Ethan Hayter thrives in British championships chaos to win special jersey: "There were about 100 different groups and attacks"

Ethan Hayter has struggled quite a lot in 2023 and 2024 mostly because of his positioning, and hasn't been able to perform as in the past. But he has broken a negative streak with a very popular win at the British national championships which may turn his career around.

"It's my first time, so that's really special. It has been quite a hard period, I haven't won a race since I broke my collarbone for the second time last year, so it's really nice," Hayter said in an interview with CyclingWeekly. "There were about 100 different groups and attacks so it was a hard part of the race getting that right."

INEOS Grenadiers had riders, but still in the hilly circuit around Saltburn-by-the-Sea it was necessary to have the legs. On the day, the 25-year old had the best mix. He rode together with Lewis Askey and Max Walker throughout large kilometers in the head of the race in order to prevent the comeback of chasing groups, and in the end he managed to be the strongest in the explosive finale. 

"As a team we rode really well, you can't be in every move yourself. One of us was there, and you can use other team. We rode really well, then in the second half of the race I was always on the front foot and felt quite good," he explains. "I just knew I had to be patient and puck and choose the right time to go, because everyone was looking at me a little bit."

But despite this favourite position, he wasn't outsmarted by his rivals. "I had to hesitate a little bit when he (Lewis Askey, ed.) came past me on the hairpin, I had to back off to not hit his back wheel. He was really going strong, but I was hoping I had a little bit extra as it levelled off to come over the top."