By JARROD POTTER
SAM de Riter didn’t think she’d be cycling for Australia in the next few years – let alone in the next few weeks.
Gaining selection to ride for the Australian National team in the Belgium, de Riter, 24, from Berwick, was ecstatic to be selected to race the four-day Lotto Belisol Belgium Tour (Lotto Cycling Cup) on the International Cycling Union (UCI) Tour.
“Cycling Australia has been giving out a few opportunities this year and they put the word out and I said yes and they picked people off their national ranking,” de Riter said.
She’ll exchange her red Holden Womens’s Cycling Team jersey for the green and gold Australian colours – a major highlight in her cycling career so far.
“That’s what I’m most excited about getting to wear green and gold,” she said.
“It’s really exciting and kind of surreal because it’s happened very quickly. I didn’t really expect it to happen that quickly.
“I wanted to get over to Europe but I didn’t think that’s the way I’d get over there.”
Her expectations and hopes for the tour will be gaining much needed experience and learning how to ride in the bigger, more aggressive fields.
“It’s about the experience – we haven’t experienced the European racing, so it will be completely different and we’re coming off a big break and it’s extremely different over there.
“Australian road racing is so different to their racing – they’re so aggressive and there’s so many more people.
“There will probably be 180 starters in most of the races compared to our 70 starters.
“It will just be one of those things that I’m trying to experience it and get another ride next year.”
Following the Lotto Belisol Belgium Tour, de Riter has six more races confirmed for her five-week European trip – which de Riter believes will greatly improve her cycling by being a part of a European racing season.
“It’s really important – that’s where the racing is – all the best girls in the world will be there,” de Riter said.
“You can’t develop as a rider or get better unless you’re getting experiences and rides like this, so the country is doing pretty well to send girls over.”
It adds to an already impressive season to date for de Riter, having won the Queen of the Mountains classification in the Mersey Valley Tour of the Cycling Australia Subaru National Road Series earlier this year – when a mountain-top breakaway also gave her the leader’s yellow jersey on the final day of the event.
