Two podium results at Tirreno-Adriatico have left Kaden Groves (Team BikeExchange) confident that after rebounding from an injury-interrupted 2021 he is now ready to compete among, and perhaps even soon beat, some of the top sprinters in the peloton.
After delivering two second places and a third at the 2.Pro ranked Tour of Oman, the 23-year-old then took to his first WorldTour podium on stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico. Groves added another third place finish on the final day of racing, having worked hard to find a last moment gap in a messy stage 7 sprint where the top three finishers were only separated by a wheel.
“There were some tired legs out there today and the guys did a really good job to position me, especially Michael [Matthews] in that final,” Groves told reporters after the stage, voice strained from the shouted communication as he positioned in the hectic run in.
“I pretty much just got unlucky in the dangerous chicane, losing some positions but I take confidence from my form and my speed in the final and the win is coming.”
Groves clearly had the pace, but his position earlier on the run into the line wasn’t ideal and with no gap to be seen at around 100m to go he had to quickly take the long way round. Groves found clean air at less than 50m to go, swinging over to the right to find a way through just after eventual stage winner Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious). The late entry to the final battle out front didn’t give him long to make up ground, but he delivered an impressive turn of speed to shift into third, with just centimetres separating him from second-placed Giacoma Nizzolo (Israel-Premier Tech).
Groves, who signed with the team late 2019, has now stepped up to the podium five times already this season with his growing sprint strength adding another strong card to the growing BikeExchange-Jayco sprint deck. The team brought Matthews, a rider who favours the selective sprints rather than bunch battles, back to the squad in 2021 while Dutch sprinter Dylan Groenewegen was a late addition for 2022.
Groves, who in September last year signalled his building strength with a win in the 1.6km-long Tour of Slovakia opening prologue, will now head to Milano-Torino as he continues to pursue that first sprint victory in Europe.
