Geraint Thomas shocked Cav with a selfless act the year he won the Tour

On Sunday in Rome, Geraint Thomas, although riding for another team, helped his old friend Mark Cavendish win the final sprint. With less than a kilometre to go, the Ineos-Grenadiers rider, sitting second overall, could be seen dragging the peloton to the line. After that, Cav took off, taking an emotional victory in his last Giro d’Italia.

Former teammate Geraint Thomas did the leadout for Mark Cavendish because he’s a total G

Thomas is 37, and Cav just turned 38. They both rose through the ranks at British Cycling, having raced against each other since they were juniors. They were also teammates in 2012 on Team Sky.

Many praised the Welshman for his selfless act on Sunday, but it’s not the first time he’s helped out other riders.

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In the 2018 Tour de France, Thomas was in the yellow jersey, en route to an eventual victory. At the time, Cav was riding for Dimension Data, and Thomas for Team Sky. It was the first stage, and the Manx Missile needed to be at the front to contest the sprint, but he found himself further back in the bunch. Cavendish wrote about it in an article for The Telegraph.

“To illustrate just what a good mate he is, and how selfless and loyal and all these other things which everybody has been saying about him, quite rightly, over the last few days, I only need to go back a few weeks. To the first stage of the Tour just gone,” he shared.

‘It was a sprint stage, so it was one I was targeting. But with around six or seven kilometres remaining, I got separated from my teammates and ended up on the outside of the group, in the wind. I was never going to get back on my own,” Cav wrote. “Then all of a sudden I hear a voice. ‘Cav!’ I look right, and it’s G. He was like, ‘Come on mate, I’ll get you back up there.'”

Sure enough, Thomas got Cavendish to the front. Although it didn’t work out–Cav finished 30th, the 38-year-old was touched by the gesture.

“After I messaged him and said, ‘Listen mate, thank you so much, but don’t be wasting your energy on me. Keep everything for these three weeks. You can do this.’ But that’s G. His reply was, ‘I will always help if I can.’ He is selfless to a fault,” Cavendish wrote.

Thomas would go on to win the 2018 Tour de France over Tom Dumoulin and his then-teammate Chris Froome.