It’s hard to imagine a smoother transition into a new team than Sarah Roy had in Australia, lining up to race on familiar roads as road captain of the EF Education-Oatly squad that claimed the very first Women’s WorldTour race of the season – the Tour Down Under (TDU) – with Noemi Rüegg.
“Yeah, for sure, it’s been a really successful period in Australia, it couldn’t have started better,” Roy told Cyclingnews at the start of the month on the sidelines of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race before it began. “Winning the TDU was really great morale for the team and then going into every race after.”
The results of this were soon once again clear as the ProTeam made it to the podium again at the one-day Women’s WorldTour race with Rüegg, with Roy ever present as a valuable ally for the team. She and the team walked away from the Australian season with plenty of motivation.
“We’ll just keep building on this,” said Roy when asked about the plans for the year ahead. “I mean this is really solid racing and really competitive, but it’s only going to get more competitive in Europe but it’s a really nice way to start.
“I think the spirits are really high but we’re very cognizant of the fact that we can’t lose focus and we need to keep the same level.”
Despite throwing herself into the task of helping deliver strong results for the team in the racing at the Tour Down Under, Roy was also personally inside the top 20 through the one-day races.
Roy came 15th at the National Championships criterium and eighth at the gruelling road race despite being without teammates. She was also 15th at the Schwalbe Women’s One Day Classic, 14th at the Surf Coast Classic and she dug deep through the climbs of the final circuit of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race to finish 18th even as she helped Rüegg on her path to the podium. It is a positive indicator of the strong form the rejuvenated 38-year-old is carrying into the next part of the season.
For Roy that next block will begin at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad this weekend, marking the start of the Classics season which is a realm Roy revels in.
Saturday’s Omloop is a race that the experienced Australian has tackled nine times already, finishing 12th last year as she was the first rider across the line for her squad of the time, Cofidis. This time she will be lining up in a team that is backing Lotta Henttala and Nina Berton, as she kicks off her first Classics campaign with EF Education-Oatly.
“I’m really looking forward to all of the Classics,” said Roy. “I’ve had a rough couple of years so I really want to come back in a new way where I cannot just give back to the team in the captain role but actually be in the finals of the races – not necessarily getting results or anything although I mean, that would be great – but just to be a part of the final groups and part of the action at the very end of races.”
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