Nice attack 'scary' says Tour de France cyclist Geraint Thomas

Geraint Thomas lives in Monaco with his wife Sara, while defending Tour de France champion Chris Froome resides there too

Cyclist Geraint Thomas has described the France lorry attack which killed at least 84 people in Nice as "scary".

The Welshman, currently competing in the Tour de France, lives in Monaco, 12 miles from the southern French city.

The Team Sky rider won a race which finished in Nice in March.

"When you hear about it in places that you don't live it's bad enough, but when you live just down the road it's scary. It's really sad that that's the world we live in today," he said.

"You try not to think about it once you're going, but certainly this morning when I woke up to the news it was devastating, it's a huge tragedy."

There were doubts Friday's 13th stage at the Tour de France would go ahead after Thursday's attack, where a lorry drove through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day.

Yellow jersey holder Chris Froome, stage winner Tom Dumoulin (right) and the Tour's other jersey wearers laid their bouquets in tribute to the Nice victims

Tour officials decided to continue with the race, with a heightened security presence, and Thomas says it was the right thing to do.

"You can't give in to these people and you need to continue and obviously go about it the right way, but we need to all try to keep living our life," he said.

"Surrounding it maybe there will be more police presence and more security, which is good obviously.

"But as bike riders you try to just think about the race and zone into that."

• Tour de France stage 13 as it happened

There was a sombre atmosphere at both the start and finish lines on stage 13, with most riders not learning of the news from Nice until they woke up on Friday morning.

There was a minute's silence held before the first rider set off on the course, and another minute's silence was observed as the jersey holders stood on stage after the day's racing had finished.

Thomas is 15th in the overall Tour standings after a seventh place finish in Friday's time trial.

His Team Sky team-mate Chris Froome extended his lead to one minute and 47 seconds by finishing second in stage 13.