NICHOLAS DLAMINI

The Tour Down Under King of the Mountains on his WorldTour breakthrough

I thought I was going to the Tour Down Under to just help my teammates get a good result.

But then we came up with the plan for the first stage: to try to get the climber’s jersey by getting the points on the day’s only climb. We thought we’d just gamble and try to put someone in the break quite early on. Everyone was quite confident that I could do that. I’ve got a good kick I can use on climbs, so it made sense that I should give it a try. And from there we decided to just try to keep it going each day. I’ve always had that ‘kick’.

When I was much younger, I won a couple of races in South Africa using it, but at this level it’s something I want to work on to be able to use later in the race to actually be able to win — not to just use to go for KoM points. I was getting a lot of messages from home while at the Tour Down Under.

I couldn’t really keep up with them on my phone, if I’m honest. I come from a township in South Africa, and people were really proud back home. I was getting messages from all these guys I do weekend rides with and they were saying that wherever they went, people were talking about it. It was great to hear that people were excited and happy about my success. Taking the jersey back to South Africa - the whole of Africa - was the most important part of all of this.

Hopefully it will motivate other youngsters in South Africa to start cycling. It doesn’t have to be cycling, actually — it could be anything else in life. But the key is that hopefully this is something that’ll motivate them. It was amazing to have a fellow South African, Daryl Impey, winning the Tour Down Under overall.

He’s a great guy to look up to - even if he’s on a different team. I always looked up to him growing up, and to be able to compete against him now is amazing. I’ve been welcomed into the pro peloton.

I guess you see people playing the ‘racial card’ everywhere, and when you come to race in Europe, you find that there are maybe one or two people who are a bit rude to anyone who comes from Africa. But it has never really been a problem. Racing at this level is very different from under-23 racing. U23 racing is really crazy.

At WorldTour level, everything is much more controlled: everyone knows their job, so it’s less stressed, in a way. My Dimension Data team manager, Doug Ryder, has done a lot for the sport in Africa.

The plan now is to get an African rider on the Tour de France podium in 2020. I wish that could be me, but it probably won’t be. No - that should probably be Louis Meintjes. The team has got plans to try to get him, or someone, on the podium, and I’d love to just be a part of that. But this year will be a learning year for me, and then I’ve got 2019 to see how much progress I’m making. Hopefully by 2020 I can get to do the Tour and we can get Louis on the podium. The Tour de France is of course top of the list of races I’d like to ride, and do well at, one day.

The road race at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo is the other race I’m looking ahead to. And then there are the shorter, week-long and 10-day stage races which I’ll do this year and next year, to see how my body can adapt, and hopefully get ready to do a grand tour. There’ll be no grand tour for me this year.

It’ll just be those shorter stage races. Besides, I wouldn’t want to do a GT just yet. When I do get the opportunity, I want to be able to finish it. I wouldn’t want to pull out after two weeks or something. I’ve always wanted to be a pro and race at the highest level.

It would be nice to win races; not just King of the Mountains jerseys. I just want to learn as much as possible and wherever I can get a win, I’ll be happy with that. But let’s see how the year goes.