From Utah to the Algarve: Efapel's Keegan Swirbul guns for breakthrough in Portugal

It's a long way geographically and time-wise from the 2018 Tour of Utah to the 2024 Volta ao Algarve, but this week, six years and 8,000 kilometres distant, two of the key protagonists of the fondly remembered American stage race crossed paths in Portugal once again.

While Sepp Kuss' past history needs little retelling, Keegan Swirbul – who finished seventh in Utah in 2018 as Kuss won the overall – is currently in his first full season with Portuguese team Efapel, and racing in the Volta ao Algarve.

After his signing for Efapel midway through 2023 was one of the few bright spots in a year beset by multiple illnesses and setbacks, the former Human Powered Health and Rally racer is currently pushing for a breakthrough season.

"We know he's got some very promising results in his palmares, but last year he wasn't able to show what he's capable of doing because of getting sick just when he was coming into form," Efapel team manager and owner José Azevedo told Cyclingnews in Lagoa at stage 2's start of the Volta ao Algarve.

"So I signed him again for 2024, to see what he could do this time round."

Currently resident in Vigo, Spain, just north of Portugal, where he raced with an amateur team for half of 2023, Azevedo said that he knows Swirbul's manager well.

Once contact was established, all it needed was a quick glance at the 28-year-old American's CV from WorldTour races like the Tour de Suisse, where he's placed in the top 25 on mountain stages, for Azevedo to make him a late signing in 2023.

"Last year he signed for half a season, but honestly he had a lot of problems. He started racing the Vuelta Asturias, but then came down with a bacterial infection, so was out for three weeks," Azevedo says.

"Then when he started to build his condition and was in a camp for the Volta a Portugal, he got COVID and this is why we re-signed him, to see his level - because last year with all the problems it was not possible."

So far 2024 has not gone brilliantly for Swirbul, with a crash at the opening race in the Figueira Champions Classic and then again in the big late pile-up on stage 1 at the Algarve, but Azevedo is sure that in the future, he can show his full potential.

"I had a really good winter of preparation but these first few races things have not really gone my way," Swirbul, sporting a sizable bandage on his left arm told Cyclingnews. "But it could be worse, I'm still here and I'll keep fighting."

Racing for a Portuguese team was certainly not something he expected, Swirbul said, but as he says the local cycling scene – nine Continental teams are in action at the Volta ao Algarve – has deep roots and an extensive racing calendar.

"I certainly never expected to be here," he said. "I remember when we did the Volta a Portugal in 2020 with Human Powered Health, there was a guy in our team who was always joking 'I'm going to ride for Efapel before I retired, that's my dream!' And here I am, riding for Efapel. It's funny. But back then it would have been unthinkable."

As he reasons, "Opportunities for [American] riders who are not at the Sepp Kuss level are very limited and the scene in Portugal was kind of the only one around to have all the things you need to survive: good equipment, good racing and" – he adds pointedly – "a pay cheque."

In terms of his race goals, in Portugal, he says, the entire season pivots around its national tour in August, dubbed La Grandissima, which generates huge crowds and publicity in the country.

"The Volta is the big one, everything goes towards the Volta. There are guys on this race who couldn't care less about the pro races, they're all just thinking about that."

And if for Remco Evenepoel, Wout van Aert and the other WorldTour stars, the Volta ao Algarve is essentially a preparation race, for both Efapel and the other eight Portuguese Continental teams, the five-day event offers an almost unique chance to cross swords with the biggest squads in the world on home soil.

"I'm happy when our team does this race," Azevedo, both a director and a rider with WorldTour teams in his day in squads as varied as Discovery Channel and Katusha, said. "As the man responsible for this team, I'm responsible for seeing the team grow and the riders grow and they can only do that when the level is high. It's more difficult to achieve results, but this is the way to grow.

"For one things, this race is put the team on show, because it's live on Eurosport and Portuguese TV, and that's good news for Efapel. But the message I tell the riders is 'don't go to race with the feeling that you are less than others, you need to go to fight to give the maximum'.

"Regardless of knowing that it's difficult and complicated, we need to be optimistic and take these chances, like next week when we go to O Gran Camiño. Again it's a high but this is why we should be happy about it."

For riders like Swirbul, regardless of the outcome of a race like Algarve, hooking up with Sepp Kuss again and shooting the little is one thing he enjoys about it, but also the experience of racing alongside top WorldTour teams is a memorable one come what may.

"I've seen Sepp, I know him from Utah and we've been catching up here," he said. "But the WorldTour teams, it's like they practice a different sport. When I saw Remco and how he performed in the Figueira Champions Classic, it was amazing.

"Essentially, though, you have to thank your lucky stars you get a chance to get in the races with them: these are stories to tell the grandkids."

And racing for a top Portuguese Continental squad, Swirbul may well have a few stories of his own experiences to tell, too.