Above: Ben Swift -- winning in Italy during 2008.

Like so many young racing cyclists, when I was still grappling with home work and exams at school, the big ambition was to ride the Tour de France. For me however, that was a dream never realised, but for many young British riders, rubbing shoulders with the worlds elite cyclists is now a reality and one of those doing just that this year will be Rotherham’s Ben Swift racing for ProTour team, Katusha.

The Russian backed squad, which is loosely based on the team last year known as Tinkoff, has a lot of money behind it as the owners attempt to get the team’s name in the worlds media with victories at the worlds top cycle races. To do that, they have signed many a star professional including the likes of Robbie McEwen, Filippo Pozzato and Gert Steegmans to name but three.

Backing these riders up will be many young professionals including Ben who is part of a new generation of British cyclists slowly making the transition from the track to the road and showing that Britain has got the talent to feed the pro peloton in Europe and beyond.

In his younger days, Ben was one of those riders who I saw revelling in sprinting around the Velodrome and enjoying his track racing. He was, and still is, a real racer full of youthful enthusiasm and ambition. Ben is also one of the old school if I can say that about some one who has only just turned 21. A rider who came into the sport aged 3 and progressed from doing BMX to track and then the road with some mountain biking in there as well.


Above: 2005: Ben along with Adam Blythe who were victorious on the track during a Dutch six day.

Ben has also chosen a great time to come into the sport, doing so in the same way that  many of us did before there were Talent Team and Go-Ride programmes to ear mark potential champions. Ben though was also young enough to take full advantage of other Great Britain Cycling Team programmes that have been introduced in the past five years while he was still growing up as a bike rider. Namely the Olympic Development and Olympic Academy programmes.

In 2009, Ben is one of two riders to turn professional from the GB team’s Olympic Cycling Academy (Jonny Bellis is the other) and is also one of half a dozen who have already progressed from the GB Cycling Teams programmes into the professional ranks.

Just like Ed Clancy, Ian Stannard, Geraint Thomas and Mark Cavendish before him, Ben has now realised his dream of being a fully fledged professional. When we met by chance in the offices of British Cycling this week, you could clearly see without a word being spoken that his turning professional was a coming of age that he is clearly pleased and relieved has finally come true.

With so many young British riders turning professional, both from within GB Cycling Team programmes and outside it, young riders in the junior and youth ranks right now could almost be forgiven for thinking that getting a pro contract is an inevitable consequence of being British and successful as an under 23. Not so. Lets not forget Ben won the King of the Mountains jersey in the 2007 Tour of Britain as a stagaire for Barloworld but was never rewarded with a  pro contract for 2008.


Above: So close but so far as Ben just finishes outside of the medals in the Under 23 World Road Race Championship of 2008.

Probably just as well though as another year in the Under 23 ranks saw him progress even further with victories in Italy as well as fourth places in the Under 23 Road Race World championships and European Road Race championships. These results along with countless top 10s showed he can consistently do well at the highest level for under 23s. But as another Rotherham rider in Russell Downing will testify, getting that pro contract is not so easy even if you are a rider at the top of your game.

For Ben though, the ProTour team contract is a reality and his journey into the pro ranks has yet to really begin. He has experienced racing at this level before as a Barloworld stagaire and then there was his great ride at the Beijing Olympics. Ben agrees the pros are on a different level than the under 23s, especially at the start of a season when everyone is fresh and hungry for victories and he knows he faces a tough period learning the ropes.

Ben explained that he had his first meet and greet with the team back in October and that the get together was a good experience adding that he expects to learn a lot both on the road and off it being part of a major pro team. Whilst the team is a Russian one, Ben will be based in Italy in 2009 continuing to live near to the other British pros and Academy riders. That is sure to be a great boost to the current academy riders who will see from time to time, professional British riders who have come through the same programme they are currently part of.


Above: 2005 and Ben wins at Brentwood.

Whilst the Academy riders continue to mix racing the track and road in 2009 under the watchful eyes of Max Sciandri and Darren Tudor, Ben will be concentrating on the road. Not that he has lost interest in the track as he still has major ambitions in that area of the sport but for 2009, his season will be one of concentrating on the road.

One of the GB coaches explained that it is difficult to justify to pro teams taking a rider out of a road programme until April for them to pursue a GB track agenda in a non-Olympic year. It was a decision for the pro teams themselves and while Katusha would prefer to have Ben for the whole season, Saxo Bank meanwhile are happy to let Jonny Bellis mix the two disciplines.

In Katusha, Ben will be one of three 21 years olds, the other two being Russian riders and his programme, at least for the first part of the season, will see him riding smaller pro races whilst he finds his legs in the pro ranks. His time he says as a  stagaire in Barloworld helped him a lot to know what to expect and another plus is the fact the team will being doing a lot of Italian races which is what he is used to after a few seasons with the Academy in Italy.

Saying the time is right for him for this challenge and that at 21, he’s ready to turn professional, Ben has been keeping busy during the winter mixing road and track and getting ready for the season which begins on February 1st in the Tour of Qatar.

He certainly seems to be relishing the prospect of getting involved in helping to lead out fast sprinters such as Robbie McEwen and Gert Steegmans who have both won Tour de France stages. “When I first met Robbie he was like really respectful to me as a rider and it was quite pleasing to know he was like that. He’s a good guy. I would love to get involved in leading out Robbie in the sprints and I’ll take any job 100 per cent and give it everything. Sure, if I get the opportunity to get a result of my own, I’ll take that too with both hands.”

Whilst we chatted on Monday of this week, and waited for Ben to be given his new racing licence for 2009, he casually mentioned he’d had an email from Robbie that morning and it was clear Ben is certainly enjoying the opportunity of living the dream and dropping names!


Above: His biggest race to date -- the Beijing Olympics with Jonny Bellis (right). Photo: Phil O'Connor.

Talking about his new pro team’s training camp in December, Ben explained that it was quite similar to an Olympic Academy one. “What the academy tries to do is base it self on a high level pro team so the riders get used to the way they work. This meant the routine at the camp wasn’t a shock for me. We weren’t doing a lot of hours on the bike and it was more like a team get together with photo shoots and making sure the kit and bikes fitted as well as some riding.”

Whilst it is a Russian team, Ben explained that being British didn’t pose too many problems with the differences in languages. “I was rooming with Christian Pfannberger and he speaks pretty good English as do the Belgian riders.” Ben explained. “You definitely  know you are in a Russian team but everyone is really friendly and says hello and mixes with everyone else.”

Asked how the training rides were in a December camp, Ben smiled and explained that the pace was certainly quick with the average speeds being between 35 and 40k an hour. “The first time I did it, I was on the front with Steegmans and he was like battering it away at 42k an hour and I ended up doing a 15 minute turn with him at that speed. I got into the rhythm of it though and soon got used to the pace.”

“There was a big group of us so after a spell trying hard at the front, you’re in the wheels for quite a while.” His time riding with these very experienced professionals was useful not just to get physically ready for the season ahead but mentally as well.

Ben told us that when he wasn’t sharing the usual banter with the riders, he was quizzing them on what to expect in the coming season. “Gert was a very knowledgeable guy” Ben told us, adding “some of the stuff he has told me will be quite useful in the coming season’s races.” 

Life in a pro team though is much more than just being able to ride a bike fast. You have to look after yourself and be independent. It is something that the young riders coming out of the Olympic Development Programme and into the Olympic Academy have to learn quickly. It was a lesson that Ben himself  had to learn as he went from living at home in South Yorkshire and into the academy houses in Manchester and Italy.

“Having gone through that with the academy has helped me massively and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the academy” says. “You do learn a lot of life skills in the academy and how to look after yourself and I haven’t had to make use of them all just yet but expect I will when things start to get a bit tougher.”


Above: Road Worlds 2008 and after finishing fourth in the road race championship for Under 23s, Ben sits down with his new team to sign a contract as GB Performance Director Dave Brailsford looks on.

And that time is not far away as his season begins on February 1st in Qatar and before that, he has a two week team training camp. “I have my programme up until April 19 and I have 35 days racing in that period where as on the academy in 2006 and 2007, in the whole year I only did 39 days and last year 55. I will also be travelling a lot going to six countries during that time.”

“The racing is really spread out so after Qatar I have a bit of Belgium, Switzerland and Italy as well as Turkey.” To prepare for that, Ben is training around his parent’s home in Rotherham. The freezing weather hasn’t hampered his preparations too much with Ben explaining that its mainly been bad during an easy period in his training. “

“My training now though” he says “has stepped up a level and I’m sure I’ll be ready to start racing soon.”

He added that to help him in his preparation for the training camp in a few weeks, his training has included rides with the Yorkshire chain gang with cyclists from Rotherham, Sheffield, Doncaster and around that area. “I have gone out with them quite a lot and I was out with them on Saturday and it was quite a tough day. I think there were like 60 riders out with us and it was pretty impressive for a club run as we picked them up along the way.”

“In the group were riders like Russell Downing, John Tanner, Kevin Dawson and loads of other elites and there were like 10 of us going through and off and it was like a bit of a last man standing competition near the end. It’s certainly good training to get me ready for the camp and after that it will be just racing and recovery.”

Ben wearing the King of the Mountains jersey in the Tour of Britain last year (he won the jersey in 2007 as well) with two of his 'family' at a stage start also clothed appropriately.

A new bike…
In 2009, after years and years riding GB issue Trek bikes with Shimano equipment, Ben this season will be on full carbon Ridley bikes with Campagnolo 11 speed equipment. “They’re really nice bikes” he replied when I asked about them. “I have got one bike with me to train on and the race bikes will be held by the team and taken to races for me. I’ve had to tweak the bike a bit and have gone from a medium to a small and also been messing about with the position a bit.”

The bikes Ben says, are so light, that the team have had to add weight to them to make the UCI limits.

Finally, as we started to finish our chat before he ventured out into the freezing conditions for a few hours ride, Ben admitted that he has been chasing this dream all his life and he can’t help but smile when he puts on the Katusha kit to go for a ride.

Whilst he knows he’ll be a team player helping the likes of McEwen and Steegmans to name but two of the team’s big star riders, he adds that the team has said the door to him getting his own results won’t be closed. “I haven’t been put into the biggest races so I am hoping I will get an opportunity now and then to prove myself and then get put into the bigger races later on.”

“I want to show the team that the work we have done in the academy in doing lead outs and other drills means I know what to do on the road and I’m looking forward to Qatar and getting to ride with the likes of Italians Filippo Pozzato & Danilo Napolitano.” 

And on that note, Ben left to go for a ride before returning for a meeting with coach Rod Ellingworth later that afternoon. We wish him well in the coming season and look forward to seeing him from time to time back in the UK.