“I think now he is in a good place” - INEOS Grenadiers coach Dario Cioni on how Andrew ‘AJ’ August has adapted to the WorldTour and life in Europe

At the age of just 18 years old, Andrew August has been thrown into the deep-end this season, as he entered the WorldTour with INEOS Grenadiers and has already ridden in his first Monument at Paris-Roubaix last weekend, where he reached the finish, albeit outside the time limit.

In an interview with Velo, INEOS Grenadiers coach and sports director Dario Cioni commented on how the young American has been adjusting to life in Europe, as he said that “for AJ, coming over at just 18 and setting up in Andorra has been one of the biggest challenges for this year so far. I think that was the biggest thing, to set himself up away from cycling. Things should be improving, especially when the weather gets better in Andorra he should be enjoying the rides more. I think now he is in a good place”.

August has also been adapting to becoming a WorldTour rider after making the massive step up from the junior ranks, as Cioni said “he’s also had to deal with the integration with such a big organisation like a WorldTour team. There are over one hundred people employed, so it’s a lot of people for AJ to get to know. However he integrated really well. And it’s a bit of a challenge to go from a junior directly to a WorldTour team. However he moved pretty fast in settling in. He especially has the respect of the older riders. He is learning from them, they are all happy to work with him”.

On the type of rider August can become, the Italian said “now he has a few races that suit him as a rider and where he can go and show what he can do with the team. Obviously he is a super-good climber. We saw that last year when he won several races in the junior category, and also from his numbers. And even if he is not the biggest rider, he has also got good quality in time trialling. This is an area that we as a team feel we can improve with some work and some experience. So that should put him in a really good place as a GC rider”.

In the same interview, August discussed what type of rider he would like to become, as he said “I’ll be doing a mix of races to learn. If I want to develop into the most well rounded rider I can be, it’s really crucial for me to experience all types of races. At the moment I really just want to learn as much as I can. Maybe by the summertime, I can reassess and look at some targets. But for now, I just want to take each race as it comes, and learn as much as I can. Longer term, I’d say for my career my goal is to become a general classification rider. But of course, this is not easy. We have to take it step by step”.