Yates brothers say Mitchelton-Scott environment suits them after extending deals
The Bury-born twins have each signed new two-year deals to stay with the Australian team.
Adam and Simon Yates committed their futures to Mitchelton-Scott as they see the Australian team as the perfect place to get the best out of themselves.
The Bury-born twins, 25, have each signed new two-year deals to stay at the team with which they turned professional in 2014, saying the squad’s easy-going atmosphere is the one which works best for them.
“With a lot of teams there’s a lot of pressure,” said Simon, who put in a breakthrough performance at the Giro d’Italia in May as he held the pink jersey for 13 days.
“With this team they know we want to win bike races, they want us to win bike races. It’s just a good environment to perform in. We’re pretty chilled and this team suits us down to the ground. It’s an easy environment to perform in.
“For me personally, when I’m relaxed is when I’m the best. When I go into a race knowing I’ve trained well, I’ve prepared well, I’m relaxed about the race because I know the form is there. That extends to the whole team, it’s a really relaxed atmosphere.”
Mitchelton-Scott were able to fend off interest from rival teams to keep two of their most-prized assets on board.
“There are always offers, always interest when you’re winning bike races,” Adam said. “We started here as pros and we’ve been growing ever since so there was never any reason to change.”
Monday’s announcement of the new deal, made on the second rest day of the Tour de France, was a rare moment when the twin brothers were in the same place – it was the first time they had seen each other since before the start of the Giro d’Italia in May.
While there can be a sense that they come as a package, the brothers, who use different agents, said they sifted through their offers independently before reaching the same conclusion.
“It’s never essential but it’s nice to be on the same team,” Adam said. “It’s what we’ve always said. It’s been like that from the start of our careers to the end. We’ve raced in separate teams before, we’d rather race together but it’s not essential.”
Still young in cycling terms, both Yates brothers have put together an impressive palmares. Both have won the white jersey as the best young rider in the Tour de France, with Adam finishing fourth overall in 2016, while Simon won three stages of the Giro d’Italia this year to enjoy an extended spell in pink.
However, Adam’s 2018 Tour de France has not gone according to plan. He suffered dehydration during the Alpine stages to drop out of contention in the general classification, and he will go into the final week targeting individual stages in the Pyrenees.
Mitchelton-Scott’s head sport director Matt White said it was a ‘relief’ to keep the twins given the amount of interest in their signature.
“From when they came on the scene in their first year winning races we knew we were lucky to have them on our team straight away,” he said. “We and they have put a lot of time into their development and to continue that for another two years is a real coup for our team.”
