One of the great late-blooming stories of the peloton: a decorated track world champion who ground through Irish and Kiwi continental teams before Burgos-BH and then XDS Astana finally gave him a WorldTour home in his mid-thirties. Since arriving he has won the Boucles de la Mayenne and become the team's Swiss-army knife. At 35, Barcelona's opening team time trial gives the four-time Commonwealth champion a dream stage for his first-ever Tour de France.
Palmarès
- 4x Commonwealth Games gold incl. road race (2022)
- Track world champion — omnium (2013), points race (2023)
- Olympic bronze, team pursuit (London 2012)
- New Zealand road race champion (2024)
- Boucles de la Mayenne GC winner (2025)
- Tour of Hainan GC winner (2024)
Cut-out factHe is making his Tour de France debut at 35 — and with the race opening on a team time trial, the ex-team-pursuit world medallist may be the most important engine on the squad on day one.
The squad
Riding the 2026 Tour with Sergio Higuita, Davide Ballerini, Max Kanter, Harold Tejada, Mike Teunissen, Simone Velasco, Nicolas Vinokurov — see the full XDS Astana team page.
Portrait: AI paper-collage render (gpt-image-2) after a reference photograph — source: Wikimedia Commons, author: Nicola, license: CC BY-SA 4.0.
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