Riders are being signed to pro teams at ever younger ages, but does this mean youngsters need to specialise earlier to be in with a chance? Former junior high-flyer Joe Laverick investigates
Oskar Svendsen was on track to become one of the greatest cyclists ever. Back in 2012, at the age of 18, the Norwegian set the highest VO2 max ever recorded, 96.7ml/kg/min. Three weeks later, he won the World Junior TT Championships, beating Matej Mohorič by seven seconds. His fifth place a year later at the Tour de l’Avenir confirmed his brilliance. On paper, he was going to be unstoppable.
Were he starting out today, the young Svendsen would be snapped up by a WorldTour team on a multiyear contract. Instead, he stepped away from the sport in 2014, reportedly struggling with illness, injury and the weight of expectation.
While Svendsen is perhaps the most famous case, there are countless athletes who were touted for senior success after shining brightly while still at school. There will always be those junior stars who continue to shine as seniors – Tom Pidcock and Josh Tarling are two of the brightest-shining examples. They were superb as kids and then made the step into the WorldTour with apparent ease. So why do some make it while others fall by the wayside?
Cycling is changing. WorldTour riders are getting younger, and almost every big team has a namesake development squad. R iders are getting hired to lucrative multi-year contracts off the back of results achieved before they can legally get ser ved at a bar. Does this mean they are compelled to specialise earlier, at ever younger ages? And if so, is that a good thing?
Now more than ever, it might seem that being successful through the youth ranks stamps a rider’s first-class ticket to the WorldTour. Yet winning before leaving school doesn’t necessarily mean a rider will be lighting up the Tour de France by the time the decade is out. W hat determines whether a talented young rider makes it to the top? I have some personal (somewhat painful) experience in this area…
In the hot seat
My heart-rate is sky high and my mouth is foaming as I cross the finish line in Innsbruck, Austria. “Catch me,” I gasp to Phil MacDonald, veteran soigneur of British Cycling. My body fails me as I collapse on the floor, the bike goes one way, my body the other. “ You’re in the hot seat, Joe, you’re leading the World Championships!” A grimace turns to a smile. I’m leading the 2018 Junior World TT Championships. This is it, the start of something big. Or so I thought to myself as I sat in the Team Sky bus at the end of the day, delighted to be the eighth-fastest junior in the world.
