Zeb Kyffin: stepping out of the fish bowl

TDT-Unibet's British rider tasted the team's first World-Tour event at the Amstel Gold Race. Adam Becket finds out how the day went

- Adam Becket

It was a British-themed day at the Amstel Gold Race a fortnight ago. Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) might have won the day, but he was not the first Englishman to animate the Dutch Classic.

The first was Zeb Kyffin of TDTUnibet, who spent 144km of the 253km race up the road, in not just his first World-Tour race, but his team's. The 26-year-old, who previously rode for Ribble-Weldtite and Saint Piran, was therefore very much in the spotlight at TDT's biggest race of the season.

"This was the first race where I almost felt a bit sick before with nerves," he told Cycling Weekly the day after his huge day out. "It was quite a big deal - we were doing the sign-on with all the crowds who were there and there was an incredible atmosphere. I don't think it has sunk in because I was just riding my bike, and there's like 400 people screaming at you, and they somehow know your name." Being in the breakaway at a World-Tour race is never just fortune or being in the right place at the right time, it is carefully plotted, as Kyffin explained.

Mind the gap