It is almost 15 years to the day that as a fresh-faced first-year pro, Ben Swift scored a breakthrough podium finish on stage 2 of the 2009 Giro d’Italia - but as his dash for bonus sprint seconds late on stage 3 of the 2024 race amply demonstrated, the Briton still has a fine turn of speed whenever the situation demands.
Swift’s immediate goal on stage 3 was to stop race leader Tadej Pogačar from snatching the maximum time bonus at the intermediate sprint in the town of Cherasco after the UAE Team Emirates racer had darted away from the head of the pack.
But in terms of the bigger picture, Swift’s rapid response to Pogačar's sneak attack formed part of his role working as captain on the road at the Giro - be it protecting the interests of leader Geraint Thomas by fending off Pogačar in a sprint, overseeing the general organisation of the team during the stage, working on the front of the bunch when needed or helping the young teammates like Magnus Sheffield find their feet in their debut Grand Tour.
This multi-purpose job is one he relishes, Swift told Cyclingnews before stage 3 of this year’s Giro - although he still remembers his 2009 Giro stage 2 near-miss in a bunch sprint, behind Alessandro Petacchi and a certain Mark Cavendish, as if it was yesterday, too.
“That’s always going to be a fond memory, my first ever Grand Tour sprint,” Swift said. “The first stage was a team time trial and yeah, it’s funny, I was talking about it the other day with my team masseur, reminiscing a little bit. Obviously, far away from here now, but it's a great memory.
“I don’t do the sprints anymore” - although later on in stage 3, he proved that the intermediates at least are far from out of his range - “and I’ve stepped away from that, although I’ll still get involved in them every now and then.
“But I’ve become much more of an all-round domestique racer, covering a lot of bases, and hopefully, I’ll get better as the race goes on.
“I love the Giro, the whole way that it’s raced, too, so it’s great to be here.”
Currently riding his sixth Giro d’Italia of ten Grand Tours in total, Swift says that his approach to the race was different from other years, but his early sensations suggest that it’s working out well.
“It’s good, you know. Physically the last couple of years I’ve felt the best I have done ever in the first couple of days, it’s not like it was before where I’d make one effort on an early stage and blow," he said.
“I did a full Classics campaign, first Paris-Roubaix and missed out on the altitude camp. So it’s very different.
“But I was pleasantly surprised in the Tour of the Alps as to how I was climbing, and luckily, apart from the opening weekend here, a lot of the main difficulties are later in the race.
“So we’ll see. We’ve got a strong, motivated squad and G’s in good spirits. We’ve had a win already. We know it’s difficult here [to win overall], but that’s cycling, isn’t it - anything can happen.”
Given his role, Swift’s interests in the Giro are as much collective as they are individual, which puts the 36-year-old Briton in a privileged position to appreciate just how much a win like Narvaez's triumph on stage 1 can boost the team’s morale. It was all the more important, Swift said, after Ineos lean pickings in the first part of the season, something which only began to accelerate notably from April onwards.
“I think across the board, we had a slow start to the year, even though it wasn’t as bad as what it was perceived to be. We nearly won Down Under [with Narvaez], we got third in Catalunya [with Egan Bernal], got some more placings here and there, but then things really got moving in Itzulia-Basque Country, Amstel Gold, Tour of the Alps, Romandie and now here," he said.
“So if you look at it, we just set ourselves such high standards and everybody holds us in such high regard that as soon as we’re not where we’re perceived we should be, we’re slightly under, that it’s perceived as a bad start.
“And in one way, it was, but now it’s coming good. Getting that pink jersey and stage win was a huge morale booster. It sets the tone going forward for more stages. Doing the best we can means we’re going to get a good result.”
As for Swift himself, his own mission ranges from team captain to giving younger riders like Sheffield some pointers where needed, but as the British racer says, “Magnus is very switched on, very advanced for his years.
“And as for being captain, we’ve also got [Connor] Swift here with me, so he can take on a bit more of that grunt work on the flat, which saves me a little bit. But we’re going to exchange roles quite a bit in any case," he said.
“That’s the beauty of our team. We’ve got a lot of guys who can have similar roles, so if somebody’s having a bad day, we can spread the workload around.”
As for Thomas and watching him battle for the overall for a second year running in the Giro, Swift says it never ceases to amaze and impress him how the Welsh veteran manages to remain in the thick of the action for one season after another.
“I think you’ve seen that consistency over the years but that’s also the way cycling’s changed recently,” Swift pointed out. “The game’s changed a lot.
“It used to be you’d take time to learn the ropes and then riders would get to 32 or 33 and then they’d be simply scraping home, getting the last pay cheques they could.
“But the whole sport is shifting. Everybody’s getting better and the average speeds are going up. Like that climb [Oropa] yesterday, it sounds like a lot but when I was pulling on the front and doing 420 [Watts], there were still 100 guys there. Ten years ago, there’d be 20 guys at that sort of pace.”
But from his personal point of view, Swift has managed both to stay in the game despite the all-round improvement in performances, and to still enjoy doing his job, too.
“The whole sport is a lot better and that’s why you’re seeing older guys doing well, too,” he said, “and it’s not just G, Alex Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) won the other day as well.”
“It’s great to see; it’s good for me; my strength across the year is becoming much more even, and I’m probably the strongest I’ve ever been. Which is quite weird for a 36-year-old!”
Where Swift will go following the Giro and “a nice pizza in Rome” is most likely the Nationals, which he won both in 2019 and 2021, as well as the Tour of Slovenia, one of the few remaining races he’s never taken part in in the pro calendar.
“I’ve only got to do that and San Sebastian, and then I’ll have them all ticked off,” Swift said with a smile.
But first in any case is much more familiar ground for Swift in Italy, and helping keep the Ineos Grenadiers Grand Tour ship on as steady a course as he possibly can. It's very early days on that front, of course, but for now - so far, so good.
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