Connor Swift to stay at Madison-genesis in 2019
British road race champion Connor Swift is set to remain at Madisongenesis in 2019 rather than joining the Worldtour and will target Uci-level races in his bid to move to the upper echelons of the sport.
On Thursday the British squad unveiled a strengthened roster for 2019 including Swift, who will race with new signings including domestic stalwart Ian Bibby and his fellow Jlt-condor riders Tom Moses and Jon Mould.
Swift had been hoping to make the jump to Worldtour level in 2019 but told CW that the reduced rosters at the top level had made it difficult to find a ride.
“It’s been a hard year contract wise, there’s a lot of guys without a job… I was a stagiaire with Dimension Data, they were happy with me there; everything went well,” he said.
“Cav [Mark Cavendish] was deciding if he was staying or going for a while and that delayed things for a lot of the riders on that team. That led to the team not being able to commit to whether they were interested in me or not. Then it was getting quite late on; I just had to secure myself and cover my own back so I asked for a ride at Madison.”
He added: “I think there is an expectation from the public that when you see a rider on a Continentallevel team and they get some results that phone calls will be coming into them but that’s not really the case, unless you’ve won the Worlds. There wasn’t anyone contacting me.”