Swift geared up to take advantage of ‘intense blitz of races’
As part of the ambitious Arkea-Samsic team, Connor Swift is well placed to make a mark when cycling finally resumes. Nick Westby reports.
FORMER British road race champion Connor Swift hopes a truncated but cluttered cycling calendar at the back end of the year can see him contest some of the sport’s most famous races.
The 24-year-old from Doncaster was a surprise winner of the British road race title in 2018 but has pushed on from that platform to earn a contract with French pro-continental team Arkea-Samsic.
Although mindful of the circumstances his sport, and the world at large, finds itself in due to the coronavirus outbreak, he might just be able to benefit when the season finally gets underway.
The global pandemic has forced the UCI to postpone racing and redraw the cycling calendar, with an anticipated start date of August 1.
The governing body has established a revised 2020 UCI WorldTour which includes 25 events, of which 17 are one-day races including the five monument classics, plus three grand tours and the UCI Road World Championships, which retain their dates in late September in Switzerland.
The Tour de France begins on August 29 with the Giro d’Italia on October 3 and the Vuelta Espana on October 20, meaning the final two grand tours overlap by six days, forcing teams to field two separate squads. November
8, the final day of the Viuelta, is the last day of racing.
It means plenty more opportunities for riders further down the pecking order in teams, which is a situation Swift finds himself in.
“It’s going to be an intense blitz of races at the end of the year,” said Swift, who was with British continental team Madison Genesis before moving up to Arkea in the middle of 2019.
“At this moment in time, I’m not sure what races I’m down for, so I’ve just got to get myself ready.”
Arkea-Samsic made rivals stand up and take note over the winter when they lured longtime Tour de France yellow jersey contender Nairo Quintana, of Colombia, from Spanish side Movistar.
Quintana will lead their attack for the sport’s biggest race, if it goes ahead, but due to their status as a pro-continental team, Arkea do not as yet have an invite into either the Giro or the Vuelta.
“It’s a strong team and a very ambitious team. Warren Barquil is into his third year now, Nacer Bouhani is a former French champion and Nairo is a major signing,” said Swift.
“The aim is to step up to World Tour from pro-continental level, but it’s not like football, the gap isn’t that big. If you can get into the main races, it doesn’t matter what level your team is categorised as.
“If the opportunity comes around to ride the Tour de France, I’ll take it. A grand tour is something I’d love to do. Same with the Giro or the Vuelta, but because of the cluttered schedule Paris-Roubaix is on at around a similar time and that’s another race I’d love to try.”
Swift had made a strong start to 2020 before the curtailment of racing, finishing third on the youth classification on the Saudi Tour and then perhaps more impressively, fifth in that age group on the Paris-Nice weeklong stage race when he rode in support of Quintana.
“It was crazy doing Paris-Nice as a support rider for Nairo,” added Swift.
“It was my first World Tour stage race, so to be able to do it in support of a great rider like him was great.
“And he said at the end that I’d done a good job for him, which was crazy to think he was saying that.”