether on the road or on the track, brilliance is meaningless without the ability to operate within a system. You must know your place, execute a plan, sacrifice at the right moment and react instinctively to rivals doing the same.

And then, much like cricket, cycling has formats. Many of them. To excel across disciplines is increasingly rare in the modern era. In that sense, Geraint Thomas is the Ben Stokes of two-wheel racing. Five track gold medals across Olympic Games and World Championships. Four podium finishes in major one day classics. Five podium finishes at Grand Tours.

But Thomas was celebrated not only for what he won, but for how long and how well he endured. Where the average professional cycling career lasts around ten years, Thomas rode at the highest level for nineteen. Over that span, lesser riders might have grown resentful of serving others. Not Thomas. The Welshman became the ultimate teammate, repeatedly willing to sacrifice his own ambitions for the collective goal.

They simply are not built like Geraint Thomas anymore. Not just in cycling, but across elite sport. The willingness to learn publicly, to subsume ego to the team, and to suffer beyond reasonable limits is increasingly rare.

His career falls naturally into three acts.

From 2007 to 2012, Thomas was learning the trade, splitting his focus between track and road. From 2013 to 2018, he matured into a complete Grand Tour rider and reached his peak. From 2019 to 2025, he entered his twilight years, gradually handing the sport over to a younger, faster generation.

The Early Years: 2007 to 2012

Roughly forty percent of Thomas’ competitive time during this period was spent on the track. It was a perfect laboratory for building power, endurance and tactical discipline. As a team pursuit specialist, his ability to empty himself for others underpinned Olympic golds in Beijing and London, alongside World Championship titles in 2007, 2008 and 2012.

At the same time, he was learning the brutal realities of stage racing. On average, he spent around fourteen days per year racing Grand Tours, often exiting early as part of team strategy rather than personal failure. At this stage, he was still some distance from the elite climbers. With an average sustained climbing output of around 5 watts per kilogram, he sat roughly 20% below the very top of the peloton. This was entirely unsurprising for a rider whose physiology had been honed for shorter, explosive efforts rather than prolonged alpine climbs.

During these years, around twenty three percent of his road racing took place in Grand Tours. That figure would rise steadily as his role evolved.

The Prime Years: 2013 to 2018

These were the glory days for Thomas and for Team Sky. The era of metronomic control, marginal gains and relentless tempo. Thomas grew into a super domestique and, increasingly, an alternate team leader.

His physiology caught up with his engine. Sustained climbing power now matched the very best, and his race load climbed to nearly seventy days per season. Double Grand Tour campaigns became common. The period peaked with the unexpected and, in hindsight, inevitable 2018 Tour de France victory.

Yet these years came at a cost. Having been largely injury free early on, Thomas developed a reputation for horrendous crashes. This was the product of racing permanently on the limit and a cruel streak of misfortune. As Chris Froome’s final mountain lieutenant, he was often the last man standing. Closing gaps, neutralising attacks and dragging his leader back from the brink.

Few riders of the modern era have combined Olympic gold, Grand Tour leadership and elite domestique service in this way. Thomas was not a specialist. He was a system rider. Adaptable, resilient and indispensable.

The Twilight Years: 2019 to 2025

Retirement rumours became a constant background hum, yet Thomas kept returning. If anything, he became a better pure climber, nudging his average sustained output from around 5.8 watts per kilogram in his prime to approximately 6.0.

But the sport was moving faster than he was ageing. The arrival of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard redefined what was physiologically possible at the very top of Grand Tour racing. Time, inevitably, was not on Thomas’ side.

Workload management became key. He raced fewer than sixty days per season, with close to forty percent of those spent in Grand Tours. Despite reduced support structures and growing team instability, his performances remained remarkably strong. His average Grand Tour finishing position improved from 39 during his prime years to 22 in this final phase. It was a quiet testament to experience, pacing and tactical intelligence.

But these were the long goodbyes.

For those watching, it often felt as though the depth, resilience and institutional confidence that defined Team Sky had eroded within the rebranded Ineos Grenadiers. Thomas, now simply G, became the last living artefact of a golden era. Each Tour de France carried the same question. Could sheer willpower conjure one last top ten or a stage win.

Too often, he found himself isolated. A one-man reminder of what the team once was.

What Comes Next

The start of the 2026 season without a lycra-clad Geraint Thomas will feel disorienting. Yet as Ineos’ new Director of Racing, there may be no better figure to help catalyse a reset.

Perhaps the future lies not in breeding champions at ever younger ages, but in building them. Patiently, humanely and intelligently. If Ineos can rediscover a balance between youth and experience, between data and instinct, Thomas’ influence may yet shape another generation.

Because his greatest legacy may not be the yellow jersey or the medals, but the example. That success, longevity and universal respect are built as much on attitude as on talent.

Broken, perhaps, but never diminished.

His chapter on the bike has closed. The next one may prove just as important.