Cyclist
‘I’m really looking forward to this next chapter’: Tao Geoghegan Hart Q&A
What do you remember from your race-ending crash in the Giro d’Italia last year?
Directly from the moment that Giro crash happened, I understood everything. There were five seconds of ambiguity where I had hope and thought, ‘You need to jump up and go, this is the Giro, you’re flying.’ And then I remembered what I felt when I touched the ground. It was a situation I never imagined I’d be in. I had always walked away from some decent hits.
Of course, it was horrible to be stuck in hospital for two weeks. And it’s really hard to be in a wheelchair, not able to walk. But I always had short-term goals I could chip away at. The rehab, the surgery, everything went smoothly.
After suffering a complex femur fracture, you didn’t race for the rest of 2023 and focussed on recovery. How has this experience changed you?
It’s a new chapter of my career for many reasons. The crash is, of course, one thing, but I’ve also changed teams [from Ineos Grenadiers] after seven years. Lidl-Trek is only the second WorldTour team of my career. There are new adventures and experiences going on.
It was interesting to be quite outside of cycling for half a year. For a long time I didn’t see anyone to do with the sport. Well, I saw Dylan [van Baarle] while I was recovering in Amsterdam; we had a coffee one afternoon. I was working with people that didn’t follow the Tour de France. I was really outside of cycling and that was just a good period for me – not that I needed it or searched for it, but I made the most of it. Doing that was the best way to come back really fresh now. I’m looking forward to this next chapter.
What are your hopes and expectations for 2024?
It’s quite a clean slate. Similar to any time of my career, it’s about being the best I can be. In the Giro I was so happy because I felt I hadn’t really started the race yet – and we were halfway through. I was just waiting to show what I wanted to show. It was all trending in the right direction, and that’s the best feeling in the world when you’ve worked five months with a nice group of guys around you, spending four weeks at a time together at altitude, sacrificing things, putting the hours in.
With this team, there are big changes. Lidl is a huge and really ambitious company. There’s a lot of amazing history, a lot of people have been together here a long time. I’ve been racing with Mads Pedersen since we were under-16s. I think he gets a lot of credit, but he should actually get more.
For what he does?
The way he won the Bemer Cyclassics in Germany, you don’t see that in cycling anymore. It was like Cancellara in Milan-San Remo of yesteryear. He’s 28 and he’s won in every Grand Tour and is doing the Classics. It’s really underestimated how hard that is.
When you turned pro with Team Sky, it was an established squad that had won multiple Tours de France. Lidl-Trek also wants to become a superteam. How do you see yourself as an asset?
Honestly, I think that’s a little bit contentious because everyone starts from zero every winter. Fortunes change fast. On the top of that climb before I crashed, I felt so good and fresh. In one second [clicks his fingers], it’s another story. It’s like that; teams and sponsors come and go really fast. Every WorldTour team is only as good as the riders it’s bringing in, the future it’s creating and the contracts it’s signing. So in that respect I want to bring my personality, my experience and my outlook for life.
You took a few months out. Did the fact you knew you were switching teams give some time to adjust a bit?
No, it was strange because I felt really away from cycling. I didn’t feel like I was changing, to be honest. And it was also sad because I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye and thank you to a lot of people [at Ineos]. 2014 was the first time I did a training camp with a lot of those riders and staff. That’s a decade; my whole adult life.
For a long time last year I didn’t feel emotionally involved with anything in cycling. I was really focussed on crazy, tiny things you can’t imagine.
I couldn’t bend my knee very far for months. I was living day to day by measuring how many degrees I could bend it. It would improve by two or three degrees after a two-hour painful treatment and lose a degree in the night. So if you can’t walk, it’s impossible to imagine jumping on the bike to do four hours easy, riding 250 watts. I couldn’t even pedal.
What’s it like returning to the normal goal of being a professional cyclist after spending so many months focussing on one thing?
The training is second nature for me. I love being on my bike. It’s more the other stuff. I need to get the mindset back a bit more into nutrition. But I’m not too far from where I was this time last year. I really expected some big setback or flare-up and I’ve had nothing. That speaks a lot for the work I did in Amsterdam to be ready.
Career highlights
Age 29
Team Lidl-Trek
Notable results
2023
1st, Tour of the Alps, two stage wins
2020
1st, Giro d’Italia, two stage wins
2019
2nd, Tour of the Alps, two stage wins
2018
1st, Stage 3 (TTT), Critérium du Dauphiné
2016
1st, Road Race, National Under-23 Road Championships
2nd, Time-Trial, National Under-23 Road Championships
• This article originally appeared in issue 151 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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