New Zealand’s Aaron Gate may be anything but a newcomer to the cycling scene – laughingly making the point that 'a lot of the guys I raced with are now bloody sports directors' – but this year is his first in a WorldTour team and he’s already making the most of the opportunity.
The 34-year-old rider has put his track ambitions on hold and made the move up to cycling's top division with XDS Astana in 2025, from a string of ProTeams and Continental squads, and quickly delivered a WorldTour Podium. Gate claimed the reduced bunch sprint for second at a sweltering edition of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race behind solo winner Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla).
"I really wanted to win today, and I raced to win and had to gamble a bit in the final there that somebody else was going to pull back Mauro [Schmid] but he was on phenomenal form, which we saw all of last week in Down Under too," said Gate after taking to the podium by the Geelong waterfront.
"Hats off to him. He deserved the win. But it was also a pretty surreal feeling for me in the race meeting last night when you've got Mark Renshaw, as sports director – somebody who I looked up to racing as well – now saying, 'Okay, guys, we're all in for Gate tomorrow.'
"And to have the full commitment of the boys behind me with the likes of, you know, [Alberto] Bettiol who's won Flanders, and Sergio [Higuita], who is one of the world's top climbers, it was pretty surreal to have that."
The course that Gate had full commitment on looped out from Geelong for 184km, passing out via the coast and then back through rolling farmland for four laps of a finishing circuit that included the short but steep Challambra climb, always a pivotal field-splintering point of the race. Gate came through that climb for the last time in the leading 12-rider group.
"I was actually climbing better than I thought. I thought I'd be on the cusp of maybe hanging on to the front group, or just trying to come back on in the second group, like often happens in the race here in previous editions," said Gate. "But luckily I was, I wouldn't use the word comfortable, but I was in the mix in that top select group over the top.
"It was a nice place to be and then it was all about just trying to suck in the big ones and recover as much as possible to try and give the sprint to the finish a crack."
It wasn't the win he ended up with but second certainly wasn't an unwelcome outcome for the rider who will be setting off to defend his New Zealand national road race title in a week.
"It's a pretty special feeling to have had this fern the last year and to have it on the podium in a World Tour race, and with my first ever World Tour team – It is definitely a memory I'll cherish," said Gate.
