Remember a month or so ago when we brought you a case of cycling mistaken identity in the form of the other Stephen Cummings?
Well, we’re back again with another namesake: Geraint Thomas. But this isn’t just any Geraint Thomas, this Geraint Thomas has been declared the OG (Original Geraint) by the Ineos Geraint Thomas himself.
Almost obviously, they are both Welsh, hailing from the South Wales Valleys, and are both cyclists. Their paths have also crossed multiple times over the years, with humorous cases of mistaken identity aplenty, which Original Geraint Thomas was more than happy to share with me one afternoon over Zoom from his home in Richmond upon Thames.
So, who is this original Geraint Thomas? Born in the 1960s, he first came across cycling when the Milk Race passed through the South Wales Valleys in the late 70s before diving into the sport so far as to try and learn French in order to tune into French radio to attempt to pick up who’d won the Tour de France stage that day.
As well as riding the Tour of Wales – where British legend Malcolm Elliott turned up in his Porsche 911 fresh off winning the Vuelta a España points jersey for his Teka team – Original Geraint also was on a team that won the Welsh 100 km team time trial championships in the late 1980s. “There’s a gold medal upstairs,” he tells me.
As coincidence would have it, the original Geraint Thomas was aware of the Tour-winning Geraint Thomas from when the latter was young, when winning the Tour de France was still a far-fetched pipe dream for the younger cyclist.
“My sister was a school teacher at Birchgrove Primary School in Cardiff and Geraint was one of her pupils, and Geraint’s brother as well,” Original Geraint tells me. “He was obsessed with cycling as a 10-year-old, my sister said, and always wanted to wear the yellow jersey and, you know, fair play to him, he’s gone and done it.”
Naturally, as a local lad with the same name, Original Geraint Thomas was always a big fan of Ineos Geraint Thomas rising up the ranks, from Olympic gold medals on the track to yellow jersey success.
The peak of name recognition, Geraint says, is when the other Geraint won the Tour.
“I had people phoning me, ‘You just won the Tour de France’ and all this kind of stuff … I used to get loads of ‘well dones’ because [people] knew I was a cyclist and then maybe they haven’t made the connection it wasn’t me who actually won the Tour to France.”
But more was to come. After a career in pharmaceuticals, including at former Tour of California sponsor Amgen, Geraint decided on a career break, which included picking up a part-time, three-days-a-week job working in the Pinarello store on London’s Regent Street.
Having owned every Dogma since the 65.1, he was more than well-placed to sell bikes to customers.
“And I had an email which was gthomas@pinarello.com. So customers would write in, ‘Have you got this kind of thing?’ So I’d write back, saying, ‘Yeah, we got this blah blah blah.’ And then they’d reply and say, ‘Oh, G! I didn’t know you were helping Pinarello; it’s great to see you putting something back into your sponsors. I’m really pleased. Good luck for the for the future season.’ It happened a lot, honestly, and it got to the stage where I was thinking, ‘How do I let this guy down gently and say I’m not him? Or do I just say thanks thanks for the good wishes?’ And it got to the stage where I was just saying thanks for the good wishes. I just didn’t really want to let them down to say here’s the story and I’m just a coincidence and stuff. So that was fun and I’m sure it did help to drive a bit of awareness and maybe it helped me sell a few more bikes.”
While Original Geraint has met the Ineos Geraint multiple times, he has never met the other namesake, @geraintthomas on Twitter, who for years enjoyed pointing out to people he wasn’t the ‘real’ Geraint Thomas (who is @GeraintThomas86 on the platform) they were trying to get in touch with. Sadly, having just tried to look him up, it seems like @geraintthomas is off Twitter/X now.
As for other social media, “I’m sure my Strava numbers (1,400 followers) are because of the mistaken identity, but on Zwift people are always asking to follow me too because obviously I have my name with the Wales flag next to it,” says OG Geraint.
Really, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise all of these Geraint Thomases are popping up as it’s a popular name in Wales, but the actual cycling connection does make this particular case peculiar.
Which makes it all the more likely that anecdotes like this one can ever occur in the first place.
On the way back from a LeBlanq cycling tour, at which both Geraints had been present, Original Geraint arrived at the airport only to be told he’d already checked in.
“No, no, I’m just checking in now. I haven’t checked in before,” he said at the check-in desk.
“Yes, you have. You’ve been through here once before,” came the reply.
After much to-ing and fro-ing and the quiet sort of chaos that can only be found in airports, the penny dropped that both Geraints were on the same flight home.
With that issue sorted, the only remaining problem was that Original Geraint had booked a business class ticket, which had been given to the Ineos Geraint, with Original Geraint given orders to go and retrieve his ticket from Ineos Geraint.
Making his way to the business lounge, Original Geraint spotted Ineos Geraint napping, but thankfully Ineos Geraint’s manager was there, to whom our Geraint explained what had happened.
“G, it’s not going to be a problem,” Ineos Geraint’s agent told our Geraint. “I’ll have a word of G now.”
“G, you’re in economy with me,” the agent told his rider, who took the news on the chin.
When it came around to Original Geraint’s 60th birthday recently, Fran Millar, the former Ineos team CEO, who knew him from his work in the Pinarello store, asked Ineos Geraint to record a birthday message, which he did, and on a yellow jersey given to our Geraint, Ineos Geraint determined him to be ‘the original G.’
The yellow jersey and official moniker as ‘the original G’ feels more than deserved for a life lived through cycling, started years before the sport had made the mainstream on the British Isles, and well before another Welshman named Geraint Thomas would shine a global spotlight on their corner of the world.
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