The Champion Cyclist: Tao Geoghegan Hart
For the first time, two months in a row, a British sports personality is highlighted in Spirit. This month’s honor goes to British cycling’s latest Grand Tour winner: Tao Geoghegan Hart. Yes, Tao Geoghegan Hart. The Londoner wasn’t really supposed to win the 2020 Giro d’Italia, the second biggest race in world cycling, in Milan. He had started the Giro as a support rider to an in-form Geraint Thomas, but when Geraint crashed out of the race in stage three, everything changed. Our story begins in 2008.
That was the year Geoghegan Hart, an Arsenal-mad goalkeeper good enough to represent Hackney, took on a life-changing challenge. At age 13, he was the youngest of a group of teenagers to swim from England to France across the English Channel, in 11 hours and 34 minutes. Going back to the local pool simply didn’t satisfy his newly-found adventurous streak. Cycling did the job instead. Heading into that final day of Giro d’Italia in Milan, Geoghegan and rival Jai Hindley were separated by a few thousandths of a second. Never in the history professional cycling had a Grand Tour been so close. He was at 126th place at the end of stage one. More than 3,000 km later at the conclusion of the 21st and final stage – another individual time trial – Geoghegan became Britain’s fifth Grand Tour champion. Congratulations, Tao, and may many more wins follow! 🚴♂️
