[ad_1]
meIt’s the stuff of teenage cyclist fantasy, a scenario an aspiring would conjure up while pedaling a round of newspapers or serving at a bike shop counter: a young cyclist rides to one of the three biggest races in the world, gets pushed To leadership of his team when the designated No. 1 falls off his bike, then endures an unprecedented cliff hanging finish to claim the greatest victory of his life.
Welcome to the world of Britain’s latest cycling star, Tao Geoghegan Hart, 25, born and raised in East London, who on Sunday was crowned the winner of the Giro d’Italia, the three-week race that is second only to the Tour de France in prestige and difficulty.
Over the last 10 years, UK riders have gotten particularly good at Grand Tours (the Vuelta a Espana, which is currently underway, is their third) and now another has joined Sir Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Simon Yates as a British winner of one of the big three. It’s a far cry from seeing Wiggins strolling the Mall in his Team Sky uniform as a dazed teenager, as Geoghegan Hart did when the British team showed up in 2010.
“It’s strange, never in my wildest dreams did I think this would be possible when we started a month ago in Sicily,” Geoghegan Hart said after partner Hannah Barnes, herself a professional cyclist and former British national champion, gave her a celebration. hug at the end in the Piazza del Duomo in Milan. “All my career I have dreamed of trying to be in the top five or top ten in a race of this stature. This is something completely different and it will take a long time to take in. “
Geoghegan Hart started out as a team worker alongside Thomas on the Ineos team, but took a chance when the Welshman broke his pelvis on stage three. He did not appear to be a contender until he won last Sunday’s mountain stage in the Alps; a second mountain stage on Saturday tied him with 24-year-old Australian Jai Hindley. No Grand Tour had ever come this close with a day to go, but a 39-second margin ahead of Hindley in Sunday’s closing time trial in Milan gave Geoghegan Hart a relatively clear overall victory.
He was an energetic and impulsive teenager, a footballer who turned to cycling because he felt there was a risk in team sports that other people would disappoint him. He was also a swimmer, part of a relay team that swam in the English Channel at the age of 13. His coaches recall a motivated young athlete, not ashamed to tell them what he thought, who seemed mature for his age, perhaps due to the fact that his parents split up when he was relatively young and had a remarkable work ethic, which is not surprising in a young man who saw his construction father work 16 hours a day.
As a teenager, he worked at Condor Cycles in London, earning “pin money” on the weekends, and was selected for Britain’s youth academy at age 16. In 2015, he was offered a spot on Team Sky, now sponsored by the chemical giant Ineos, which he initially turned down because he felt he hadn’t earned enough. He describes himself as “a half-breed” due to his mixed Scottish-Irish and East End heritage and hopes to participate in the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham for Scotland.
Sign up for The Recap, our weekly email of editor picks.
Before that, Geoghegan Hart may have to put personal ambition aside, with Thomas aiming to get back to his best, and Simon’s twin brother Adam Yates will join Ineos next year. For now, however, he simply wanted to savor the moment.
“I’m just going to enjoy this,” he said. “It is incredible, but I will remain the same person, I will be as professional and dedicated as I think I have always been. I will wake up every day and look forward to racing my bike and being grateful for the honor and privilege it is to be in this position in these beautiful races. “
In Spain, meanwhile, taking second place overall on Sunday was Hugh Carthy, another young Briton who has run in the shadow of the greats in recent years. Maybe we better keep an eye on that space as well.
