Arriving in 2025. Meet our brand new British Grenadier! 🇬🇧 We're pleased to announce that top young talent @samuel_wats0n has signed a two-year contract with the team. Welcome Sam! 👊
INEOS Grenadiers sign young British talent that promises a lot for the cobbled classics - "Our squad for 2025 is really taking shape"
CyclingFriday, 23 August 2024 at 12:32
INEOS Grenadiers are losing British champion Ethan Hayter whilst his brother Leo Hayter is currently taking a break from cycling. It's safe to say British Cycling's situation is not the best, but INEOS have announced the signing one of the country's most talented classics riders in development: Samuel Watson.
“Joining this team really is a dream come true and I’m beyond excited to start working together and see what we can achieve," Watson said in a press release issued by the team. "As a young British kid watching other British riders in this team, it was really inspiring. To now join INEOS and ride alongside some of those big names - and to learn from them is really special."
A rider for Groupama - FDJ, the 22-year old had his development in the French team and turned professional in 2023. After two seasons in the pro peloton he will make the move to the British team. “I truly believe this is the perfect environment to reach my full potential and learn from the amazing role models within the team. I can’t wait to get stuck in.”
Watson is a winner of the under-23 Gent-Wevelgem in 2022 and this year he took an impressive win on the final and queen stage of the Tour de Wallonie, winning atop the cobbled Mur de Thuin, distancing a group including strong and experienced puncheurs such as Corbin Strong and Matteo Trentin. He has shown to have the talent to compete in these kinds of races, and will be part of INEOS' future block for the classics.
“It’s great that another talented young British rider is joining our Team. Sam’s still young but he has already demonstrated his talent at the highest level," team performance director Scott Drawer added. "We know that we’ll be able to offer him the best possible platform to take the important next steps in his career, and together we are excited to unlock his future potential".
“Sam’s profile and the range of capabilities will likely see him take a place in our Classics squad and feature in one-week races, where he has the skill to fight for wins in hard stages". After the team lost Dylan van Baarle it's been looking for new leaders for the classics. Watson will join the likes of Tom Pidcock, Joshua Tarling, Ben Turner and Magnus Sheffield to contest these races.
“In working closely with our world-class performance staff we’ll be able to offer him the opportunities to challenge for results in the right events, while at the same time developing all of the other skills it takes to be a sustained success at this level.” Watson is the fourth confirmed signing of the team for the upcoming season; following Victor Langellotti, Bob Jungels and 18-year old Peter Oxenberg.
“Our squad for 2025 is really taking shape, with a balance being struck between some of the most exciting young talents in the pro peloton being guided and mentored by the likes of Geraint, Ben, Salvatore, Jonathan, along with fellow new signing, Bob Jungels.”
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024