It's not uncommon for athletes to recall a story from their youth about a time they may have brushed up against the stars of a sport and were inspired by dreams of living a similarly glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle. When Alexey Vermeulen, the 20-year-old American who recently signed a two-year deal with LottoNL-Jumbo, tells you the big-name “stars” who helped inspire his dreams were then-teenagers Lawson Craddock and Nate Brown, you get a good idea of how young he was when his journey toward professional cycling started.
Vermeulen, who was born in mid-December and therefore raced a year above his true age, was 14 when he entered the Green Mountain Stage Race in September of 2009. The late-season race traditionally draws a national junior field, and Vermeulen would get to compete in the 15-18 category against 17-year-old Craddock and 18-year-old Brown, both of whom will be in their third seasons on the WorldTour next year.
“That was a huge thing for me because I had read about them and I was like, 'Wow, these guys are on Hot Tubes. They're living the life going to all these cool races. They just got back from Worlds,'” Vermeulen recalled during a recent interview with Cyclingnews.
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“For them it was just a race, but for me it was something I really saw,” he said. “I was a skinny little climber and I ended up finishing second overall to Nate as a 14-year-old [USA Cycling results list Vermeulen as third overall behind Luke Keough, who currently rides for UnitedHealthcare, ed.] It's a memory that I talk about with Nate all the time, and I think it was one of those turning moments of my career.”
Vermeulen, who grew up playing hockey in Dexter, Michigan, started competing in local races in 2007 when he was 12. All that skating from years of hockey provided a good base for cycling, and Vermeulen displayed a natural talent for it. Vermeulen went to junior nationals for the first time in 2008 and added a coach that same year.
When he finished on the podium at Green Mountain in 2009, Vermeulen knew he was onto something. And when he won the junior 17-18 national title in 2011 as a 16-year-old, the USA Cycling development program took notice. Junior success led to a spot on the BMC Development Team, where Vermeulen was allowed to work with USA Cycling's U23 program to get a three-year crash course in European racing. It paid off in September with a neo-pro contract at the Dutch WorldTour squad.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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