BTP Interviews: Riley Sheehan on His Breakout 2023 Season & Future Goals
Talking with the young American star about his life-changing 2023 season, his newly signed three-year deal, what it takes to succeed in modern pro cycling and where he sees his career going from here
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In this week’s edition, my co-host Andrew Vontz and I sat down with recent Paris-Tours winner Riley Sheehan to discuss his breakout 2023 season, which saw him rise from a US-based criterium racer to winning one of the oldest races on the European professional race calendar in just a few weeks’ time. At the beginning of the 2023 season, Riley was looking at a career racing high-level crits in the US, while, by the end, he was one of the hottest young American prospects and had a three-year deal with one of the sport’s top teams. In addition to how he got his newly signed three-year deal with Israel-Premier Tech, we also talk about how his life has changed over the last few months and his goals for the 2024 season and beyond.
What stood out to me the most in this episode is how, despite having elite pedigree (Riley’s dad, Clark, was a top-level professional in the 1990s) talent and a great development system around him, just how difficult it was for Riley to still break through to the top ranks of the European peloton, and how much his path there hinged on opportunities with an incredibly small margin of error.
For example, had Riley not immediately delivered a top ten finish at the Maryland Cycling Classic (an impressive 9th place) when he was called up to race as a stagiaire at the tail-end of the 2023 season, he wouldn’t have been offered his original deal, which included a trial season on the team’s lower-level development team, and had he not then turned around and proven his ability to race in Europe with his Paris-Tours victory, he likely wouldn’t have been offered an upgraded contract that took him directly to the first-team squad. And, on top of that, he had to be prepared to relocate to Europe full-time to be available for the ever-expanding and sprawling UCI racing schedule.
This illustrates just how difficult the path is for even the most talented American riders and the small margin of error that decides who ‘makes it’ and who doesn’t. The vast majority of riders would have been unable to immediately perform at Riley’s level for Israel-Premier Tech due to the immense pressure of knowing that instant results were required to extend their time at the team and, as a result, would have been thrown back into the extremely rough and uncertain waters of high-level amateur/low-level professional racing despite having a high-level of talent and ability to succeed at the WorldTour level were they from a more tradition cycling country that could offer a far greater number of paths to the top level.
The Outer Line AIRmail Newsletter
As I emerge from the extended Thanksgiving weekend and get my end-of-year BTP newsletter production back on track, feel free to check out the latest edition of my other writing venture, The Outer Line AIRmail Newsletter, to get pithy analysis on the recent top business and governance stories in the world of professional cycling.