ETHAN HAYTER
The Briton’s stellar season on track and road this year has caught the eye of Team Sky
Team Sky, he must be good then?
Sky has a habit of keeping tabs on the bright young British talents and the Londoner is no exception. The 20-year-old had such a strong 2018 that Sky came knocking at the end of the summer, and brought him in as a stagiaire for the final few months of the season.
So what was 2018 like?
Ethan joined the British Cycling Academy setup in 2016, and 2018 was a real breakthrough. He won his first rainbow jersey in the team pursuit at the Apeldoorn Worlds, during which his mammoth threeand-a-quarter-lap turn at the end of the race helped extend the British team’s winning lead. His team-mate Ed Clancy described him as the “next Wiggins”. Later in the summer, he beat Olympic champion Elia Viviani to the European omnium title.
What about the road?
Thanks to the countless hours spent racing at his local track, Ethan has honed what seems to be a big engine. In the junior ranks he won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and finished runner-up in GentWevelgem. This year he made leaps forward as an all-rounder. He came fifth at the Ronde de l’Oise, the four-stage race in Northern France, before an end-of season flourish that included four top 10s at the Tour of Britain. He was also the only rider in the top 10 of both the U23 road race and time trial at the climbing-heavy Innsbruck Worlds.
How did it go with Sky?
Ethan rode four of the Italian autumn Classics. That allowed him to draw on some of his experience of living and racing in Italy last year with British Cycling. Things went pretty well: his team-mate Gianni Moscon won two of the races in which he also started.
What next?
Like a string of Sky riders who won Olympic gold on the track before turning to the road, Ethan’s focus is fixed on the Tokyo 2020 Games. “On the road I’ll just be learning as much as I can, getting stronger and building the road up as much as I can without detracting from the Olympic events and performing at my best in Tokyo,” he said.