Tweets of the week: Grandad Geraint Thomas, a fox at the Giro d’Italia, and the greatest camera shot ever

This past week will go down in history as the one that gave rise to the greatest camera shot ever taken at a bike race. 

The video came at the Tour of Norway, a four-day ProTour event, won by Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Axel Laurance. I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch any of the race. You probably didn’t, either. But one 17-second clip put it right at the front of my mind. 

On stage three, at some point between the towns of Sola and Egersund, a cameraman from TDT-Unibet’s media team embedded himself among a herd of cows, far away from the roadside. At first glance, it seems a terrible vantage point. Cows are kind, but terrifyingly large creatures, they generally come with a pong of manure, and, crucially, they’ll only block the shot. What ended up happening was the opposite. 

The video, captured from a stationary camera, presents one cow, cartoonishly white with black splodges, standing right of centre and staring back down the lens. Behind, in a thin line across the middle of the shot, the front of the race peloton barrels past in single file. A lone fan can be seen at the roadside, waving a Norwegian flag. 

The composition is perfect enough, but the best moment comes towards the end of the clip when, after 10 seconds, the cow realises the commotion behind her and swings her head nonchalantly over her right shoulder. Spotting the last of the passing riders, she then tracks them off into the horizon. 

For me, the clip shows a beautifully serene side to bike racing. Some of my favourite camera shots have been at the sport’s biggest events – like Thibaut Pinot riding through the masses at last year’s Tour de France, or Tom Pidcock descending the Col du Galibier in 2022. Both scenes, in my mind at least, have now been outdone by a Norwegian cow. 

Elsewhere in this week’s social media round-up, we pick up the final gems of content from the Giro d’Italia, including a bizarre taxidermy fox encounter and Geraint Thomas’s meme-making skills. Likewise, Valentin Madouas gets a mullet, and there are cameos from F1 and tennis stars. 

1. Viewed over 860,000 times, this is the most famous cow in cycling

2. What the fox? 

3. Fun fact: Geraint Thomas is the oldest podium finisher at the Giro d’Italia since… Geraint Thomas last year (scroll to the last pic in the gallery for the meme) 

4. Thomas told the press he’s done with GC racing now, but his son Macs is only just getting started

5. Cheers to you, G. Moretti’s a much better choice than Peroni, too

6. It’s always nice when two cycling legends take time to pose with fans

7. It looks like F1’s Charles Leclerc has caught the cycling bug. Add him to the list with Valtteri Bottas, George Russell and Carlos Sainz

8. Here’s Laurence Pithie, Groupama-FDJ’s promising Classics star, and surprisingly accomplished barber

9. You don’t need to be fluent in emoji to understand what Luke Plapp went through

10. Forget pasta and rice, real champions ride on tikka masala

11. Likewise, potatoes are proper race fuel. Here’s ambassador Toms Skujiņš eating them how they were made to be eaten – on the floor of a hotel

12. As for post-race food, look no further than M&S

13. Jan Ullrich, is that you? 

14. Fortunately, Jonathan Milan’s handling is much better on the bike than it is spraying bottles of champagne