Saturday 27 September 2014 14:27, UK
Ben Swift says it is “amazing” to be in a position to target victory in Sunday’s world championship road race just a year after undergoing surgery to correct a long-term shoulder injury.
The 26-year-old Yorkshireman is expected to be Great Britain’s protected rider and best chance of winning the rainbow jersey on a hilly 254.8km course in Ponferrada, northern Spain.
Such an honour seemed unimaginable 12 months ago, when Swift was recovering from an operation on a shoulder problem that had dogged him for three years and left him unable to pull on his handlebars.
The surgery went well and he has bounced back with an impressive season, the highlights of which were a third-place finish at the Milan-San Remo one-day Classic in March and a stage win at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco three weeks later.
Those results contributed to his selection for Britain’s world championship road race team and with the Ponferrada course not too dissimilar to Milan-San Remo’s parcours, Swift is hoping to challenge for victory.
“It’s amazing what a difference a year makes,” he said. “This time last year I was recovering from shoulder surgery and I was just struggling, even to finish races, so to have that behind me and then have a solid year with a lot of consistency is something that is really encouraging.
“The ride at Milan-San Remo and the ride at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco definitely gave me a lot of confidence and it also gave me the motivation to have an eye on the world championships.
“I’m one of the team’s leaders. We have got a lot of cards to play to cover a lot of the outcomes. It’s going to be a hard, challenging circuit, but if I have the same condition that I had in those races then I’ll be happy.”
As an athlete, as a professional cyclist and as a huge fan of the sport, the rainbow jersey holds such prestige and is such a major honour to work towards.
Sunday’s race is made up of 14 laps of an 18.2km circuit around Ponferrada that contains more than 4,200m of climbing but ends with a flat run to the finish.
Swift, a sprinter who can also tackle short ascents, will be joined in Great Britain’s nine-man team by climbers Chris Froome and Adam and Simon Yates, workhorses David Millar, Steve Cummings and Luke Rowe, and all-rounders Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh.
Although world championship road races are notoriously unpredictable, Britain’s broad plan is to shut down breakaways, keep Swift at the head of the race over the climbs and then deliver him to a sprint finish, should there be one.
“There is over 4,000m of climbing but I think I can get into that final group,” Swift added. “I think the Italians and the Spanish have got to take it up really early and make it hard for as long as possible. But then we have got a lot of guys who can climb in our team who that suits, so if I can sustain the climbs, we will have all bases covered.
“I think guys like [Simon] Gerrans, [Alejandro] Valverde, [Joaquim] Rodriguez are the people who you really have to keep an eye on. There are also a couple of Belgians - Greg van Avermaet has been in really good condition this last couple of weeks and the climbs suit him.”
Before thinking of victory, Britain’s first priority is to put in a stronger showing than last year’s world championship road race, when not a single member of the team managed to finish.
Although there are only four survivors from that squad in this year’s line-up - Froome, Cummings, Rowe and Thomas – Swift acknowledges all nine riders on Sunday have an added responsibility.
“We have got a bit of a point to prove,” he admitted. “We are obviously really disappointed with what happened last year and it’s not something we want to happen again, so we will be going out there to perform a lot better. But it’s not about changing what happened last year; it’s about doing as well as we can this year.”
Winning the rainbow jersey would be the ultimate redemption, but Swift concedes that he has not dared to dream what victory would feel like.
“As an athlete, as a professional cyclist and as a huge fan of the sport, the rainbow jersey holds such prestige and is such a major honour to work towards,” he said. “It’s something that you couldn’t even imagine winning until it actually happened.”
