Despite being only a matter of weeks into his first full year in the WorldTour, 21-year-old Lewis Bower (Groupama-FDJ United) took his first WorldTour podium on Friday as he sprinted to third on stage 3 of the Tour Down Under.
Bower, who has risen through the ranks with the Groupama development squad, was promoted to the WorldTour team last June, riding his first WorldTour event at the Tour of Guangxi, and at the Tour Down Under was not set to be the French team’s designated sprinter.
“It’s just unbelievable,” Bower said. “After putting in so much hard work and sacrificing so much time away from my family and friends, it’s really nice to see that all the efforts I’ve made to reach the WorldTour are paying off. So to get a podium is super special and an emotional result for me.”
“We’re really happy for him,” Groupama DS Jussi Veikkanen said. “Lewis is young, almost racing at home, and his family was here today. These are rare opportunities for a New Zealand rider to be able to perform in front of loved ones. This great result will also give him a lot of confidence in his form, because it wasn’t an easy stage.”
“He wasn’t feeling great yesterday and wasn’t very confident for today,” Veikkanen said. “We’d planned to go with Tom, but he had a mechanical issue at the worst possible moment, so we told Lewis he could sprint.”
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