Thomas leads Tour 21 team through final stage
A team of 18 amateur cyclists, led by ex-England footballer and blood cancer survivor Geoff Thomas, have completed the full 2021 Tour de France route, a week ahead of the professionals.
The group cycled more than 3,400km and battled extreme heat, battering winds, driving rain, fog, crashes, gruelling climbs, illness and fatigue to raise funds for national blood cancer charity Cure Leukaemia.
On Sunday, they rode into Paris having surpassed their £1m target for the charity.
Cure Leukaemia, which was announced as the first ever official Charity Partner of the Tour de France in the UK for the next three years, recorded a £1.7m fundraising shortfall in 2020 due to the pandemic.
All funds raised by The Tour 21 team will be invested in the national Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) which has been solely funded by Cure Leukaemia since January 2020.
TAP is a network of specialist research nurses at 12 blood cancer centres located in the UK 's biggest cities and a facilitatory hub based at the Centre for Clinical Haematology in Birmingham 's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
This network enables accelerated setup and delivery of potentially life-saving blood cancer clinical trials to run giving patients from a UK catchment area of over 20 million people access to treatments not currently available through standard care.
Cure Leukaemia patron Geoff Thomas was awarded an MBE in the Queen 's birthday honours just days before setting off for France.
In 2003, he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia and given just three months to live.
Thanks to treatment from Cure Leukaemia co-founder professor Charlie Craddock CBE and a transplant from his sister Kay, Geoff went into remission in early 2005 and then rode his first Tour de France challenge later that year.
Geoff has now completed the Tour de France on five occasions since beating blood cancer and is thrilled to have reached the £1m target.
He said: “Six weeks ago, it didn 't look like this event could take place and yet here we are in Paris having not only completed one of the toughest ever Tour de France routes but, more importantly, we have achieved our goal of raising £1m for the charity that helped save my life 18 years ago.
“I am immensely proud of the whole team including those who weren 't able to join us in France, the crew led by Andy Cook and everyone involved with the charity back in the UK. Without all of these people this event would not have happened.
“Raising £1m is hard and I would like to thank Farr Vintners and all our sponsors and everyone that has donated to get us to our target.
“We will enjoy this moment but there is still so much to do to ensure blood cancer is eradicated and I look forward to assembling our Tour 21 team for 2022 in the coming weeks. You never know, perhaps I do have one more Tour in me. ”