Adam Yates runs his hand through the first signs of older age. “People tell me that my hair’s going grey,” he laughs. Aged 32, Yates, convention would tell us, is at the beginning of the end of his sporting career, but that’s now how he sees it. “I’m getting older and it’s getting harder and harder to be at this level, but I still feel young, still feel like I have something to give, so every year I work on things that can help me to win,” he says. “I know my body, how it works, when I’m tired, and it’s just tweaking little things here and there. On the bike I feel good, motivated, training is going well, and I don’t feel like I’m slowing down.”
Which is a good thing because in 2025 Yates will line up at the Giro d’Italia as one of the favourites, even if he dismisses that tag. Co-leading UAE Team Emirates’s charge with Juan Ayuso, 10 years his junior, Yates is laying everything on the line to take the Grand Tour win that has so far eluded him. “I’ve been at a high level the last two years and I said to him [Matxin Fernández, UAE’s sports manager] that I don’t know how long I can keep going at this level, so it’d be good to go back, try one more time and see what I can do,” Yates adds.
The Briton was recruited to UAE from Ineos Grenadiers two years ago to principally support Tadej Pogačar in his quest to win more Tour de France titles, and to also continue adding shorter stage races to his own win tally. He’s done both: he was third and sixth at the last two Tours which Pogačar won, and has won the Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse, two of cycling’s big-seven one-week stage races.
Yates rides ahead of his team at the 2024 Tour de France (Image: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
Emboldened, his eyes are now set on bigger prizes. “We [Matxin and Yates] both had the same idea,” he continues. “They want me to go to the Tour and help Tadej win the Tour, but I think I’ve reached another level, not just in performance but also in consistency. And when you have this kind of level, it’s quite logical that you target big races and try to win them.”
There is, though, one potential obstacle that would almost certainly prove impossible to surmount: Pogačar might defend his Giro title. “If he wants to do the Giro, he can,” Yates adds, aware of his place in the pecking order. “He’s the boss, he’s number one, he can do what he wants. If he decides to come to the Giro, then I’ll be there and ready to help him. But it’s always handy to have more than one guy going for GC, not just Tadej. I think it adds more options. We’ve seen in the past that things can go wrong quite easily if someone crashes or has some bad luck, so it all makes sense to have more than one guy.”
Yates knows all about Grand Tour luck – or rather, bad luck. Though he’s finished all 14 of the three-week races he’s started, many of his GC challenges have been upended by illnesses and crashes. “I won’t give you a full history of everything, but I’ve been sick a lot, crashed a lot, and just to be in a Grand Tour and not get sick or have something happen to you is super rare,” he says. “Hopefully nothing happens in the Giro and I can be at a super high level.”
Being surrounded by the world champion Pogačar and several of the sport’s current and rising GC stars at UAE adds to the pressure to maintain consistency – if your standards drop, you’re out the door. But that’s exactly how Yates likes it. “It’s not an easy environment to be in,” he admits. “But it’s an environment where you grow as a rider. You push yourself, you try to be the best you can be to perform. In the last two seasons we’ve won a lot of races, and anything we’ve won I’ve been up there fighting with one or two of the guys.”
Yates wins stage nine of the 2024 Vuelta (Image: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
Other highlights in his past two seasons have been winning the opening stage of the 2023 Tour, taking the yellow jersey in the process, and a 58km solo win at the Vuelta a España in September. One half of the Bury twins – Simon has joined Visma-Lease a Bike this winter – Adam has never had it so good.
“It was a good season,” he says of 2024. “Six wins, my best ever. I started the season strong in February [winning a stage and GC at the Tour of Oman] and still managed to win in August at the Vuelta. It’s not easy to peak all year, and after the crash [in the UAE Tour which left him with concussion] it took me a long time to really come back to a high level, but I managed it.”
2025 also doubles up as a contract year for Yates, and it’s no surprise that staying with the Emirati team is what he’ll be pushing for. “Logically I would stay,” he confirms. “It depends on what they want – if they still want me or not.” Perform well at the Giro, maybe even win it, and they’ll definitely be renewing him.
