When Chris Hamilton beat Lucas Hamilton to the Australian U23 national road race title in January, he announced himself as prodigious road talent having started his cycling career as a mountain biker. By the end of the Australian summer, the Avanti IsoWhey Sports rider was well known after 14th place at the Tour Down Under, and eighth at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour where he also sealed the best young rider classification.
Giant-Alpecin recognised Hamilton's potential and has signed the Australian to the team for his first WorldTour contract. He will join compatriot Michael Matthews from 2017.
"It was a bit out of the blue, you always hope that someone out there notices the hard work and it was a big uplift as I was pretty down just getting back on the bike and I'd almost gotten to the point in the year that if you haven't heard anything, you start to put a lot of pressure on yourself for results," Hamilton told Cyclingnews of the deal. "Once they made contact, it was really humbling having someone notice what you've done and results and believe in you to be good enough to take that step."
ADVERTISEMENT
After his successful summer, 21-year-old Hamilton headed to the Tour de Taiwan with Avanti where he finished seventh overall. He then got back on the mountain bike, finishing third at the Australian nationals. A training ride in early-April was ended early with a car taking Hamilton out and leaving him with cracked ribs, a bruised and semi collapsed lung, and a broken wrist.
Two months later and Hamilton was back on his bike with Avanti at the Tour of Japan to start his next block of racing. A handful of races in France and Belgium followed and it would in Europe that Hamilton's deal with Giant-Alpecin was sealed.
Giant-Alpecin's Australian sports director Luke Roberts helped broker the deal for Hamilton to join the team as he explained.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2bjsheW
No comments:
Post a Comment