Sam Welsford has set an early benchmark as the sprinter to beat this season.
The 29-year-old made his season debut in Australia, claiming the national criterium title, three stage wins and the points classification at the Tour Down Under before helping Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Laurence Pithie to third place in a sweltering hot edition of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on Sunday.
However, it was a small one-dayer in between those two bigger events, the Surf Coast Classic, that maybe best demonstrated the dominance of Welsford and his team. The 157km race won’t rate a mention again this season but saw the peloton average 48km/h as 13 rival squads went all-in on trying to derail one.
"It was the fifth fastest race in the last two years. It was ridiculous. It was so fast," Welsford told Cyclingnews. "I think everyone didn’t want to make it easy for us."
It was a compliment to the Australian, who is confident his sprint train, which includes Danny van Poppel and Ryan Mullen, in their second season together will stack up against that of rivals at the UAE Tour next month. The desert race is a litmus test for pure sprinters and outside the Grand Tours arguably the most important on the calendar for the fast men.
"The big focus for us was getting it dialled in for this year and starting well," Welsford said.
"I think we learned a lot from last year, not getting too complacent with our train because we know how strong we are, but when you go to UAE everyone is super strong there, so we have to have a lot of focus and horsepower, and we have that now."
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe sports director Shane Archbold believes Welsford is already faster than he was last season, when he divided attention between the road and track, winning gold in the men’s team pursuit at the Paris Olympic Games.
"I would say we still have to get a few things dialled but he’s definitely going better than he was last year," Archbold said.
"It was very good to see him in good condition. Sam’s super motivated at the moment, so it’s nice.
"Obviously last year the big goal for him personally was the Olympics. Luckily for Australia, he ticked that box and now this year is more of a road focus.
"Definitely he’s done a little bit different work," he continued. "For Down Under you don’t necessarily need to, track form is good enough I would say to get through shorter stages, very hard stages but short, fast finishes, but it’ll be more later in the year we see."
Welsford believes starting his season early in Australia will serve him well throughout 2025 in which he hopes to be selected for a Grand Tour.
"If you have a good winter and get the K’s in, which I had a big focus on this year, really getting a good base in the legs, so I could come here good… UAE and Paris-Nice… should be really nice to do off this form, some of the Classics, and then reset for some of the bigger goals this year," he said.
Welsford is hopeful more results on the board will land him selection for the Tour de France even though Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s focus there, with Jai Hindley and the arrival of Primož Roglič last year, has been on general classification.
"Fingers crossed I can do a Grand Tour. That would be the best option for me, but we have to see what the team thinks," he said.
"I know how hard they are, and we have a really strong team now. If we did the Tour de France, there are options for a sprint train there because I think they might take a bit of a different team because Primož will do the Giro and the Tour I imagine, but we don’t know yet. Hopefully, it’s a discussion for later.
"If we keep winning in Europe and doing all the right things we’ll give ourselves a good argument."
