Thomas and his teammates endured plenty of scorn on the tour, mostly over a doping investigation involving Chris Froome. But Thomas emerged with the yellow jersey.
PARIS — The spits and the jeers. The eggs thrown at team cars. The attempts to unbalance riders while riding up the most grueling climbs.
Geraint Thomas never flinched at whatever fans — or his rivals — threw at him or Team Sky.
Thomas, the Welsh rider who became Britain’s third winner of the race, was the steadiest cyclist from the start and remained the strongest in the Alps and the Pyrenees. On Sunday he concluded his transformation from a support rider to a champion of cycling’s biggest race by claiming his first Tour de France title.
“With the boys, that’s the main thing for the whole three weeks: We stuck together through some tough times, stayed strong,” Thomas said. “Everything just clicked this race.”
Thomas maintained his lead of 1 minute 51 seconds over second-placed Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands in the mostly ceremonial final stage.
The four-time champion Chris Froome, Thomas’s teammate, finished third, 2:24 behind. Froome rode next to Thomas as they crossed the line and applauded.
Thomas was a support rider during Froome’s four victories but he emerged as Sky’s strongest rider in this race, as Froome crashed early on and couldn’t keep up in the mountains.
Team Sky — and consequently Thomas — became a target for many fans because of an asthma-drug case involving Froome, stemming from last year’s Vuelta a España. Even though Froome was officially cleared of doping charges days before the start of the Tour, that did not stop some fans from abusing the British team’s riders throughout the three-week race.
“When there is negativity like that, it brings us as a team closer together,” Froome said, adding, “You can choose to let it get to you or you can choose to let it motivate you, and we let it motivate us.”
Thomas stormed into the lead by winning back-to-back mountain stages in the Alps, including the climb up Alpe d’Huez, then defended his advantage in the Pyrenees.
During the podium ceremony, Thomas draped the flag of Wales over his shoulders, then ended his victory speech with a strong statement.
“All I can say is that I do it the right way,” Thomas said when asked about the concerns of alleged doping within Sky. “We train super hard and there’s nothing I can say that will prove it. I’ve just got to keep doing what I’m doing. It will stand the test of time.”
An all-around rider who began his career on the track, the 32-year-old Thomas helped Britain to gold medals in team pursuit at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics before turning his full attention to road racing.
On Sunday he rode a yellow bicycle to match his yellow jersey, sharing glasses of champagne with his teammates during the casual ride into Paris before buckling down to keep up with the other leaders on the jarring cobblestones of the Champs-Élysées.
“It’s going to take a while to sink in,” Thomas said. “Normally that stage is really hard but today I just seemed to float around it. I had goose bumps going around there.”
The Norwegian rider Alexander Kristoff of UAE Team Emirates won the last stage in a sprint finish.
“I’ve dreamed about this victory for many years,” Kristoff said. “I’ve been close many times before but never managed to beat the faster guys.”
The mostly flat 116-kilometer leg, about 72 miles, began in Houilles just outside Paris and concluded with nine laps up and down the Champs-Élysées.
Many spectators along the Champs-Élysées held their arms high to record the riders on their phones as they went past on the cobblestones, and there were more cheers when 11 planes flew overhead leaving trails in the blue, white and red colors of the French flag.
Glenn Roberts, from Newtown, Wales, was in attendance with his wife and children. The family timed its summer vacation to coincide with the Tour’s finish.
“Thomas was in the yellow when we left Wales but we didn’t know if he was going to keep it. We thought Froome was going to win it, if I’m being honest,” Roberts said. “It’s the best thing a Welshman has ever done in sport.”
