£1 million raised as ex-Wolves star Geoff Thomas and team reach Paris

Blood cancer survivor Thomas, who has raised millions for charity since beating the illness, led an 18-strong team of cyclists along the route, raising more than £1 million for Care Leukaemia.

They have cycled over 3,400km and battled extreme heat, battering winds, driving rain, fog, crashes, gruelling climbs, illness and fatigue to raise funds for the national blood cancer charity. On Sunday they rode into Paris having surpassed their £1 million target.

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 £1,700,000 fundraising shortfall in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and The Tour 21 team aims to help the charity address this shortfall in funding by completing all 3,400km of the world’s most famous and prestigious professional cycling event.

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 set-up 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 made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours just days before setting off for France. The former midfielder who captained Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup Final, made over 450 club appearances for Palace, Wolves, Nottingham Forest, Crewe, Rochdale, Barnsley and Notts County and he was capped nine times for England.

He retired in 2002 and was then diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia in the summer of 2003 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 route on five occasions since beating blood cancer.

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 £1 million 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 £1 million 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…. ”

Cure Leukaemia chief executive James McLaughlin said: “We suffered a £1,700,000 fundraising shortfall in 2020 and that is why it was so important that Geoff and The Tour 21 team could complete the event some of them have been training for since 2019. Ensuring this event could go ahead has been a herculean effort from so many people and I would like to thank everyone that has played a part in making The Tour 21 a success.

“To raise £1 million is incredible and I want to thank all of the riders, their families, friends and colleagues because taking this event on requires enormous sacrifices long before the start."

Geoff and the team have been receiving messages of good luck throughout the event and received a message of congratulations from comedian, actor and Crystal Palace fan Eddie Izzard.

And they received a congratulations message from seven-Grand Tour winner Chris Froome OBE.