Thomas's 10 Tours

Defending Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas recalls his long journey to reach the Champs-Elysées in the fabled yellow jersey, highlighting the ups and downs that led to the greatest success of his career

- Pete Cossins

2007

My debut in the race with Barloworld. It’s quite a few years back now but I’ll never forget it. Obviously, the highlights were the start in London, where the atmosphere was amazing, and finishing in Paris, because I just didn’t expect to get there. Everything in between was just suffering. Every day was a fight just to finish each stage within the time limit.

There were a lot of really tough days. On one, I was out of the back on my own for 100 kilometres, just chasing to get back to the gruppetto. Another day, Astana put everyone in the gutter on the flat just before we went into a feed zone and I went straight out of the back in a group of five or six. I was swinging all day. It was a big fight for the whole race, thinking each day when the speed went up that this day might be my last.

I learned a lot about myself physically, but also from the more experienced riders on the team around me, guys like Robbie Hunter, who I shared a room with. I knew I could get better and felt that I could ride the Tour. At that point, though, any thoughts of winning the race were just a million miles away.

Position: 139th (out of 140 finishers), 3:46.51 down on Alberto Contador

2010