Geraint Thomas says the five-day Etoile de Bessèges race was the shock to the system he needed as he builds towards the Tour de France. The 34-year-old finished 49th overall – and joked that he almost got off his bike and ran the uphill sections of Sunday’s individual time trial.

For all those athletes cursing their luck and fretting over the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to 2021, think again. A 12 month delay is nowhere near as bad as the one suffered by those hoping to go to the 1940 Olympic Games. Originally scheduled for Tokyo between 21 September and 6 October, the XII Olympiad, was rescheduled two years out to take place in Helsinki between 20 July 20 and 4 August.

Helen Jenkins kicked off her campaign for the 2021 season with a top 10 finish in this week’s virtual pro event held on Zwift.

Geraint Thomas has been told that 2021 does not have to be his last shot at a second Tour de France title. The 2018 Yellow Jersey winner has been told he will lead Ineos Grenadiers into Le Tour which starts in Brittany on June 26.

Wales’s boxing ace Lauren Price will return to the ring for the first time in 16 months in Hungary next week. The Tokyo hopeful will be part of an eight-strong GB team competing at the Bocskai Memorial Tournament in Debrecen (8-12 February).

Entries have opened ahead of a planned full schedule of Championship Golf in Wales in 2021. After the effects of the pandemic on the 2020 playing season, all major Championships within Wales are planned to go ahead this summer with safe and secure COVID-19 protocols in place.

It’s not often the announcement of a TV rights contract ushers in much emotion, let alone some warm feelings of nostalgia. But the cricket deal to show England’s Test series in India from Friday has got Fraser Watson misty-eyed – and remembering one Welshman, in particular, who scaled the peaks of his profession. Cricket on Channel 4. For those of a certain era, the mere sentence prompts some gloriously rose-tinted day-dreaming.

Geraint Thomas and Owain Doull finished safely in the main pack as they got their 2021 race season underway in France. The Ineos Grenadiers duo safely completed the 143.55km long opening stage of the Étoile de Bessèges around Bellegarde.

Welsh Fire have opted not to retain Australian Test stars Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc for The Hundred competition this summer. But they have added England’s World Cup-winning seamer Liam Plunkett to their ranks. The new Cardiff-based team were due to spearhead their campaign with two of the biggest names in world cricket last year before the tournament was suspended due to the pandemic.

The Celtic Dragons will finally begin their 2021 Vitality Netball Superleague season on February 12 when they meet new franchise Leeds Rhinos in Wakefield. All 11 teams in the league will be playing at Studio 001 in Wakefield for the first nine weeks of the campaign, with no fans, due to Covid restrictions. The teams will then move venue to the Copper Box Arena in London for the remaining fixtures, meaning the Dragons won’t get to play any games in Cardiff.

Geraint Thomas will return to racing on Wednesday for the first time since a crash wrecked his Giro d’Italia dreams last October. The 34-year-old will be part of a seven-strong Ineos Grenadiers squad for the five-stage Etoile de Besseges race in France.

Jonny Clayton admitted he was over the moon after being crowned PDC Ladbrokes Masters champ – and booking his place in the Premier League series. The Pontyberem thrower triumphed in Milton Keynes after fellow Welshman and world champ Gerwyn Price was beaten in the semi-finals.

Newport County manager Michael Flynn has accused his players of allowing themselves to be bullied as they slipped further down the League Two table. Flynn looked demoralised as County lost 2-1 at Harrogate to drop to seventh place in the table. They began the year sitting at the top. You have to go back to December 8 for the last time the best team in the league up the New Year last tasted victory in any competition. That was a 2-0 win at Grimsby, the team they face next at the start of a seven-match sequence in February.

Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton stormed into the quarter-finals of the Ladbrokes Masters in Milton Keynes. New world champ Price swept past Joe Cullen 10-3 in his first match since his historic title success the title earlier this month.

Treharris boxer Gavin Gwynne says his trip to Dubai will be “all about business” as he aims to return home with the vacant Commonwealth lightweight title. Gwynne (12-2, 2 KOs) takes on undefeated Belfast boxer Sean McComb (11-0, 5 KOs) as part of the #RotundaRumble5 event on Saturday 6 February.

Melissa Courtney-Bryant launched her season in impressive fashion over 3,000m at the indoor meeting in Karlsruhe. The 27-year-old finished third in a high-class field in Germany as she began a year she hopes will take her to the Olympic Games.

Laura Deas finished eighth in her final BMW IBSF World Cup skeleton appearance in Austria before the World Championships next month. Wales’s 2018 Olympic bronze medallist improved on her 13th-place finish from Germany last week.

Tom Banton is one of the most exciting young cricketers on the planet but he insists a break from action at the end of last year has set him up for a huge 2021. Somerset and England batsman Banton was one of the headline acts retained by Welsh Fire for this summer’s The Hundred alongside his international team-mates Jonny Bairstow and Ollie Pope.  The new tournament – delayed from last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic – is scheduled to be played this summer with Welsh Fire playing all their home games in Cardiff.

There may still be uncertainty over the Tokyo Olympics, but Welsh hopefuls are having to keep fingers crossed and compete for qualification where and when events allow. For Welsh table tennis No.1 Charlotte Carey that means heading to Portugal next month and a chance to ruffle some feathers, as she tells Graham Thomas. If Charlotte Carey can show the same determination in the Olympic qualifiers that she has demonstrated in flying around Europe in recent months, then higher ranked players could be in for a shock. The Welsh table tennis No.1 is preparing to try and earn a slot in Tokyo as part of the four-strong Great Britain squad competing at the qualification event in February.

Elfyn Evans finished second on the season-opening WRC Monte Carlo Rally after opting not to risk it all on trying to overhaul Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier. The Dolgellau flier finished 32.6 seconds behind the Frenchman who claimed a record eighth victory on arguably the world’s most famous rally.