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Ben Swift: a lot can depend on luck in the classics
Team Sky's Ben Swift explains why winning a one-day classic can be a lottery of luck.
When Team Sky line-up on the start line for this year's Milan-Sanremo, the first of the season's five 'monuments' of cycling, one rider from their classics squad will be watching the action from his sofa.
After being selected for the 10-man squad alongside Edvald Boasson Hagen, Bernhard Eisel, Mathew Hayman, Vasil Kiryienka, Salvatore Puccio, Gabriel Rasch, Luke Rowe, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Ian Stannard, Chris Sutton and Geraint Thomas, Yorkshireman Ben Swift was forced to cut short his time on Team Sky's recent training camp in Tenerife after an injury sustained during last month's Mallorca Challenge flared up to threaten his involvement in the spring classics.
"I crashed out on the final stage of the Mallorca Challenge," Swift explains to Telegraph Sport. "I'd done all the hard work and got over all the climbs and then just fell on a descent that is notoriously slippy - it was slippy on the way up so everyone was really conscious of it. It was really mossy and and I just went down on one of the corners.
"The fall set me back quite a bit which is really frustrating as I had good condition going into the race. It's just one of those things, it has knocked me for six though. I'm having lots of intense physio and massages as we try to get it back to 100 per cent.
"I had to come back from the training camp in Tenerife to try and get this finally get this knee sorted out once and for all. I'm not sure yet if I'll feature in the classics that follow Milan-Sanremo - it's obviously not ideal having an injury - I can ride my bike and train properly, but the knee's not progressing as much as we were hoping so decided I'd come back to Britain and get some good solid treatment on it. Hopefully though I'll be back as soon as I can."
When Team Sky, in 2010, came out with the, perhaps, fanciful claim that they would "win the Tour de France within five years" it is fair to say that a few people's ears pricked up. Though having now achieved their goal ahead of target the British team this season expanded their goals to include the classics. However, controlling a one-day race, as Swift explains, will not be quite as straightforward as some think.
"The classics are a different style of race to the grand tours [the three-week Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España stage races]. You can be riding over cobblestones and there's a lot of fighting for position, whereas a grand tour rider needs to be be lean and strong in the mountains. To ride on the cobbles you need guys like Mat Hayman, Geraint, Ian Stannard. Big, strong and powerful riders. A lot can depend on luck - there are so many variables - so it's not always about the training."
The classics, specifically those in northern Europe, are usually the preserve of the Belgians, though Swift believes the inclusion of so many British riders in the squad highlights huge steps British Cycling has taken forward in recent years.
"Having all these British guys in the squad just shows how the sport has grown really at home. The British riders are really coming through now - not just in Sky. A lot of us have grown up together. That's the good thing about British cycling now. There's me, Peter Kennaugh, Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard, Geraint, Cav [Mark Cavendish, one of the favourites for Milan-Sanremo] - we've all known each other since we were really young. I've got a picture of me and Cav racing together from 1996. It's really, you know, nice."
While the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race is traditionally used as training for the spring classics, specifically for this weekend's Milan-Sanremo, Team Sky opted this year to send their one-day squad to training camps in Tenerife to prepare for a tough few weeks in Italy, Holland and, of course, Belgium. Team Sky, though, have never been overly concerned with tradition.
"You saw the approach that Sky took at the Tour de France and everybody know we were quite scientific about it and that's what we've done for the classics. We're doing a lot more work on them, doing more training camps and working much more closely together. We've been using these training camps in Tenerife rather than use Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico, just because we know what work we need to do.
"It's definitely a break with tradition. Normally we'd ride these races but we've got some great background staff and coaches - guys like Tim Kerrison, Rod Ellingworth, Kurt-Asle Arvesen and then directeur sportif Servais Knaven - behind us behind and they know what they're talking about so we'll see. It worked last year for the guys in the Tour, so the squad's just been getting on with doing all the hard work and we'll see what happens.
"I'm not sure what the rest of the peloton thinks about the Sky approach. I guess we'll see how it works out. Maybe come back at the end of April when the classics are out of the way and I'll tell you then."