Thomas’s ‘Zwift Shifts’ raise over £300,000 in charity donations
Geraint Thomas finished the third of three (very) long days on the trainer on Friday, closing out a fundraising effort that would raise a whopping £300,000 to help the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS).
The 2018 Tour de France champion kicked off his three NHS “Zwift Shifts” on Wednesday, spending 12 hours a day – a typical shift for an NHS hospital worker – on the trainer through. “I’ve just heard so many stories about what people were doing it made me want to help,” he said in a television interview shortly after starting.
Streaming his rides live on Facebook and inviting others to join him, Thomas got underway with a goal of raising £100,000 in donations to NHS Charities Together, an organization of charities working with the NHS.
By the end of the first ride, he had already exploded past that goal, with thousands joining him on Zwift and a handful of British sports celebrities helping to spread the word.
Thomas continued on through Thursday and Friday, kept company for some of the effort by his six-month old son bouncing a few feet away, and completed his third and final “Zwift Shift” on Friday evening. By that point he had raised nearly £300,000, ticking past that mark shortly after climbing off the trainer.
As of publication, Thomas’s rides have raised £305,289, or roughly $381,000.
Done! And over £300k raised ???? thank you everyone for your support and donations, they kept me going ???????? pic.twitter.com/g6JMN1LGBR
— Geraint Thomas (@GeraintThomas86) April 17, 2020
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