Cycling: Top team seek world champ

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

It is a schoolkid's dream: Jeremy Yates, New Zealand's latest world champion, has been invited to sign up with the world's No 1 professional cycling team.

The 18-year-old from Hastings, who won the world junior road race in France last weekend, has been approached by three teams, the best of them Italian Mapei - the top trade team in the world.

Yates will talk long-distance with Mapei this week as soon as he gets home from school.

The shocked world champion, whose victory is being hailed as the greatest achievement in Kiwi cycling history, arrived home yesterday.

Hanging back in the shadows of the welcoming party was Yates' older brother, Matthew, a cyclist who has scraped out a living riding semi-professionally in Belgium for the last two years.

He flew home alongside the world champion, who hugged his gold medal and rainbow world champion's jersey, and passed on some advice.

"He doesn't realise what he's got himself into now," Matthew Yates said.

"Only cyclists who have been through this, who have lived and raced in Europe, can understand it.

"It is something he wants to do, but whether he wants to live the lonely life in Europe is something he has to think about. He has a very good future, though."

Little brother has no doubt that he wants to do it, all right.

Once he has finished his bursary exams in three weeks, Yates wants a cycling career.

"You can't put cycling on hold for university. I have to take this chance while it's there," he said. "I mean, this is the ultimate goal for a cyclist, to turn pro and get into a good team."

And you cannot get much better than Mapei, who topped last year's world team rankings and have among their riders former world champions Oscar Freire and Johann Meeuws.

Yates would not get a free ride into the top squad. He would join the under-23 ranks of the team.

Mapei had their eye on Yates even before the 127km race in Plouay began, thanks to a tip from a canny local bike mechanic.

"One of the bike shop owners I stayed with in Italy told the team manager to write the number 139 on his hand before the race," Yates said.

"Sure enough, at the end of the race, No 139 was the winner. That was my number. He was a mechanic who had a great deal of hope in me."

Matthew Yates did not get to see his brother, a lone Kiwi in a field of high-powered teams, sprint the final 200m to victory. He had to hitch-hike to get to the circuit, arriving in time to hear Jeremy's name called over the loudspeaker as he crossed the finish-line, arms aloft.

The brothers are competitive, but close.

The cycling world was amazed by Yates' victory, at how he managed to beat a field of 166 riders without any team-mates.

But Yates had a little cunning on his side. On the last lap, he fought his way over to a breakaway group in the lead.

"With 800m to go, they motioned for me to take a turn at the front, but I took my hands off the bars and shrugged my shoulders, like it wasn't my turn," he smiled. "They fell for it and led me out for the sprint to the line."

Yates, a seventh-former at St John's College who works part-time at a bakery, had not dared to dream he would come home a world champion.

"To be honest, when a few people told me I could be in the top 10 in the world, I thought they were maybe a little presumptuous," he said.

"I was 18th in the time trial a few days before, and that was a big surprise for me. I was satisfied with that."