{"id":440244,"date":"2026-01-27T07:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/440244\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T07:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:44:12","slug":"australian-climber-secures-career-best-podium-at-tour-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/440244\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian climber secures career-best podium at Tour Down Under"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n“It\u2019s the first time in a long time that I\u2019ve really raced for myself,” Sweeny told Domestique<\/a>. “I had the team\u2019s blessing and the full support of the boys. We used every single man we had, and I can\u2019t thank them enough.”<\/p>\n

Sweeny admitted that the responsibilities of leadership – specifically the need to direct his colleagues -did not come naturally, as he is not used to that.<\/p>\n

“Telling the guys where to be, calling them back, asking them to do things, that\u2019s not really my style,” he explained. “I\u2019m usually the one doing it for someone else. It\u2019s a mindset shift, but it\u2019s something I\u2019m learning.”<\/p>\n

Despite the initial discomfort, the change in hierarchy paid off for the team. Sweeny noted that he had “special legs” throughout the week<\/a>, validating the team’s decision to back him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, actually, the whole [Australian] summer and also so far, I’ve been going way better than I thought. I thought my power meter was broken for the last few weeks, actually. But I’ve been feeling good. I’ve been happy, which is really important,” the 27-year old said after the second stage, in which he finished in ninth place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came into this race with no expectations at all and then I got a call from JV (Jonathan Vaughters, ed.), the boss, and he was just like, ‘why aren’t you going to ride GC here?’ And I thought, actually, it’s a good point. Maybe I will give it a crack, and that’s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main question which remains to be seen is whether Sweeny will be granted leader status in other races this season.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/p>\n

Harry Sweeny during stage 2 of the 2026 Tour Down Under<\/p>\n

Vaughters pushes for more<\/p>\n

The performance aligns with the explicit goals set by EF Education-EasyPost team boss Jonathan Vaughters. Vaughters recently stated his desire to see Sweeny transition from a support rider to a winner in races where the team’s primary stars are absent.<\/p>\n

“I really want to see Harry win a bike race,” Vaughters said. “We\u2019ve put a lot of effort into developing him, and I\u2019d like to see that start to show when he goes to races where Ben Healy<\/a> or Richard Carapaz<\/a> aren\u2019t there, so he doesn\u2019t have to watch out for them and can go for the win.”<\/p>\n

Sweeny confirmed that management is encouraging him to be more assertive regarding his race program and tactical role. “Jonathan Vaughters has been on the phone telling me I need to ask for leadership more,” he said. “So yeah, I\u2019m going to try and do that and see how it goes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “It\u2019s the first time in a long time that I\u2019ve really raced for myself,” Sweeny told Domestique.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,114342,784,229105,63569,85,198973],"class_list":["post-440244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-healy","tag-cycling","tag-harry-sweeny","tag-richard-carapaz","tag-sports","tag-tour-down-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}