Leading by example: Chris Hamilton set to road captain Team dsm-firmenich PostNL at the Vuelta a España

Words by Daniel Benson

The Vuelta a España is already underway but for our road captain Chris Hamilton the hard work starts on stage two with the Australian set to come to the fore in the first road stage. After the individual time trial in Lisbon on Saturday the experienced 29-year-old will shepherd the young team through their 194 kilometre test between Cascais and Ourém with the aim of setting up Pavel Bittner for a likely sprint finale.

Hamilton made his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta back in 2017 and the years since has established himself as one of the elder statesmen on the team. This will be his fourth Vuelta, his twelfth Grand Tour in total and he’s aiming to share his valued experience with a roster that contains no fewer than three Grand Tour debuts.

“It’s nice to have that role but it’s also a bit daunting to think about the fact that I’m now the older guy with experience. You try and cruise through life forever thinking that you’re 23 but I’ve done a lot of Grand Tours by now and it almost feels second nature to me. I know how they pan out and we’ve got a few debutants for a Grand Tour, so it’ll be nice to try and steer them in the right direction. We’ve got a couple of young guys, someone like Max for example was born in 2003 and I remember vividly what I was doing in 2003,” Hamilton said before the race kicked off on Saturday.

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL will support Poole GC ambitions, while also providing Pavel Bittner with a strong lead-out following his breakthrough performance at the Vuelta Burgos, where he won two stage and the points jersey.

Hamilton will help organise the team on the road and will play a pivotal role in team meetings. The team go into the race with several ambitions, not least giving the younger riders the space and patience to develop and improve as professionals. Hamilton believes that those aims can be dovetailed with the need and desire to succeed and pick up results.

“I feel like we have a no-pressure environment. When you consider how long Max had off the bike with injury and how good his level still is right now. For him it’s about seeing how he goes. We’ll give him the full support for GC but if he runs out of legs in the third week it’s not a disaster. Then we have other guys in the team who haven’t done a Grand Tour before, so it’s about getting three weeks of racing in your legs for your development. We’ll want to try a few sprints together for Pavel but we’re not one of the teams that everyone will be watching to control the race,” the Australian said.

The position of road captain, however, is vital for any team’s success. Not only will Hamilton be expected to make important calls in the race, but he’ll also be required to be the bridge between the athletes and the sports directors in the team car. Being a road captain is about more than results and Watts, it’s about leading by example, setting the tone and positioning riders so that they can get the best out of themselves in every opportunity. Without a road captain a team is efficiently rudderless and no amount of power or speed can make up for that.

“Obviously, the in-race decision-making is important, when either the car isn’t there or it’s too chaotic for radios,” But in the meetings, you need to know what’s coming on every stage and you can’t just rely on others because people will look to you on how the race will play out. It’s also just important to be the CMO and bring the morale to the team. You want everyone to be happy and engaged with each other,” Hamilton added.

And his own experience as a Grand Tour debutant back in 2017 also comes into play. That year the team sent and equally young squad to the Vuelta a España with Wilco Kelderman chasing the GC and former rider Chad Haga acting as the squad’s road captain. Back then, Hamilton was a WorldTour neo-pro having signed for the team at the start of the year. He remembers that race in particular, as well as Haga’s influence and how it shaped his own perception of what it means to be a captain.

“That’s one of the most vivid memories that I have, being in that first Grand Tour. It was so hard. I don’t know if it was because it was the first one but I just remember being on my deathbed almost from fatigue and even on stage 20 there was an uncategorised climb near the start and I was on my limit,” he said.

“I was overthinking way too much. I had Chad Haga on the team then, and we had Wilco Kelderman on GC but there were four or five first-timers. I remember Chad being a rider who was always calm, and that was reassuring for a young rider. That’s what I try and be as a road captain. I’m not a highly-strung person to begin with and you don’t want to be adding even more stress in an already chaotic environment. I have to try and be there at the important moments, which means you can’t be one of the first to get dropped. You need to be there when it matters. The only ‘days off’ are the time trials I guess.”

One member of the team without any days off is coach Phil West. One of the masterminds behind several of Team dsm-firmenich PostNL’s successes over the years, West and Hamilton have a closer relationship than most when it comes to tactics and communication.

“It’s all about relationships,” he says.

“Whatever plan we’ve made beforehand, at certain points it’s the riders who need to make a decision and we try and use our more experienced guys, and the ones who have the most influence within the group, to be the eyes and ears on the ground. It saves everyone time, so it really is that decision making and keeping everyone accountable to what our plan is. We want the road captain to be vocal on the bike but also clear on the team bus,” West added.

In Hamilton, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL have a well-respected and liked road captain. Over the next few weeks the Australian will play a key role in the team’s success and will be that bind that holds the riders together as they keep challenging.