Simon Yates

Orica-scott

Yates has had his best season to date, racking up three of his six pro wins in the last six months. While he might come into the Tour de France with high hopes of repeating the performance of his brother last year, who took home the white jersey, a top-10 finish alone will be a cause for celebration.

There has been much excitement around the emerging stage race talents of both Simon and Adam, which means it is easy to forget that at 24 Yates is still young for a stage racer. Chris Froome — admittedly something of a late starter — was still a fairly anonymous rider at Barloworld at that age and Alberto Contador had ridden only one Grand Tour when he turned 24 — though he went on to win his next one, the Tour de France, just seven months later. Richie Porte, arguably the favourite for the Tour given his performance at the Critérium du Dauphiné earlier this month, hadn’t even ridden one aged 24.

For Yates this will be his fourth Grand Tour and he’ll be looking to replicate his top-10 success at the Vuelta last year. He says he has already learned lessons from his near-miss at the Tour de Romandie where, while wearing yellow, he lost out to Porte in the final time trial, and tumbled out of the top 10.

It’s a sensible strategy for the team to enter with the dual attack of Yates and Esteban Chaves, who was second at last year’s Giro and third at the Vuelta — where he and Yates functioned well together. But it may mean that Yates has to go on the attack to secure a good overall result, as he won’t have the full team backing him. The boy from Bury is sure to animate the race.