Taylor Phinney

2014

The moment that defined Phinney's season came during the USA national championships in May, where he suffered a horrific crash, careering into a guard rail after trying to avoid a motorbike. Having broken his leg and injured his knee, he embarked on a lengthy recovery process and has some gnarly scars to show for it.

Before the crash he had won the Dubai Tour and the USA national time trial champion’s jersey. Phinney had showed such great promise; let’s hope this doesn’t prevent him from fulfilling it.

1st National ITT Championships
1st General Classification, 1st Young Rider, 1st Stage 1 Dubai Tour
1st Stage 5 Tour of California
7th Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
 

2013

Phinney’s season started strongly with a podium finish at the Tour of Qatar where he helped BMC dominate the team time trial. He was seventh at Milan-San Remo – his best performance in a Classic – and won a stage of the Tour of Poland. Perhaps most memorable, though, was his four-hour, rain-soaked solo ordeal at Tirreno-Adriatico. Having been cut from the peloton, most of the stragglers climbed off but Phinney, keen to ride the following day’s time trial, ploughed on alone. He revealed his thoughts were with his Parkinsons-suffering father and although he finished the stage, he was outside the time limit and race organisers refused to take pity.

1st Stage 4 Tour of Poland
3rd General Classification, 1st Young Rider, 1st Stage 2 (TTT) Tour of Qatar
3rd Giro di Toscana
7th Milan-San Remo

2012

Phinney won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia, a time trial, to become only the third American to wear the maglia rosa. His main target for the year was London 2012 but he just missed out on an Olympic medal, finishing fourth in both the road race and the time trial. At the World Championships he won silver medals in the team and individual time trials.

1st Stage 1 Giro d’Italia
1st Stage 1 Giro del Trentino
1st Stage 7 USA Pro Cycling Challenge
2nd ITT, 2nd TTT World Championships

2011

Phinney’s first year as a pro didn’t go to plan – partly through a string of injuries and illnesses, and partly, as he admitted, because of mistakes he made at the beginning of the season. Still, he came back for the second half of the season, and although he pulled out of the Vuelta with fatigue, he came a creditable fifth in the Stage 10 time trial, and gained a lot of experience for the future.

1st Prologue Eneco Benelux Tour
2nd Points & 4th General Classification Eneco Benlux Tour
5th Stage 10 Vuelta a España

2010

Winning his second Worlds jersey in the individual pursuit and coming third in the omnium started a year that saw him winning his second Paris-Roubaix espoirs race and dominate the Olympia’s Tour.

1st Track World Championships, Individual Pursuit
3rd Track World Championships, Omnium
1st u23 World ITT Championships
1st Olympia’s Tour
1st Prologue & Stages 1, 2, 6, Olympia’s Tour
1st Prologue Tour de l’Avenir
1st National ITT Champsionships

2009

Winning his first elite World title and the u23 Paris-Roubaix race took Phinney out of the junior ranks in fine style

1st Track World Championships, Individual Pursuit
3rd Track World Championships, Kilometre TT
1st u23 Paris-Roubaix
1st Prologue Flèche du Sud

2008

1st Junior Track World Championships, Individual Pursuit
3rd Junior World ITT Championships
1st National ITT Championships
1st National Track Championships, Individual Pursuit & Kilometre

2007

1st Junior World ITT Championships
1st National Track Championships, Individual Pursuit