Geraint Thomas wins 2018 Tour de France

Geraint Thomas sealed his first Tour de France victory, finishing safely behind the peloton in Paris. The Team Sky man rolled over the line with his teammates as up ahead Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) beat John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) for the stage win, with Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) completing the podium.

After the customary champagne and photo opportunities during the first half of the stage, things - as they usually do - got serious once the peloton hit Paris. A six-man break got away early on the Champs-Élysées circuits, but with the sprinter's teams keen to take the glory on the Tour's last day, they were hunted down with 6.5km to go.

A late move from Yves Lampaert threatened to ruin the sprinter's last hurrah, with the Quick-Step Floors man coming agonisingly close to staying away. But he was caught, and soon afterwards Degenkolb launched. Both Kristoff and Démare attempted to speed around either side of the German, but only Kristoff was successful, hugging the barriers to take UAE's second win of the race and his first Tour stage win since 2014.

"It's a dream come true," Kristoff said after the stage. "I've dreamt about this victory for many years. I've been close many times but never managed to beat the faster guys like [Mark] Cavendish, [André] Greipel, or [Marcel] Kittel. But today they're not here - they're out after the mountains - and today I was the fastest so I'm super happy."

Tour winner Thomas was in a similar joyous mood after riding safely through the stage to confirm his overall victory.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "It's going to take a while to sink in. Normally, this stage is really hard but today I just seemed to float around it - I had goosebumps going around there. To ride around wearing the [yellow jersey] is a dream. With the boys - that's the main thing for the whole three weeks, we stuck together through some tough times, stayed strong."

Thomas, Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) and Chris Froome (Team Sky) made up the final GC podium, while Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) took a record-equalling points classification win and Julian Alaphilippe (Quick Step Floors) won the mountain classification. Movistar took the team classification for the third time in four years, while Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) won the combativity prize.

How it happened

A processional stage of just 116km - at least until the peloton hits the Champs-Élysées - the final stage of the 2018 Tour de France started out in Houilles, a commune 14km from the centre of the city. The riders would go the long way around though, taking in 54km before entering Paris and nine laps of the Champs-Élysées circuit.

With the champagne dispensed with, the real racing began on the Champs-Élysées with 50km to go. A group of riders broke clear, with Taylor Phinney (Education First-Drapac), Damien Gaudin (Direct Énergie), Michael Schär (BMC), Silvan Dillier (AG2R La Mondiale), Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin) and Guillaume van Keirsbulck (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) managing to escape from the peloton.

The depleted sprinter's field meant that only a handful of teams had a realistic interest in the finish, but nevertheless it would be near-impossible for a breakaway to stay away to the finish. The sextet built their way up to a 45-second lead, but with Bora-Hansgrohe, Groupama-FDJ and UAE Team Emirates among the teams keen to ensure a sprint finish, that gap would be the ceiling of their advantage.

Eventually caught after Cofidis joined the fray at the beginning of the final circuit, the break saw Politt put up a final act of resistance from the break. From then on, though, it would all come down to one last sprint as the German was brought back 500 metres later.

As leadout trains competed in the final 5km, a number of escape moves were attempted, first by Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates), then by Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Yves Lampaert (Quick Step Floors). Lampaert was the most successful, threatening an upset, but the Belgian champion was caught 300 metres from the line. Soon after, the sprinters launched, and seconds later the Tour was over, with Kristoff holding his arms aloft in celebration.

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