Most big-name riders have revealed their targets and main race programmes for the brand new season however Tao Geoghegan Hart has a extra pragmatic and sincere strategy to 2025.
He likes the lately revealed Giro d’Italia route and it’s 5 years since his victory within the 2020 Corsa Rosa however he’s nonetheless working to return to that stage of success after fracturing his femur within the 2023 Giro.
Last 12 months, after leaving Ineos Grenadiers for Lidl-Trek, Geoghegan Hart was set to journey the Tour de France however COVID-19 and sickness wrecked these hopes.
He ended his 2024 season battling via the Vuelta a España. The three weeks of racing laid new foundations for his restoration however he then spent eight weeks off the bike to recuperate from surgical procedure to take away the titanium bar and screws that had been positioned in his femur.
Geoghegan Hart will begin his 2025 season on the Volta ao Algarve in late February. He has designed a potential race programme with Lidl-Trek however doesn’t need to reveal it simply but. He desires the reassurance of his early racing earlier than aiming greater.
“I actually need to take the main focus, not essentially race by race, however actually concentrate on the primary interval. That’s my large objective,” Geoghegan Hart mentioned in a video name with the media, together with Cyclingnews.
“This time of 12 months there’s a number of headlines about individuals’s targets and bulletins however that is the fact for me. I feel it is a little bit bit nonsensical to look previous that and to start out taking a look at large targets.
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“I actually tried that final 12 months after coming again. We had been already speaking in regards to the Tour with the crew earlier than I’d even ridden the bike. It was tremendous inspiring on the time however now it looks like a extra logical strategy to me is simply to concentrate on getting again to my greatest and feeling actually just like the web page has been turned from breaking my leg in 2023.”
Now nearly 30 years previous and after two testing seasons, Geoghegan Hart seems extra introspective. He remains to be bold however extra affected person, with numerous realism. His solutions are lengthy and regarded.
“When I used to be a a lot youthful rider, one of many managers in my earlier crew mentioned there are principally three sorts of riders: riders who win races, riders who’re studying to win races and riders who assist others win races. This is the interval of my profession the place I actually need to be a rider that makes outcomes,” he defined.
“The day I broke my leg, I used to be 100% certain I used to be going to struggle for the GC in that Grand Tour and that is one thing that is tremendous inspiring to me. That’s the rationale I began this sport.
“That’s the purpose, to return again there. But first, there are steps earlier than that, which is being aggressive, even in smaller races. My purpose is to be again competing and main my crew and main my teammates, making a pleasant group round me to essentially try to win races in a pleasant manner, or, or at the very least give it a superb strive.”
Geoghegan Hart arguably deserves some success after the difficulties he has overcome in 2023 and 2024. He desires it for himself, his household and his Lidl-Trek crew. “It could be tremendous good to get some wins,” he says.
“It’s simpler mentioned than accomplished. I feel it could even be tremendous satisfying to be combating for the GC, of the races, and greater than something, simply feeling like issues are clicking. I feel that is the important thing factor. I’m hoping, with 12 months of coaching and racing within the legs, that that may form of give me one other layer to the efficiency.
“I wish to be right here subsequent 12 months and see that the crew acknowledges me as somebody who’s contributing at races, main the crew, doing that off the bike as a lot as on it. That’s necessary for me. It’s about feeling like the aim is being fulfilled.
“Personally it is that you simply really feel that every one the onerous work that you simply put in and the shit that you simply put your loved ones via they usually have to look at these races, is price it.”