By Martin Cleary
Next stop, the 111th edition of the Tour de France.
If it’s anything like the gritty, emotional drama of the 2023 Giro d’Italia or last week’s unprecedented, medal-winning Criterium du Dauphine for Derek Gee of Osgoode, ON., then his second Grand Tour event could be filled with more daring breakaways, lightning strikes and eye-popping results than his fans can handle.
But first, please give Gee, 26, a few days to recover from the all-out energy assault and the daily exhaustion he experienced to achieve yet another great milestone in his young cycling career.
It was just more than a year ago when the Israel Premier Tech rider excelled in his Grand Tour debut. He fought, he battled, he pushed the pedals so hard, but he fell just short of winning his first race on European soil.
Instead, he fully earned second-place finishes in four individual stages and two fourth-place results, which is something to be extremely proud of, especially since it allowed him to finish second overall in both the points and mountains classifications.
Gee started the Giro d’Italia with results well back in the pack for the first seven stages. But when he reached Stage 8, he was a rider unafraid of making a breakaway, pushing the pace and being fully rewarded with a second-place result. From Stage 8 through Stage 19, his determined style, constant leg power and tenacity to chase his first major win roused the cycling community inside and outside of Italy. It also earned him a contract extension with Israel Premier Tech through 2028.
Slightly more than a year later, Gee was at it again. But this time it was the 76th Criterium du Dauphine, an eight-stage race which ended Sunday and is considered a warm-up for the Tour de France.
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For the first two stages, he rode for his teammates and was the second-best Israel Premier Tech rider with respective finishes of 17th and 20th.
Entering the final kilometre of Stage 3, Gee found himself in a massive group at the front of the pack. He played it smart, took full advantage of an opportunity and sprinted into the lead with 400 metres left.
But Romain Gregoire of Groupama-FDJ caught him and took the lead. Gee responded with a second surge 150 metres from the finish and charged to his first-ever UCI WorldTour victory. That momentous occasion allowed him to rise to the top of the General Classification (overall) standings and earn the prestigious leader’s yellow jersey for Stage 4.
That victory triggered a string of five unbelievable single-digit results the rest of the way, excluding Stage 5 which was neutralized because of a massive crash on wet, slippery roads 20 kilometres from the finish line.
Wearing the yellow jersey, Gee placed sixth in the individual time trial, which dropped him to fourth in the overall standings behind Remco Evenepoel of Soudal-Quick-Step, eventual winner Primoz Roglic of BORA-hansgrohe and Matteo Jorgenson of Team Visma-Lease a Bike. Gee was 71 seconds behind Evenepoel.
Undeterred, Gee proved he was a strong multi-stage rider and could take on the mountains with the best of them over the final three stages, placing fourth, fifth and third respectively.
The end result for Gee was a third-place finish in the overall standings for his first-ever WorldTour General Classification medal. He finished only 36 seconds behind Roglic, a three-time Vuelta a España and two-time Giro d’Italia champion as well as a three-time Tour de France stage winner.
Minutes after finishing Stage 8, Gee was a picture of total exhaustion, speaking in short sentences with periods of silence in between to recover from the demanding stage race.
“Exhausted,” a slumping Gee responded, when asked how he felt after his first Criterium du Dauphine. “That was really special, though. The boys gave me everything. I’m really glad I could do that.”
A short time later, Gee started to appreciate what he had accomplished over eight days of racing.
“After the (finish) line, I was suffering so much. I couldn’t enjoy it, but now it’s all starting to sink in. There will be a lot of reflection after this. Right now, I am just enjoying it as it is. But, it has been really cool.”
Canadian Cycling magazine called Gee’s effort “one of the all-time greatest Canadian performances in a non-Grand Tour stage race.” It ranked up there with Steve Bauer finishing second overall in the 1988 Tour de Suisse, Ryder Hesjedal taking fourth in the Volta a Catalunya and Ottawa’s Michael Woods finishing fifth in the back-to-back Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse in 2021.
The Tour de France, which is scheduled to start June 29, is next on Gee’s cycling assignment list, but the big question is what his role will be on the seven-man team. Will he chase a General Classification result? Or will he be focusing on stage wins?
The Israel Premier Tech officials have 18 days to determine the role for Gee or they may not even designate one rider to chase a GC result.
Gee’s unexpected and consistently high performances at the Criterium du Dauphine have added an interesting angle to this equation.
A three-week altitude training camp before the Criterium du Dauphine helped Gee immensely and put him in excellent racing shape.
Israel Premier Tech manager Rik Verbrugghe told Sporza the team was as surprised as the rest of the world by Gee’s race results, especially his climbing ability.
“But that he could climb with guys like Roglic and Jorgenson, the best climbers, was a pleasant surprise for us,” he said.
Gee, who was part of Canada’s men’s team pursuit track squad which placed fifth in the velodrome during the Tokyo Olympics, is becoming an all-around road cyclist, whether it’s stage racing or one-day challenges.
“We are building with Derek. Since the Giro, he has already lost four kilograms, but there’s still a bit to go. He is made for stage racing,” Verbrugghe added.
“I think his performance here (Criterium du Dauphine) guarantees him a (Tour de France) selection. But I think it’s still too early to aim for a General Classification, more for stage wins.”
In an interview with WielerFlits, Israel Premier Tech sports director Eric Van Lancker delivered a similar message.
“It is with the aim of winning a stage,” he said about Gee’s main goal for the premier Grand Tour stage race. “It would be unwise to put that pressure on him right now.
“We will go into the Tour without a GC man. It is better that he loses a few days and focuses on long breakaways than that he drives himself to pieces for a 15th place. Winning a stage is much more important.”
Van Lancker is impressed by Gee’s attacking style.
“That’s the great thing about him,” he said. “He is not constantly calculating or looking at his watts. He dares to race.
“He very much has the mentality of ‘we’ll go for it, and then see where we end up.’ If you always think, ‘math, math, math,’ you sometimes get a good result, but then you might miss that one outlier.
“I think (Gee’s) greatest quality is his big engine. No one expected what he is showing now. He is in the shape of his life, he is performing a bit above his means. In fact, he already exceeded the expectations we had for him.”
Calm, quiet and polite, Gee should be well rested for his Tour de France debut and ready to seize any opportunity that comes his way in a split second. And then we wait to see what happens.
Martin Cleary has written about amateur sports for over 52 years. A past Canadian sportswriter of the year and Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement in Sport Media honouree, Martin retired from full-time work at the Ottawa Citizen in 2012, but continued to write a bi-weekly “High Achievers” column for the Citizen/Sun.
When the pandemic struck, Martin created the High Achievers “Stay-Safe Edition” to provide some positive news during tough times, via his Twitter account at first and now here at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Martin can be reached by e-mail at martincleary51@gmail.com and on Twitter @martincleary.