How Harry Hudson's junior team Harrogate Nova are building on world champion's legacy
Producing a world champion is quite the accelerant when it comes to growing a sports team - just ask Harrogate Nova Junior Cycling team.
They were ticking along nicely with regional riders and local sponsors when suddenly, Sheffield’s Harry Hudson became the first British cyclist to win the UCI World Junior Road Race in Rwanda in September.
The interest and congratulations flooded in from across the cycling world, and six months on they are still feeling the benefits.
At their season launch earlier this month, dozens turned up in the pouring rain for a ride around Harrogate. Hudson has moved on, he had already been snapped up by Lidl-Trek of the World Tour peloton, but his success has allowed Harrogate Nova to grow. This they have done by prioritising a youth team that caters for 11 to 15-year-olds.
“Having helped make a world champion has helped a lot,” explains Jonathan Muir, the club’s youth secretary.
“The wheels were already in motion before that, but because of Harry’s world title we’ve bolstered our youth team, which means we’re providing our riders with that succession from the youth ranks and then into the junior ranks (16-18).
“We took on an extra four riders. We tried it out locally with six riders and won over 30 races, around Yorkshire and nationally.
“We’ve added three riders from across the country, two of them still Yorkshire, lads from Whitby, Huddersfield, and then Castle Douglas in Scotland, and then a young 14-year-old from Otley.
"We could have brought in more 16-18-year-olds, but we identified a few riders who had something about them. It was about getting them at an early age, to mould and develop them into the best they can be.”
Sponsorship money is huge in cycling, and for Harrogate Nova, most partnerships are reciprocal deals.
“One of our sponsors provides a service measuring a rider’s VO2Max which he’s doing for free and means these young riders are getting some really good advice,” says Muir.
Harrogate Nova has nine riders in their junior team which will compete in the National Junior Series and also on the continent, starting on Sunday in the Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in Belgium.
The expanded youth set-up of 10 riders competes nationally and also in a one-week race in the Netherlands later this year.