Three weeks ago Josh Tarling’s Tour de France appeared over.
A high-speed crash at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes left the Netcompany Ineos rider with a broken collarbone, requiring surgery less than a month before cycling’s biggest race.
Now, just three weeks later, the 22-year-old Welshman will roll down the start ramp in Barcelona for his Tour de France debut.
That should sound extraordinary.
Perhaps the only reason it doesn’t is because professional cycling has recently stretched the boundaries of what seems possible.
Last year, Norway’s Jonas Abrahamsen returned to the Tour just nine days after breaking his collarbone. He underlined that recovery by winning a stage.
Tarling’s comeback may not seem quite as astonishing, but it remains remarkable nonetheless.
Reports suggested the Aberaeron rider was back on his bike just two days after surgery as the race against time to prove his fitness began.
His selection – confirmed by Ineos on Wednesday alongside Thymen Arensman, 2019 winner Egan Bernal, Tobias Foss, Filippo Ganna, Dorian Godon, Michal Kwiatkowski and Kévin Vauquelin – also arrives at an important moment for British cycling.
For much of the past decade, British fans barely had to search for a storyline at the Tour de France.
Chris Froome won four yellow jerseys. Geraint Thomas became the first Welshman to win the race. Mark Cavendish rewrote the record books as the Tour’s greatest-ever stage winner.
That golden generation is now beginning to give way to the next.
Thomas and Cavendish have retired. Froome has yet to make it official but, with a new role in the tech industry and now into his fifth decade, British cycling has inevitably started looking towards the future.
There are still world-class British riders in the peloton. Adam Yates remains among the sport’s elite stage racers, albeit now largely in support of Tadej Pogačar. Oscar Onley, another of Britain’s brightest young talents, will miss the Tour altogether through injury.
It leaves Tarling as arguably the most intriguing British storyline of this year’s race, having already established himself among the world’s elite time triallists.
“I’m just super happy and really looking forward to it,” he told the Ineos website.
“We’ve got a power team so I’m really excited with the team that we have for the TT (time trial) and stages, so we’re going to have a good Tour together.”
His Giro d’Italia stage victory last year confirmed the immense potential many have long predicted.
World Championship titles, Olympic medals and Grand Tour stage victories all appear realistic ambitions.
