Cycling moves fast. One second you’re the talk of the town, and the next you’re a has-been. In 2021 and 2022, a young Ethan Hayter, only 22 and 23 at the time, was regularly winning stages and general classifications of second-tier stage races and going head-to-head with – and occasionally beating – Wout van Aert and a Julian Alaphilippe in his pomp. Winning reduced sprints, triumphing in time trials and getting over climbs, Hayter epitomised the modern-day cyclist – he was a jack-of-all-trades.
A new, improved contract with Ineos until the end of the 2024 season was meant to herald more victories, but that didn’t really happen. Instead, two broken collarbones in 2023, an increased focus on the track – he won his second Olympic silver medal in the team pursuit last August – and an increased sense of discontentment and unhappiness at Ineos saw his road career drift. “Racing started to feel more and more like a job,” he has previously commented.
Turning 26 and entering the supposed peak years of his career, last autumn Hayter was offered a two-year deal by Soudal–Quick-Step. It didn’t take the current British champion long to accept the proposal; after a few years of being comparatively anonymous on the road, he’s ready to return to the top. “In some ways, I’m probably better now than I was back then [in 2021 and 2022], but in other ways maybe I could improve,” Hayter tells Rouleur at the Volta a Catalunya, his first European race with his new team. “It’s about getting the balance right of the training that you do and focusing on and targeting some events. My role changed a bit last year and I was working for other guys a lot, and that changes the rider you are.”
The 26-year-old began his season in Oman with Soudal–Quick-Step (Alex Broadway/Getty Images)
It’s not that Hayter doesn’t like being on bottle duty or putting his face in the wind for others, but it’s more that he himself is a winner. “You always like to [win consistently] but it’s not always possible, and it’s not been the easiest past 12 months or so, so it’d be nice to start winning again.”
Hayter’s versatility is partly what prompted Quick-Step to sign him, but as he tries to compete with the sport’s best again, he realises he might have to begin a process of specialisation. “It’s a problem I have sometimes: what am I best at? I’ve been good at lots of things, but not excelled at much. In the past I’ve been close to winning the time trial at the Worlds [fourth in 2022], I climb pretty well with the front groups of races and survive to a sprint, and even sprint, depending on who I’m racing against. But maybe I need to focus on something. It’s tricky, I need to work it out, but it’s a nice problem to have. The problem is, though, everyone else is so good.”
Quick-Step have no doubt in the talent that they’ve recruited. “When he’s good, with Ethan you have the whole package,” says team sports director Klaas Lodewyck. “It’s just searching for the legs, but we believe once he’s in a really good condition he’ll be a good asset for our team.” Can he return to the heights he reached only a few years ago? “I wouldn’t say a level like Van Aert, but we believe when he’s in good shape he can get over a climb very easily, and he has a fast sprint which we’ve seen in the past,” Lodewyck continues. “Races like here [Catalunya] where you have a select group of sprinters – and we believe he can still improve his sprint – he would easily have won a few years ago. He disappeared a bit due to several reasons but we believe he has it inside him to go again. If he performs the way we know he can perform, I don’t see any issue in the long-term.”
Hayter won the British Road Race Championships in 2024 (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
Though Hayter made his debut for his new team in Oman in February, neither he nor his team expected him to be in race-winning shape this spring. “I didn’t finish last season in the best shape and it takes a bit of time to reset and come back, but I’m getting there,” he says. “I’ve not raced much this year, and I think I’ve been missing a bit of that top end, but we’ll give it a good go [in Catalunya].”
Beyond the Catalan race, Hayter will compete in either the Giro d’Italia or Vuelta a España – only his second Grand Tour after previously riding the first week of the 2022 Vuelta. “We’re not taking it race-by-race with Ethan as that’s a short-term vision, but we have an idea of where we want to have him, and we’ll see how he’s going and how he evolves. But for sure he’ll do a Grand Tour,” Lodewyck confirms.
What is certain is that, for the moment at least, going round and round a velodrome won’t be happening as often. “I really enjoy racing on the track,” Hayter says, “but the training and logistics are the difficult parts. If I’m living in Europe and need to go to Manchester for a training session or training block, it doesn’t really work. I didn’t miss any road races last year because I was doing the track – I still raced a lot – but it changed the training a little bit. It makes life a bit simple to focus on the road.” Life will also be sweeter if he starts regularly winning races again. “Exactly,” he smiles.
Cover image by Alex Broadway/Getty Images
