Derek Gee didn’t have much time to chat during the Giro. He was either on a breakaway or busy sheltering from the rain that soaked the peloton for the first two thirds of the Italian Grand Tour.
But several riders took advantage of the good weather last week to congratulate the Canadian, both the favorite and the great revelation of this 106th Giro, where he finished second four times and fourth twice.
“Hats off”, notably slipped the Briton Geraint Thomas, dressed all in pink, the day after one of Gee’s seven breakaways.
In total, the Ottawa cyclist participated in seven runs for a total of 1045 km, almost a third of the race which included three individual time trials.
Others were more pragmatic, like American Larry Warbasse, who suggested his 25-year-old colleague “strike the iron while it’s hot” over his contract status.
Derek Gee did not have to apply Warbasse’s recommendation. Even before the end of the Giro, which ended on May 28 in Rome with the coronation of Primoz Roglic, Israel Premier-Tech submitted him a new contract. His current neo-pro agreement, which nevertheless led him until 2025, was thrown away for a pact, obviously more profitable, which will lead him to 2028.
The contract term alone is unusual in the world of professional cycling where one to three year agreements are more the norm.
Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, winners of the last three Tours de France, are exceptions with the signing of extensions until 2027 with their respective teams. Spaniard Juan Ayuso, a young Spanish nugget from UAE Team Emirates, is the only other cyclist hired until 2028.
“It suits me and the team so much,” Gee told La Presse on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the announcement was made by press release.
“For me, because there is such a Canadian involvement in the team. And it’s exactly the same for them: an emerging Canadian is something they’re interested in because there’s so much Canadian involvement in terms of management, coaching and riders. It’s the perfect match. »
Gee was “not at all” expecting this “massive vote of confidence” from the organization he joined last year.
Without an agent, he negotiated himself with general manager Kjell Carlström, who sees him as a “future leader” of the team, and owner Sylvan Adams, who his father raced against on the national masters stage for a while. “10 or 15 years”.
“Obviously it’s hard to say, ‘OK, here’s what I’m worth.’ And it’s hard to plead for yourself like that. At the same time, I have a good relationship with the management and I was pretty sure that was where I wanted to stay as long as possible. »
Originally from Ottawa like his teammate Michael Woods, Derek Gee started competing around the age of 9 or 10, following in the footsteps of his father who took him to his races. As a teenager, he developed in large part on the Quebec circuit, “in Gatineau or at the Grands Prix de Sainte-Martine and Brossard”, if not at the Tour de l’Abitibi.
Double national junior champion on the road in 2015, he also distinguished himself on the track, a specialty in which he invested more from 2016. Five years later, he took part in the Tokyo Olympics in pursuit by teams, where Canada placed fifth, a high since 1932.
“Track for me was almost just a way to get to the Olympics. I really wanted to go to the Games and track is primarily an Olympic discipline. But the road has always been my passion. That’s what interested me when I was a kid. I didn’t know if I would make it on the road, but I knew I had to try before I quit. »
In the fall of 2021, his two bronze medals at the Canadian Road Championships in Beauce caught the attention of IPT, who recruited him for Israel Cycling Academy, his continental training.
Promoted to the top echelon this year, Gee caused a stir at Paris-Roubaix when he blew his front wheel as he entered the Arenberg trench with the first group.
The idea of ​​contesting a first grand tour did not cross his mind until he lined up with Tirreno-Adriatico as a last-minute guest.
“I was riding well there and it was Mike Woods, actually, who pitched my candidacy to the leaders saying, ‘Hey, that guy rides really hard, he should get his chance on a big lap.’ »
Exposed to these big mountain stages for the first time, Gee’s only ambition was to lend a hand to his teammates and go to the end of the three weeks to see how he would come out of it physically and see how “it [le] would change as a runner”.
Gee was slow to realize he had legs of fire in Italy.
“Every morning, the day after a breakaway, I felt horrible. I was absolutely exhausted and didn’t think I would have the legs to break away. It took me almost until the end of the race to realize that you feel horrible, but you could still give it a shot. On stage 19, I found myself on the breakaway again, and I was like, ‘OK, I should just stop listening to my body because my legs haven’t given up on me!’ »
All things considered, his multiple second places have made him a kind of sympathetic hero, a bit like the late Raymond Poulidor, known as the eternal second. Not to mention that he also finished second in the mountain and points standings. On the other hand, he received the title of the most combative rider of the Giro.
“I don’t know if I would trade everything I achieved for a stage win, but I would trade a lot. But being so little known, if I had won a stage, it could have been seen as a stroke of luck. There I was able to perform repeatedly, although I wasn’t quite able to go for that victory. I think it further demonstrated my potential and how far I can go. »
For now, Gee is gearing up for the Canadian Championships in Edmonton (June 23-26), where the time trial titleholder certainly has no intention of finishing on the second step of the podium.