One good thing!!

At the moment we seem to be content  to celebrate numpties.

                                                 

                                                       The talented youngster ( non numpty)

They are lauded on the world stage; Pop stars that can’t  sing, hopeless politicians, celebrity types mistakenly thinking that they are talented, film stars turning out not to be the heroes that they should be. The entire planet seems to have gone ‘Say Yes To The Dress’ and ‘Love Island’ crazy. Even on those two programmes, the nasty and bizarre get the most air time.

                                                 

But cometh the hour. Cometh the man.

So here’s the scene. And the thing.  Six foot tall, thirty two, slightly mad staring brown eyes that twinkle when he talks. And he’s a nice bloke. Mr boy next door, Mr Humble, Mr Incredibly talented.

He has just won one of the longest, most gruelling sporting events on the calendar, and did it in fine style. And without the use of any drugs.  His teammates respect and adore him. So do the fellows he beats, and grinds into the ground with his outstanding talents.

He has competed in it twelve times, eleven of them doing his job, supporting those in his team deemed to be better than him. Even though he has Olympics golds and world championships medals, he is happy to  be the journeyman to others in his team.. There was better people in the team, so he supported them, putting his own ambition to the side. For six years, he has been regarded   one of the greatest supporting ‘players’.

But this year, something happened. The best wasn’t quite at the top of his form, the  man in waiting came to the fore and put a smile on the face of everybody. It all came as a bit of a shock to him, as everything seems to, to be perfectly honest.

                                                 

He kind of forgot that he had to make a speech as he accepted his trophy, so he chatted his way through it. His friend/rival on the podium had to prompt him when he forgot to thank his wife. His speech was all about, ‘if I can do it, so you can, just get up and get out there, follow your dreams and don’t let anybody tell you you can’t. It’s all up to you.’

                                     

 When he realised he had won, he did one post race interview and then just starting crying. Real crying. ‘Bloody hell.’ he said, ‘what is happening to me? Last time I cried was at my wedding.’

His wife, stayed away  during the event, appearing in secret for the last day so she wouldn’t jinx him or  put him off.

                                          

In the big interview a weeks after his triumph, he was ruminating how different his life is now. He is flying around in a private jet, giving interviews.  And what now, they asked.

‘Well he said.’ In that totally charming accent of Cardiff, ‘I had planned it so I’d be away when my wife moved house but it was delayed, so I have to go home now and build a kitchen.’

                                                  

 So the world has a new champ on the stage, the world stage, and to be honest, most of the stages in the Tour De France.

The rather wonderful, and totally refreshing Geraint Thomas. Don’t worry, nobody can pronounce him name. He’s just called ‘g’.

                                       

He’s brought a rush of fresh air to cycling after the Armstrong scandal, and then the Wiggins ego taking over team Sky, then the teddy bear of Thomas just hugging everybody in sight.

Today, thousands of people in Cardiff welcomed their boy home. He took it in his stride, got off the trophy bus and got on his bike.

We need heroes like this. And we need more of them.

Have a google at his interviews, so refreshing.

                                       

I think Stan will back me up on this; we cycling types had a little tear in our eyes when he raised the trophy.

Magnifique indeed

Caro Ramsay  10 08 2018