"I didn't expect it at all today," Andrew 'AJ' August said about recording his first professional victory from a small breakaway group on stage 3 at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. It was just his third racing day of the season, coming in with no wins in his 119 days of racing across his first two seasons with Ineos Grenadiers.
"It wasn't how I imagined my first professional win, but I'd saved a lot of energy by not working full gas, but it was not my role to contribute. So I took advantage of being fresh, sprinted from the back and crossed the line first."
The plan, the 20-year-old said in a post-race interview with organisers, was to sit at the front of the peloton and bring back any breakaway to support GC teammate Ben Turner. The young US rider followed the wheel of Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) when he attacked with around 22km to go on a long sweeping descent. Ådne Holter (Uno-X Mobility) and Jonathan Vervenne (Soudal-QuickStep) made it a breakaway of four.
August did not take any turns at the front but tagged on in the back until on the final flat corners in San Vicente del Raspeig. It wasn't until 200 metres to go that August launched the winning acceleration around the trio, Holter in second and Vermeersch in third.
"First, it's just the two of us, and then the three of us really go all-in to stay ahead. If someone who's been on my wheels the whole time wins, it stings a bit. But that's racing, right?" Vermeersch told Sporza.
"He was a bit of a dead weight in our group. If we hadn't had him with us, we would have been a bit more comfortable. I understand that's their [Ineos Grenadiers] tactic because they had a sprinter behind us, but it's a shame."
The orange kits were seen swarming their Ineos teammate after the finish in congratulations. Ineos posted on social media after the race that their rider "played it cool in the break," but "cool" wasn't what Vermeersch thought of the developments in the race.
"I made a move, a bit unhappy about the outcome, but that's racing," Vermeersch said in a TV interview after the finish. "Jonathan [Vervenne], he went from far, and I was hoping he would go maybe like 100 metres [later] because it was the perfect leadout for me. But he stopped a bit too early, and I lost my momentum. I could already feel [August] coming from behind.
"To be honest, I didn't have the best legs in the end in the sprint because I felt I did a lot of work in the front. But that's racing. I was up there. Now I need to learn again how to finish it off."
While August celebrated the victory, Turner finished in the chasing pack of 34 riders with the rest of the Ineos squad, four seconds back of August and in sixth position.
Riding for Hot Tubes Development Cycling across 2021-2023 road seasons, he had notable stage race success in the US, and each season he added a different US national championship, taking the men's junior ITT title in 2021, the 17-18 junior criterium title and cyclo-cross titles in 2022 and then the road title in 2023. The development team competed in Europe each summer, and August impressed with a pair of second-place GC finishes at races in France and Spain in 2022, with summit stage wins and the GC title in the 2023 Ain Bugey Valromey Tour in 2023.
However, it was at Koppenbergcross in 2022 where August gained international attention. Riding for FinKraft Junior Cycling in cyclo-cross, August became the first US male cyclo-cross athlete in any division to win at the iconic Koppenbergcross in Oudenaarde, Belgium.
Now in his third season on the WorldTour, he's covered a worst-to-first scenario as a pro cyclist. In 2024, he was the youngest rider at Paris-Roubaix and missed the official time allocated for the Monument by one minute and 31 seconds. However, he did complete the ride, "getting your hands battered for 260k" he said at the end, and was proud of that achievement.
The Volta Comunitat Valenciana is August's first race of the 2026 calendar year. The victory boosted Ineos to the top of the team standings. It also moved him to second overall in the sprint classification, 12 points behind GC leader Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team), which was not on his radar.
And not far behind on Friday's stage in 16th position was fellow Hot Tubes team alumnus Magnus Sheffield, who is three-and-a-half years older. Both were raised in upstate New York and signed with Ineos as teenagers. And now both are WorldTour winners, Sheffield earning his first win in Spain at Ruta del Sol in 2022, and becoming an Olympian two years later.
