TEAM SKY had a dream start to the Tour de France as Geraint Thomas became the first Welshman clinch the Yellow Jersey in Dusseldorf.
But the wet individual time trial was marred by a nasty-looking crash to Spaniard Alejandro Valverde who fell off his bike, slid and hit the hoardings at 34mph.
Chris Froome went into the stage as one of the favourites to clinch the Maillot Jaune on the day, but Thomas beat his Team Sky pal, who finished sixth and 12sec back.
The 31-year-old from Cardiff set a time of 16min 04sec over 8.6miles to beat Stefan Kunig of BMC by five seconds on an individual time trial.
He said: “It’s an amazing feeling. I didn’t even think about it to be honest.
“I was super relaxed coming here, I didn’t even think that it was going to happen, I thought Martin or somebody is going to beat me.”
The former Witchurch High School pupil witnessed his schoolmate Gareth Bale win the Champions League last month and spent the morning watching classmate Sam Warburton lead the Lions to victory over the All Blacks in Wellington on a laptop.
But this time it was the two-time Olympic champion’s chance to shine.
And Thomas will be grateful for some good luck, after crashing out of the Giro d’Italia following a smash with a police motorbike.
He added: “I’ve had my fair share of bad luck this year. Last month at home hasn’t been great, it’s great to get this win and thanks to everyone who has supported me.
“Shout out to my wife and my mum as well, we’ve both had a bit of a rough time recently. So it’s a great day.
“They’re not too slippery if you don’t go too fast. The first corner I went quite fast and Nico [Portal] was on the radio saying ‘steady’.
“So I took the rest within myself, there was a few times when I thought maybe I could have gone a bit faster but all that doesn’t matter anymore.”
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