OLYMPICS – Gold stamp issue for Geraint Thomas

To help celebrate and commemorate each gold medal Team GB win at the London 2012 Olympic Games – The Royal Mail are releasing special edition stamps for each momentus win.

The British Men’s Cycling team shattered their own world record as they defended the men’s Olympic team pursuit title to win a gold medal for Britain. The quartet of Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh clocked 3 minutes and 51.659 seconds to knock nearly a second off the world record they had previously set in qualifying.

Here is the latest in the batch featuring the winning quartet including Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas. Within 24 hours of the win the stamps will be available to buy at Post Offices from midday on Saturday 4th August, 2012 and for the first time Post Offices are opening especially on a Sunday during the Olympic period only. They can also be purchased online via The Post Office website.

Previous Gold TeamGB stamps have featured Bradley Wiggins and Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins amongst others! Let’s hope there’s still many more to come! A first day cover and special presentation pack are also on issue too.


A Royal Mail spokesperson explains the rapid process from Gold medal to Gold stamp edition:-

“As soon as Ed, Geraint, Peter and Steven won their gold medal, Getty Images, the official Photo Agency of the IOC, submitted a selection of the best images from that moment to the Royal Mail design team. They had just one hour to review all the images sent, locate the most fitting and atmospheric image, crop and refine the photo, add their names, then position within the templated design of the six-stamp miniature sheet.”

Also as part of the celebration of winning gold – a Royal Mail post box will be painted gold in each of the winner’s home town. So it looks like Geraint Thomas will get his own gold postbox in Cardiff opposite Cardiff Castle – find out more by clicking this link!