Sam Welsford wouldn’t have minded staying closer to home in January, but the promise of a wealth of sprint stages at the Vuelta a San Juan convinced Team DSM to send him to Argentina rather than to the Tour Down Under.
The Australian would have been forgiven for questioning the choice when he was a faller on the second day in San Juan, but it was only a temporary setback. On Saturday, Welsford proved the quickest in a sprint royale outside the Velódromo Vicente Chancay to claim stage 6 of the Vuelta a San Juan.
Much like the velodrome, Welsford’s road career is still under construction as he makes the transition from the track, but he laid firm foundations in his debut season at WorldTour level in 2022, winning a stage of the Tour of Turkey and placing third in a combative edition of Scheldeprijs.
Although the Vuelta a San Juan is a ProSeries race, this year’s edition boasts a WorldTour-level cadre of sprinters. On Saturday evening, Welsford came off European champion Fabio Jakobsen’s wheel to claim the stage ahead of Sam Bennett and Fernando Gaviria. To win in such august company was a clear sign of progress.
“It’s really special to be up racing these guys. I raced Fernando on the track back in the day, and it’s awesome to sprint with them,” said Welsford. “To be up there consistently is a big goal of mine. I’m stoked to be up there, it’s good for the year ahead.”
During his time on the track, Welsford won three world titles in the team pursuit as well as a rainbow jersey in the scratch race. After claiming his second Olympic medal in the team pursuit in Tokyo – bronze after silver in Rio in 2016 – he turned his attention to the road, moving to the WorldTour with DSM at the relatively advanced age of 26.
Although DSM struggled for results in the early part of 2022, the neo-pro Welsford was a rare bright spot. His podium finish at Scheldeprijs was the team’s first in the WorldTour last season and he followed it up with their first win at the top flight on the Tour of Turkey. His display in last year’s tough edition of Scheldeprijs, in particular, raised questions about whether his future lay in the sprints or the Classics.
“It’s interesting, because I see myself as being more of a sprinter who can go well on those hard days,” Welsford had told Cyclingnews earlier this week. “At Scheldeprijs, I was in the top 15 or 20 all day with the big boys, and that that gives me good confidence. I think I can carry a good sprint at the end of hard days, but I think we’ll take every opportunity we can.”
After again taking the first win of the season for Team DSM in 2023, Welsford will have another shot at victory on Sunday’s flat finale in San Juan. Despite an inauspicious start, the race has served as a useful warm-up for next month’s UAE Tour, where he will again joust with the elite of WorldTour sprinting.
As well as offering pointers to his future, Saturday’s stage had a nod to Welsford’s past with its finish in the shadow of the site of the 2025 Track World Championships.
“Before the race, when I saw the stage started and finished at the velodrome, I said it would be a cool one to win with my track background,” said Welsford, who knows that transferring speed and power from the boards to the road is never as straightforward as it seems.
“The sprinting in bunch racing on the track is very different to here. There’s a lot more speed on the last lap on the track, but it’s not a fight for the one or two kilometres before that. On the road, the last 5km is super hard, so basically start a sprint with fatigue already, whereas in track you’re usually a bit fresher. It’s all about how you can get to the sprint.”
On Saturday’s evidence, Welsford has the look of a man who’s getting there just fine.
