How do you look back on a pretty spectacular 2024 season?
With a smile. It was kind of fantastic – very few things went wrong. There are definitely things I can improve on so that’s always fun to rattle your head around. Even though it’s such a success and you think you should just be over the moon, there are always better performances, results, ways you can handle yourself in situations. But it was a dream year. I put together my best self every single race pretty much.
What have you identified as the key factors for that consistency?
I don’t know if it’s my age or that my body has learned to deal with the training load. Physically I’ve improved every year since I started. Maybe it’s the way I learned to crush myself when I need to in training and go easy to recover when I need to.
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Can you do a season like it again?
I probably won’t be in the lead of the Vuelta for two weeks again, that’s for sure. But I can get close. Whether it is the best year of my life in cycling terms I’m not really sure, but I can perform better in 2025 there’s no doubting that. I know there’s more I can do. Results are fickle; you can always do your best things and have it not work out. Like the World Championships, right? I was smart, but I wasn’t the second-strongest bloke there. But then I come away with the silver medal. That’s just cycling, isn’t it?
What are the most valuable lessons you took for the coming years?
Even though you might not have a superstar team, you can control a race. We were able to control the Vuelta super-well at Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale. Look at the UAE team – it’s something else compared to what we had, but our boys were some of the strongest in the race because they had a set role to do. I think you shouldn’t be afraid, no matter what the scenario. If you’re very clear with what you want to do, the whole team can step up to that mark.
Do you think you can get close to Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard?
No, that’s out of reach. They’re too good. I can be close on certain days, but I’m not that physically talented.
Are you at the stage where you plan races around what they’re not doing?
Not really because they kind of ride the race and you follow along with it. I could go along that line and probably do the Giro-Vuelta every single year if I wanted to. But then you avoid the Tour de France, which is the pinnacle, where you want to be. Sport is full of greats, that’s part and parcel of it. You can’t win everything.
You started off 2024 with a one-day race win at the Vuelta a la Región de Murcia and finished it with second place at the Worlds. Do you think about what you could do in one-day races?
That [race in Spain] was a ball of fun. There wasn’t the stress of positioning and the worry of a huge expectation. It was the first race in, a smaller one, and I got to hit it. One-day racing is something my now-former coach always believed I should be doing more of. I guess it never aligned so much with what we were doing. You have to like that style of racing, and it’s not that much fun – Amstel, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The World Championships are a little bit different because that’s a hell of a vibe, in national kit with the Aussie boys.
One-day racing is a kettle of fish I’m open to trying. I do like it as you really have to lay it on the line. You have to search for it, to be somewhat aggressive at some point. That’s quite a cool way to race, a way I have raced in the past. In stage racing, you can wait and be the best guy eventually over time with a time-trial, mountaintop finish or the wind maybe.
Was the Aussie link a big factor in you moving to Jayco-AlUla?
For sure. I’ve been with a French team for four years. Most people would never take that leap, to be in that group. You have to completely change how you communicate; it’s a different way they work. I loved it but I was ready for a change.
It’s great to slip in and feel the ease, being with the boys. I know some of these guys, but with the staff as well, it’s such smooth sailing. There’s no tip-toeing around, it’s straight to the point. I really love that. I think it will definitely help – I’ll feel a lot more comfortable to be completely myself. For racing, it’s about camaraderie, commitment, trust. I think no matter what, if you can be yourself, the boys can then trust you as a person and learn to like you.
How has becoming a father in the summer of 2024 changed your routine and career outlook?
My wife’s a bit of a superhero; she does a lot of the work. I think you have to learn to do things you don’t want to do, which is a big thing as an athlete. But has it changed how I gauge risk? No – maybe it will when I’m 35, but I’m 29. I’ve still got plenty of time.
