With Cannondale leading the Tour Down Under teams classification, Michael Woods sitting fifth on general classification and Paddy Bevin in 10th overall, Simon Clarke’s first race in the green argyle has gone rather well. The 29-year-old joined Cannondale after four seasons with Orica-GreenEdge to provide leadership and experience to what is the youngest team in the WorldTour.
"Very good, we were really hoping for a podium," Clarke told Cyclingnews of Cannondale’s Tour Down Under. “Although we set pretty high expectations and I think that’s important in any team to do so, we would have liked to have been on the podium but we also need to keep remember it’s Michael Woods’ first ever WorldTour race so to achieve what he achieved is still a great result. From the first stage to now, he’s learned so much this week and losing time on stage 4 in the little split was a learning curve for him. It’s something he’s never had to do, sprint on a flat day, he learnt the hard way and now he’s learnt his lesson. I am sure that won’t ever happen to him again.
"Obviously Cannondale got me on board to be a road captain and try and unify the team so I’ve set this week to make a big effort and try and do that. I think we saw from the TV and the racing that there was a pretty united Cannondale group there and I am pretty proud to say that a lot of that was my doing and hopefully I can keep having that effect on all the races now that I do with Cannondale. I am really motivated by new challenges and it’s been great this week. OK, we didn’t win but it was nearly a win for us internally, our two best guys on GC have never ridden a WorldTour race before and that just puts it in perspective."
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Clarke was one of four riders to make his debut with Cannondale at the WorldTour opener alongside Bevin, Woods and Wouter Wippert, describing the difference between 2016 and previous editions of the race.
"We didn’t have so much stress to perform here as a team but I kind of had my own expectations and I was bought to this team with the specific reason of being a leader, and I think that Cannondale had a lot of room to improve in that area and I wanted to make a good start and can unite guys, and when they are united we can achieve good results.
"A lot of that stuff I learnt from my years with GreenEdge and I suppose something in GreenEdge came naturally that to a team in another country doesn’t come naturally. I’ve been riding around this week acknowledging certain areas that may need to be spoken about more than in GreenEdge, which we just did unassumingly, that need to be a bit more clear with such a young group. Cannondale has so many guys and for me, not even 30, to be one of the oldest guys just shows how young the team is. The good thing about young guys here is that they are willing to learn and have huge potential.
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