The Australian team that just keeps fighting to send its best riders away

Top level professional cycling teams may have every incentive to jealously guard their best talent so they can keep yielding the wins, points and prestige that help keep their ranking high and sponsors happy but, conversely, there are also an array of squads where the biggest victory is to see their finest riders walk away. Development squad ARA Pro racing Sunshine Coast is one such team and in the 2022 season alone three of its racers have leapt from the domestic scene in Australia to secure a chance to race professionally in Europe.

It's an admirable tally, particularly given that generally only a handful of riders from the nation break through to the top ranks each year, but three was still not enough for the University of Sunshine Coast based team to rest on its laurels – not when there will still talented riders without a 2023 contract. This month's Tour de Langkawi became an all out effort to try and find more opportunities for those who had been so short of them in pivotal development years after the COVID-19 pandemic shut Australia's borders and brought much of the top-level racing in the region to a halt. 

With six WorldTour teams lining up at the eight-day Malaysian tour and also a number of UCI ProTeam, such as Alpecin Deceuninck and Uno X Pro Cycling, the competition at the Tour de Langkawi had climbed to a level not seen before, but as the competition intensified so did the brightness of the spotlight. The riders from the lone Australian squad at the race this year had a chance to show they could compete with some of the world's very best and to do it in front of the sports directors from some of the top teams in the world.

That international exposure is something Cameron Scott – who back in Australia leads the National Road Series – knows from experience can be absolutely essential in taking the next step in a cycling career. The 24-year-old has secured a contract with Bahrain Victorious for 2023 and 2024, and it wasn't his years of consistent winning efforts back at home that initially drew their attention.

“The team went to Europe earlier in the year in May and our second race there I got on the podium. That really started the conversation,” the 24 year old who switched his focus from track to the road in 2020 told Cyclingnews before the final stage on the island of Langkawi. 

“It seems like no matter what I did in Australia it wasn’t enough. As soon as I got over there, one result, I didn’t even have to win, was good enough,” said Scott of his second at Ronde van Overijssel, which he later followed up with a win at the Memorial Philippe Van Coningsloo.

Scott mainly raced the Tour de Langkawi in a support role as he already had his contract and now wanted to try and help propel his teammates to a similar opportunity. The soon to be Bahrain Victorious rider provided a lead out for sprinter Craig Wiggins on stage 2, which ultimately helped the 23-year-old Australian secure victory.

It was an enormous win for Wiggins, who was the only rider not racing with a WorldTour or ProTour team to take a stage victory at the tour. On top of the win came just on a year after a terrible hit and run which left his doctor raising the prospect that he may not be able to ride again, let alone chase his dream of becoming a professional athlete. 

Now he is left hoping that the result will be enough to make a difference at what looks to be a critical juncture. ARA Pro Racing Sunshine Coast is a development team that is refocusing on U23 riders for the season ahead, which leaves the departing Wiggins currently without a team for 2023, let alone that hoped for professional contract in Europe. 

“That’s always  the goal, that’s always the dream and hopefully these results can get me there,” Wiggins told Cyclingnews as he walked away from the finish line on stage 2, initially thinking he had second but later having that result lifted to a win after Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates) was relegated for an irregular sprint.

Chasing more

ARA Pro Racing Sunshine Coast – which provides a combined focus on high-performance, tertiary study and professional mentoring – races in Australia in the National Road Series throughout the year with a men’s and women’s squad. It currently leads the series in both categories. 

It has also made a habit of venturing overseas and while this was interrupted for two seasons by the pandemic, it was quick to embrace the opportunity again when it emerged in 2022. This season became a crucial year in making up for lost ground, which the team recognised by holding on to some riders like Scott and Wiggins who had aged out of the U23 category, given the missed opportunities that came with the  COVID-19 pandemic related travel restrictions.

"You can't do the NRS and become a professional straight from that anymore. It is not enough racing, it's not hard enough and so we need a lot of overseas racing,” ARA Pro Racing managing director Ben Kersten told Cyclingnews in Malaysia. 

“We did two months in Belgium this year and then we're going to do over a month in Asia at the back end of the year and we've still got New Zealand to go with the Tour of Southland. That's essential for them to get the race results and the experience they need to turn pro."

Despite the restrictions of the pandemic cutting through two seasons, 2022 already started with one ARA Pro Racing rider having headed off to Europe as Alex Bogna won a contract with Alpecin Fenix through the Zwift Academy – which he opted to take as a two year deal with the development squad. Then in 2022 that block of racing in Europe for the men’s and women’s squads yielded a signing not just for Scott but Anya Louw also penned a contract with AG Insurance-NXTG from mid season through to the end of 2023 while Maeve Plouffe is now set for two seasons with Team DSM in 2023 and 2024.

There was still, however, much at stake at the Tour de Langkawi and that was the case for more than the Australian team. Shifted from the start of the season to an unusual late season time slot, the Malaysian race felt a lot like a tour of last chances, both for those looking for their first professional contract and others who were looking to continue racing at the top level but didn't yet have a commitment for 2023.

ARA Pro Racing Sunshine Coast had undoubtedly punched above its weight by virtue of its stage 2 result alone, being the only Continental team to secure a stage victory at the race. Still there was no easing off after that as while the team may have proven itself, that was never what the race had been about. The Tour de Langkawi was such a big opportunity for its riders that they were determined to leave no stone unturned.

“It's huge for these guys,” said ARA’s sports director, Henk Vogels, who came second at Gent Wevelgem in 2003 and came third in the stage 21 sprint on the Champs-Élysées in the 1997 Tour de France. “They're all young and they are all wanting to go to the next level so seeing WorldTour directors watching them ride up the road, or winning sprints, or even just running top five is an amazing result for these guys."

Making a name

That’s why rather than just focussing on supporting one key rider again and again to maximise the team chances of victory, the squad came with a varied skill set, aiming to give a number of those from the team a chance to chase a top result.

"A result means so much to us because a stage win can mean a World Tour contract, or a ProTour contract for a rider,” Kersten said. ”That's what our whole team is based around, trying to get them ProTour deals and develop them. If we can deliver on that, then we've done our job."

It was clear both from among the team vehicles before the race and their actions within the peloton, that while individual opportunity may have been what they were chasing, it was a whole team drive to get each one of them there. The efforts in supporting chasing chances for others were clearly embraced as wholeheartedly as chasing their own.

That was particularly evident on stage 3, when ARA Pro Racing Sunshine Coast, fresh from their sprint stage win, then tried to turn around and make a mark on the key climbing stage to the Genting Highlands, where the general classification as well as stage honours were at stake.

“We had a little plan at the start of the day that it would be awesome if we could get both me and Kane [Richards] into the break,” Carter Bettles told Cyclingnews. That was the ideal “though that stuff never happens … but this time it did.”

Bettles and Richards both clipped off the front with two other riders, Eduard Grosu (Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli) and Nur Aiman Zariff (Terengganu Polygon Cycling Team), to establish a break of four.

“Kane just went into beast mode, he was just like a motorbike all day. He single handedly almost held off the bunch,” Bettles said. “He was going hard enough that he dropped our other breakaway companions off the wheel and then dropped me off at the climb.”

Richards had buried himself to give Bettles a head start before the peloton erupted on the imposing dual challenge of the HC climbs of Gohtong Jaya and the Genting Highlands.

It was enough of a gap that through the heat of the first of the HC climbs through to the early stages of the final climb, when the rain began to fall, Bettles held off the sorties behind. But then at around 7km to go the eventual top two, accomplished WorldTour climbers Ivan Sosa (Movistar) and Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost), bridged the gap. Bettles fell away from the front but kept tapping away to finish 24th.

“It was pretty cool, just to be out the front of a bike race like that, especially for a small team like us,” said Bettles the morning after that stage. “I think we’ve been pretty phenomenal on this tour so far, made a name for ourselves, so it was cool to keep that going.”

And those efforts from the team on stage 2 and 3 weren't where it ended as the lone squad from Australia kept making the moves and chasing the chances. While they didn’t all run to plan, with a crash on the run into the bunch sprint on stage 4 cutting out another prime opportunity for Wiggins, Bettles did make a WorldTour team packed break of 11 riders on stage 5 that formed after a tough early race climb and this time found his way onto the podium with a third spot. 

Now, like a number of his teammates, he will be left to see if the efforts and results he delivered at the Tour de Langkawi will be enough to land him that sought after European contract, or at least keep the door ajar to chase another opportunity that will enable him to carve out a future in the sport.

“I did as much as I could,” said Bettles. “So hopefully that goes in the right direction of getting a team for next year.”