"I think in stressful situations I become even more focused" - Simon Clarke on eventful 2022 season

From the lows of beginning the season unemployed to the highs of his first career Tour de France stage win, 2022 was one of the more eventful seasons in the career of Simon Clarke. Throughout it all however, the Aussie tried his best to keep a cool head. "I think in stressful situations I become even more focused."

The 36-year-old who now rides for Israel-Premier Tech was worried his career may have been over when the 2022 season began and he found himself unemployed. Despite the uncertainty, "I'm always an optimist." Clarke says. "Things happen for a reason and sometimes you can just be unlucky."

Clarke admits he's not one to chill out during the off season. "I did my own kind of solo boot camp in Melbourne over Christmas and New Year, then when I got the call I went straight to a 10-day team training camp, so I'd basically done two 10-day camps in a row. I'd pretty much done a Grand Tour. They were only going to start me in March but they saw I probably had the best form of the team in January."

This was immediately obvious when Clarke started the season in impressive form including an 11th placed finish at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. This form climaxed at stage 5 of the Tour de France, when amongst the chaos of the cobbles, Clarke finally managed to add a Tour stage win to his collection. "It was always a childhood dream of mine to win a stage. I haven't come out publicly and said it but inside it was one of those lifetime goals," he says. "I was focused on every sector and then when we pulled off the last one with five and a bit to go, I was just like 'now it's game on'."