TDF Photo Album Part Three

We were young and carefree...

We’ve got as far as 2010, seemingly. That was when Team Sky were at the race for the first time. I guess, from a UK persepctive, it was the start of something that got very big, very quickly. Then it stayed big for some time. And now? I don’t really know. But the Tour de France back then was starting to mutate, rapidly.

JILL JOINED THE TEAM, 2010

Many’s the time when I have stood in for Jill Douglas and she has stood in for me, at various races and events down the years. We used to refer to ourselves as cycling’s TV tag team. She’s a good friend, well respected by the riders, and an excellent reporter with sound judgment. Here she is frowning in concentration at the screen, as she watches Mark Cavendish in the final kilometres of his opening salvo of victories that year. Over her left shoulder, Woody is pretending to be interested. Gary appears to have some impromptu fidget toy which he’s pulling apart. Chris is clearly in denial about needing specs. Liam has found something privately funny to laugh about, and John Tinetti (in front of Jill) has simply fallen asleep. Again.

I missed the opening week of the Tour, as I was in South Africa, covering the FIFA World Cup. But I flew straight from the final in Joburg (actually I missed it, but that’s a story I tell in my football memoir Square Peg, Round Ball) to join Woody and Liam in the Alps. By the time I arrived at the race to relieve Jill of her duties, Team Sky had already gained and lost a distinctive jersey on their opening Tour.

GERAINT THOMAS IS STILL VERY YOUNG, 2010

It didn’t take long for Geraint to make his mark at the Tour. On the cobbled stage three, he finished second behind Thor Hushovd and took the white jersey which he would concede to Andy Schleck by the time the race got into the Alps. This was his second Tour, after his debut at the race in 2007, when he was the youngest rider at 21. Now 24, he was starting to make his mark on the road, entirely ignorant of course of what lay ahead for him. The fact that he would actually win it.

15 years on, 18 years afer his debut at the Tour and after 13 completed laps, Geraint heads to the race (injuries permitting - he crashed out of the Tour de Suisse, but should be OK) for the 14th and final time this summer. This takes to its conclusion one of the great Tour careers, which has seen him turn slowly from a super-domestique for Chris Froome, into a winner in his own right. For a while, Team Sky rather cringingly used to refer to him as “Plan G”, a potential podium rider. I can’t remember which edition of the race it was when I interviewed him during the rest day about a realistic chance of ending up on the podium alongside Chris Froome. Was it 2015? Either way, I remember putting it to him on camera as we spoke outside some Alpine hotel, and he rather uncomfortably downplayed it, while still expressing his ambition to try. As soon as we had finished the interview, we shook hands and he turned to leave, only to trip up and fall over. The next day he lost a load of time, and I think he’s always blamed me for that!