Sam Watson interview: Rising Yorkshire cycling star coming of age in World Tour peloton with Groupama-FDJ

Granted, the Tour de Yorkshire race fizzled out after five years of growth, while the UCI Road World Championships left lasting memories and, some would argue, lasting damage to The Stray in Harrogate.

But if it’s a lingering impression you’re after, then the young riders of Yorkshire have certainly been emboldened by what they saw on that not-to-be-forgotten weekend back in July 2014.

Tom Pidcock is the obvious name that springs to mind, the 23-year-old from Leeds who is at the vanguard of the young and versatile revolution in world cycling. He already has Olympic and world titles to his name across a multitude of disciplines, not to mention a hair-raising descent of an Alpine mountain and victory up Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France.

Connor Swift is a little older but a British road race champion and now bound for Ineos Grenadiers next year, where he will link up with another Doncastrian cyclist in Ben Turner.

And then there is Sam Watson, who turns 21 on Saturday, who is coming to the end of his first year riding at Under-23 level on the continent, a season littered with victories and impressive performances.

That he couldn’t cap it by winning the UCI Road World Championships Under-23s race in Woolongong, Australia, on Friday, should not detract from the fact that Watson is the latest prospect from Yorkshire, land of the rising cycling star.

Watching the Tour de France in 2014 helped inspire him – "I remember being stood in Harrogate, filming with my mum’s iPad and shouting ‘there’s Mark Cavendish’” – but his journey began long before that.

Watson was a schoolmate of Joe Pidcock, Tom’s younger brother, and almost by osmosis developed his passion for the sport through Yorkshire cycling’s first family.

"I started riding my bike to school with Joe, and then they started taking me to races when I was eight. It’s not a bad family to get in with,” laughs Watson.

"All three of us has BMX bikes and I remember we all got banned one year from riding BMX bikes at school, weaving in and out of our schoolmates. Too dangerous apparently.”

Watson was a keen swimmer at that age, while football and running were also his outlets. But cycling gripped him.

He rode his first competitive race with Joe Pidcock when he was eight, but when he returned the following year to try and ride with his friend again, he was told he was too old, and would have to contest the Under-10s race.

Progression thereafter was steady, until it clicked and he started winning races.

"Second year at Under-14s and first at Under-16s was when I really got up there because before that Lewis Askey and Alfie George just won everything,” he says of riders he still faces now.

"I was able to race against them and just progressed each year.”

Watson’s recollection is modest, for by the age of 15 he had earned selection to represent Great Britain at the junior road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Innsbruck.

The standard of the field was underscored by the fact that the rider who won it was Remco Evenepoel, who just last month won the three-week Vuelta a Espana at the age of 22.

"Remco just destroyed everybody that day,” recalls Watson of the 2018 race. “He lost two minutes in a crash and then got back on his bike and still managed to win by about two minutes.

"World championships for me was nerve racking, I turned 16 that week, but it’s really special looking back on it now.

“And the 2019 worlds in Yorkshire were very special as well, racing on the roads I train on all the time. Results-wise I wasn’t good on the day which was disappointing, but once I got dropped I just tried to enjoy it and take in the atmosphere.”

His approach for Friday’s Under-23s road race at the world championships in which he finished 14th - his fourth appearance at the global event - was more in-keeping with how far he has come since those days: “Excited, and nowhere near as nervous,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

That is because Watson knows he now belongs in that company due to the strides he has made in the last year.

Coming out of the pandemic last year, Under-23 races in Britain were few and far between, so Watson went to France to race there, and earned a contract with World Tour team Groupama-FDJ for the Under-23 races in 2022.

"It’s essentially a World Tour set-up racing at Under-23 level. I’m learning plenty about nutritition, training, all sorts.

"This is my first year of having a full calendar, doing bigger races, that’s helped me progress massively.”

And he has repaid them with victories – Gent-Wavelgem, stages in the Czech Republic and in the Tour Alsace – as well as closer to home in Ilkley, the race organised by Tom Pidcock’s father Giles.

There was a nice moment on the Tour of Britain stage in Helmsley earlier this month when Watson finished fourth to Pidcock’s second, when the Pidcocks invited the younger rider over to congratulate the pair of them.

"Winning boosts your confidence, but it’s important to realise how high the level is,” says Watson. “Just because you’re winning, you can’t relax, you’re always wanting to get better all the time.”

Arguably his biggest result was not a victory but a defeat, second place in the British Road Race Championships in June to a certain Mark Cavendish.

"Second at the road championships to Mark Cavendish is not bad is it?” says Watson of the greatest sprinter in cycling.

"I was in the race to try and win but when you’re against Cavendish in the sprint it’s very hard to beat him.

"I can’t be too disappointed because I did everything I could to get rid of him, and I was rewarded with the Under-23 title so I look back on that day as a good day.”

Even in defeat, Watson was learning.

" You always pick up new things every race, especially when you’re up against the best guys in the world, you can see what they’re doing.

"It can be the smallest thing but there’s still things to take forward for future races.”

The 12-year-old by the roadside with the beaming smile on his face and iPad pointed at Cavendish and the Tour de France peloton as it breezed past would have taken that eight years later, running the great man close for the British title.

That realisation of a dream can be found across world cycling, a sport now dominated by young riders.

A decade ago when Sir Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France to spark an era of British dominance, the three Grand Tour winners had an average age of 30.

This year, with Evenepoel at 22 winning the Vuelta, Jonas Vingegaard at 25 the Tour de France and Jai Hindley at 26 the Giro d’Italia, the average age of the Grand Tour winners is 24.

"It’s strange, the sport is changing. Juniors are going straight to the World Tour – Remco was the first to do that,” offers Watson.

"It’s quite easy for up-and-coming cyclists like myself because when we were younger we were watching all these guys like Cav, Wiggins and Froome, which was inspiring to us.

"And there’s guys now like Pidcock, Fred Wright, who are blazing a trail. I’m friends with all of them, I’m only a couple of years younger than them.

"It makes it believable, reachable.”

Watson continues writing his own story with a first year at professional level with Groupama FDJ in 2023.

Like many of his age and in a British cycling environment that fosters versatility, Watson is equally proficient on the track, winning a silver medal in the madison at the European Track Championships as well this year. That was his only race on the boards in 2022 and he does not foresee many more in his future.

"Long-term I want to be one of the best riders in the world,” he says. “Races like Paris-Roubaix, the worlds, stages in the Tour – that’s the aim.

"A grand tour next year sounds a little daunting, I don’t yet know what it takes other than it being hard. Next year is my first as a pro with Groupama. I’d like to jump into the classics team.”

Whatever Sam Watson does next, everything that has gone before suggests the latest prospect to wheel down the ramp of Yorkshire’s production line is well equipped to succeed.