As a professional cycling journalist, you’re not meant to have favourites. And really, I don’t. You do get rid of that pretty quickly once you have to ask them difficult questions, or accurately analyse races where certain riders may have messed up. Impartiality is key, and as someone who was a fan before doing this for a job, I take it seriously.
That said, however, I can’t deny that I certainly did have favourites when I was younger, and just a very eager fan. In fact, there are two riders who top that list, being the very first riders I liked when I was getting into the sport over a decade ago, and really the two that got me hooked.
Not many things in cycling make a personal impact on me these days – and that’s a good thing – but saying goodbye to Thomas and Deignan feels like the end of an era for me, and the official start of covering a sport that is very different from how I found it.
Let’s rewind back to that fateful year in 2024, when, after several near-misses, I finally caught the cycling bug. Somehow, Olympic fever in 2012 had passed me by when it came to cycling – I was too busy obsessing over diving and gymnastics, I think – and several trips with my parents to Flanders and Roubaix somehow hadn’t fully captured my attention.
But, in 2014, the Tour came to the UK, and although I didn’t go with my family to watch it in Yorkshire, I watched the Grand Départ on TV, and then insisted that my dad take me to the London stage, so I could see my new favourite rider, Geraint Thomas.
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