Fernando Gaviria is nothing if not ambitious. After bursting onto the scene with two victories over Mark Cavendish at the 2015 Tour de San Luis, Gaviria has made a blistering start to life as a professional, winning seven races in his debut campaign before doubling that tally in 2017, including four strikes at the Giro d’Italia on his Grand Tour debut.
“A serial killer,” is how Quick-Step Floors team manager Patrick Lefevere refers to the precocious Colombian. “He’s so hungry, I've rarely seen such a hungry kid who wants to win it all. If you talk with him, he will win everything.”
He heads into the 2018 season, at the age of 23, as one of the most important figures at Quick-Step. His status is best illustrated by the fact that Marcel Kittel, the dominant sprinter of last year’s Tour de France with five stage wins, had to leave the team over the winter because he couldn't be guaranteed support at this year's Tour.
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Gaviria is hardly one to talk himself up in interview, but he gave a hint of his ambition when he sat down with journalists at Quick-Step’s team presentation in Calpe last week.
“It’s complicated,” he said when asked if he saw himself as the successor to the recently-retired Tom Boonen, a Quick-Step great. “There are still a couple of years to wait to get our hopes up.
“Obviously every cyclist wants to be like Tom Boonen, wants to be like Philippe Gilbert. All cyclists want to be like the great riders we admire. It’s tricky – at the moment matching Gilbert seems like something impossible, the same with Boonen. It’s complicated but, working every day, I will try and live up to them, and why not try and win many more things.”
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Adapting to stardom
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