Geoff Thomas pulls out of Three Tours Challenge

Geoff Thomas with Tour de France team in 2008

Former Rochdale footballer Geoff Thomas has been forced to pull out of the Three Tours cycling challenge because of a hip infection.

On Wednesday (12 July), the former footballer announced he had been forced to pull out of the ride, which he was taking on with four amateur cyclists, but plans to return for the Spanish leg after ‘getting checked out’.

Sharing graphic photos of the badly bruised and swollen joint, he added: “Hip, a week on, just wouldn’t stop swelling up on the bike making it difficult to push hard.

"Get home, get checked out then go again.”

Littleborough-born Geoff, who has battled Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia, was set to take on three consecutive Grand Tours- the Giro d’Italia the Tour de France, and Vuelta a España- to raise £1m for the Cure Leukaemia charity. The charity, set up in 2003 by Professor Charlie Craddock CBE and patient Graham Silk, helped support Geoff during his treatment.

The charity is aiming to expand the Birmingham Centre for Clinical Haematology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which was built in 2005, to double its capacity for patients, clinical trials and specialist clinicians. The Centre was opened a year later by Geoff and former cricketer Ashley Giles MBE.

An expansion on the centre will help save more lives and hasten global progress towards eradication of all forms of blood cancer, which affects 38,000 people every year. The third biggest killer and fifth most common cancer, 14,000 people die each year from blood cancer.

Geoff’s other team members, Doug McKinnon, Marcus Leach, James Maltin and Hayden Groves, are continuing the challenge, one day ahead of the professionals as the first team to take on the challenge. Only 39 professional cyclists have ever completed it.

In total, the team will ride 10,403 kilometres and climb over 66,000 metres in just 63 days of cycling- the equivalent of cycling from Birmingham to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

To donate, visit:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/3tours