Interview
In his first year as a pro, Team Sky’s Jon Dibben has shown
determination, ability and a willingness to learn
Sophie Smith“Last year I
was inconsistent
in a word —
but I certainly
learned a lot”
Photo: Chris Auld
Dibben digs deep
There is one thing I really want to
ask Jonathan Dibben when we meet
at the Tour Down Under, where he is
starting his 2018 season working for Sky
team-mates. Determination is a
hallmark among athletes but the
23-year-old rider’s willpower is curious.
A score on Dibben’s 2017 rookie pro
results sheet begs a question, and it’s
not the stage six time trial victory at the
Tour of California, or Hammer Series
Limburg title.
Sat in a hotel lobby in Adelaide, I
instead ask the aspiring Sky Classics
specialist about the ‘OOT’ he recorded
at Paris-Roubaix.
Race veterans say reaching the
velodrome is achievement in itself,
so a neo-pro would certainly be forgiven
for surrendering at their first attempt. Yet
Dibben, in the fastest edition ever raced,
persevered to enter the velodrome and
complete the course 47 minutes
in arrears of the winner Greg Van
Avermaet (BMC).
“I wouldn’t class it as a finish,” he
corrects, adding that the
iconic showers served
as little impetus. “I don’t
know if anyone uses those
showers anymore.”
Dibben describes 2017
as a year of two halves —
up to the Tour de Suisse
and after it, when he
started to fatigue in what
was a 10-month season
following tenure at Team Wiggins,
and Cannondale-Drapac as a trainee.
“Last year I was inconsistent in a
word. I had a good first half and average
second half,” he explains. “I certainly
learned a hell of a lot. The length of your
season to start with; that’s a long season.”
The GB Academy graduate is one of
several fresh faces Sky has recruited in
recent years. Dibben, a former world
champion on the track, isn’t easilydaunted. He is assured, has familiar
contemporaries from his time in the
national academy and is clearly enjoying
it. “It’s certainly not a job. It’s pretty damn
good, especially living with my girlfriend,
Abby [Mae Parkinson who rides for Trek-
Drops], in France now,” he says.
“People like G [Geraint Thomas] I
didn’t really know at all before joining
the team but by the end of a two-week
training camp you feel like everyone is
your mate.”
However, it’s his performances at the
Spring Classics, specifically at Roubaix,
which provide the most pertinent insight
into Dibben’s nature. Sky tasked him
with covering moves in the first 100km
where the peloton averaged 50kph. He
was “cooked” when the bunch hit the
first pavé sector. Remarkably, he carried
on to sector nine where he punctured
and then waited for the broomwagon —
to get a spare wheel.
“I just stood there for 10 minutes,” he
recalls. “Spectators offered me beers. I
thought, I’ve not hacked the last three
hours in a little group just to get in the
broomwagon with 20km to go.”
Dibben isn’t an
overzealous recruit.
His performances in
the weeks prior to
Roubaix were more
conservative; he did
his job for the team
and then abandoned.
“I had a lot better
ride at the Tour of
Flanders and at
Ghent-Wevelgem the week before that
compared to Roubaix,” he continues
somewhat ironically.
“It’s that whole Classics block; talking
about it now gets me excited. Last year
we had the same hotel the whole block
[in Kortrijk, Belgium], same team every
race and it’s that real do or die. Those
races if there’s even a hint of a gap you go
for it,” he says.
Sky virtually sent the youngestcontingent of its Classics squad, including
Dibben, to Australia. The outfit is
renowned for wielding established
champions but less so developing talent.
It’s a perception of which performance
manager Rod Ellingworth is well aware.
““The early years of our team were
always difficult because when you’re
trying to win the Grand Tours you’ve
got to have guys who can sit on the front
all day,” Ellingworth says. “In that way
it’s really difficult to develop riders if
you were just going to go purely for a
development programme.
“We’ve committed to this young group
because we believe now we’ve got ideas
to take it forward.”
Dibben followed his older brother
into cycling. His sibling, after a couple
of years racing and breaking bones in
Belgium, now has a “real job” in London.
Dibben, on the other hand, has bought
into Sky’s long game.
“I don’t feel last year I was just
slugging away in a race,” he says. “Sky
have got more focus on making sure they
do develop younger guys now. Gianni
Moscon is a really good example. In
his first year, he did whatever the team
asked and then stepped up last year and
was fifth in Roubaix. Now he’s earned the
right to be a joint leader at the Classics
coming into this year.”
Dibben was fatigued at the end of
2017, but is motivated for a new year in
which he aims to support team-mates
into the televised part of the Classics, and
possibly even secure a ride at the Vuelta
a España.
“As well as take any opportunities
that come,” he adds, pointing to how Sky
reset their plan at the Tour Down Under
when designated sprinter Kristoffer
Halvorsen crashed out.
“Look at [Chris] Lawless, he didn’t
expect to come here and sprint but now
he has three stages to have a go with
a full team backing him. The moment
those opportunities come you need to be
ready for them,” Dibben says.26 | February 8, 2018 | Cycling Weekly