Neve Bradbury has been smiling for almost the entirety of our 20-minute video interview. And fair enough – as the 22-year-old Australian reflects on her 2024 season, she has plenty to be happy about.
Four years after she won the Zwift Academy and earned herself a ride with WorldTour team Canyon-SRAM, Bradbury has just put together a season that those in her camp always knew she was capable of. There had been signs in previous years – including 10th overall at the 2022 Giro d’Italia Donne – but in 2024, after three years spent finding her feet at the highest level, the Melburnian has confirmed herself as one of the most talented climbers in the sport with a huge future ahead of her.
The signs were good early in the year. After winning Australia’s U23 road title in early January, Bradbury headed to the Tour Down Under and took third on the tour-ending Willunga Hill stage, earning herself third overall as well.
At the UAE Tour in February, Bradbury ascended to new heights. On the queen stage, which finished with the 11 km Jebel Hafeet climb, Bradbury attacked from a group of favourites with a little under 3 km to go, with only world champion Lotte Kopecky able to come across. While Kopecky would win the stage and the race overall, Bradbury held on for second on the stage, to lock up second overall and the best young rider classification. It was the biggest result of her career to that point, and another reminder of her vast potential.
Four months later, at the Tour de Suisse in mid June, Bradbury went even bigger, riding to her first professional victory – in a WorldTour race no less. On stage 3, Bradbury made the move that sparked the early breakaway, and when she and teammate Kasia Niewiadoma broke clear of that group with around 15 km to go, the race was over. Bradbury and Niewiadoma crossed the line together, Bradbury taking the stage win en route to another second-place overall finish and best young rider title.
“Whenever I think about that stage, I can’t help but smile,” Bradbury says from her apartment in Girona, indeed smiling. “It was insane. It’s everyone’s dream to cross the line, I think, with their teammate. Maybe some teams want to cross the line by themselves, but I want to cross the line with my teammate – that’s the ideal situation. So yeah, when I think about [that day] I’m just so happy. And the way that Kasia was so happy to help me and give me the win makes me just so proud.”
Bradbury would have even more to be proud of a month later, at the Giro d’Italia Women. On a roasting-hot stage 7, which finished atop the punishing Blockhaus climb – 16 km at a painful 8% grade – Bradbury went on the attack from the lead group with around 11 km to go. Her move didn’t stick, but it did thin the group down to just a select handful. It was a different story when she went again, around 9 km from the line.
“It was quite a brutal day that day,” Bradbury recalls. “I remember it being really hot, like stiflingly hot, and having the best support from my teammates, getting so many bottles – an absurd amount of bottles – to stay cool.
“I was sitting at the front [with around 9 km to go] … and I remember going to the back so I could get the run-up. And I remember thinking Lotte Kopecky is going to follow me, because she’s going to know something’s going to happen. But then no one did. They just let me go to the back without really looking around, which was kind of strange. And then I just got the run-up again and went for it.
“I got the run-up just before it got slightly steeper. And then I remember looking back, seeing I had a gap, looking at my Hammerhead and seeing I had almost 9 km to go, thinking ‘This is gonna be a long day, so I’m gonna settle into a nice pace.’”
That nice pace was enough for Bradbury to hold an advantage all the way to the line, eventually winning the stage by 44 seconds over Kopecky and overall leader Elisa Longo Borghini. It would set the young Australian up for third overall at the race, claiming yet another best young rider classification as well.
That Giro stage victory isn’t just the biggest result of Bradbury’s career; it was the moment when Bradbury started to believe that she might just belong at the top of the sport after all. Her Tour de Suisse stage win – finishing alongside Niewiadoma – had been incredibly satisfying, but that had felt less like she was one of the absolute best in the race, and more a matter of circumstances.
“I was like, ‘I attacked 15 km in and then they just let me go,’” she says, reflecting on that Tour de Suisse victory. “So even at that stage, I thought it was more luck than anything. It was only really at the Giro where I was like, ‘Oh, actually, maybe I am here. Maybe I do deserve to be here now.’”
In Bradbury’s mind, the way she won that Giro stage was important. She hadn’t been let go by the favourites, nor had they underestimated her – she was just better than anyone else in the moment that mattered.
“When I attacked before [around 11 km from the finish] they were straight on my wheel, whereas the last time [with 9 km to go], you could see when I re-watched the video that Longo Borghini tried to go, and she just couldn’t,” Bradbury says. “So I think they didn’t want to let me go. It’s just that maybe they couldn’t [stop me].”
It’s that Giro victory that Bradbury comes back to, too, when asked what she’s most proud of from her breakout season.
“My main goal was the Giro,” she says. “So to be able to actually pull it off, I’m quite happy with that. It’s one thing to peak … but a lot of times it just does not work like that. And I also had to deal with some sickness and stuff, and being able to work around that …”
So what does Bradbury put her amazing season down to? What is it that’s allowed her to take such a noticeable step up in 2024? As you’d expect, there’s no one single factor.
“I think it’s a lot of different things,” she says. “I’ve also just learned with my coach what works for me more this year, and also it’s a confidence thing.”
Confidence is a theme that Bradbury returns to a few times throughout our conversation. It’s not just confidence in her own abilty; it’s also about being more comfortable in the peloton.
“I feel like last year I was quite scared in the bunch, and this year I really worked with that on and off the bike,” she says. “So there was that psychological part to it. And yeah, on the bike, I feel like every race, I built a little bit of confidence. Like first at Tour Down Under, I was really happy with third there. And then we went to UAE … I was also really good there.
“So I feel like the races got a little bit harder, but I was still there, each race. Each race, I got this little bit of a confidence boost. And then by the time I got to the Giro, I was quite confident in myself. I mean, you know the numbers. I was doing quite good numbers in training, which helps, but you never really know if it’s going to pull off in a race, because there’s so many different factors that impact a race.”
While Bradbury’s best personal results came in June and July, the remainder of her 2024 season was impressive too. In August, she was a crucial part of the Canyon-SRAM squad that helped deliver Niewiadoma to a Tour de France victory for the ages. Bradbury is again beaming as she recalls the sheer emotion of that final stage on Alpe d’Huez; as Niewiadoma battled to limit her losses to defending champion Demi Vollering up the road.
“It was insane,” Bradbury says. “I remember climbing up Alpe d’Huez. My job was done, so I was just chilling but I had the second team car with me, so they had the livestream. I kept going back asking what was happening, because the whole way up, it was so close, and then she crossed the line, and we’re like, ‘Did she get it? Did she not?’
“After a few minutes, I was told that she had it. And I remember just screaming and then riding up Alpe d’Huez with the tears rolling down my eyes. ‘Still got 4 km to go, but I just want to get to the finish so I can see Kasia!’”
The following month Bradbury was in Switzerland representing Australia at the Road World Championships, eligible for both the elite and U23 title. She rode admirably, getting off the front several times, including in a two-rider escape with Vollering with roughly 45 km to go. She’d ultimately finish 15th overall, but that was enough for a silver medal in the U23 standings – in the same group as U23 winner Puck Pieterse.
Second at U23 Worlds is a far cry from where Bradbury started her pro career, in early 2021, as a 18-year-old who’d won the Zwift Academy but never raced a UCI-classified event before.
“In my first year, I was just trying to be the best domestique I could,” Bradbury recalls. “First few races, I was like, I just need to do something to help, whether it was, bring some bottles … I remember just trying to do anything I could to help, even if it meant that I didn’t finish the race. I would usually just do like the first half of the race, absolutely empty myself, and then not finish. So there wasn’t even a thought that I would potentially be able to be a part of the action and the race.
“I think the first three years, it was just a huge learning curve. It still is. But I’m really happy that I had the opportunity to be a domestique. That was my role every race. And I think it’s good to be a domestique also and learn what they do and how the race works from that side; that point of view.”
While Bradbury spent those early seasons riding for others, she always knew that she was a good climber. And now with four WorldTour seasons under her belt, and a bunch of great results this year, it’s little surprise that Bradbury has her eye on more leadership opportunities in future stage races.
“I would like to win the Giro,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I’ve done [the Giro] a few times now, and I really like that race, so hopefully one day I can win that, and then I might go for the Tour de France. Hopefully they keep putting these really queen mountain stages in …”
Bradbury knows that if those lofty goals are to become a reality, she’ll need to improve one specific aspect of her riding.
“My time-trialling needs work,” she says. “I think I lost almost two minutes at the Giro in a 22-minute time trial. So that definitely needs to improve. I’ve already started focusing on that.”
The day we speak is the day Bradbury returns to proper, structured training for the season ahead. She’s just had a good chunk of time off the bike to decompress; just to be “a normal person for a few weeks”. She’s been travelling around Europe a little, and she’s been doing some running, just for something different.
“I started running after Worlds and then it’s been like, maybe two months now, so then by the time I got to off-season, I could actually enjoy it without feeling like shit the next day,” she says, again with a smile.
In early December Bradbury will jet off to Portugal for a 10-day training camp where she’s hoping for some good weather and where she’ll meet her new teammates. And from there she’ll head back to Melbourne ahead of the Australian summer of racing.
“I should have a couple weeks [in Melbourne],” she says. “I’ll skip Nationals [in Perth] so then I can spend a bit more time in Melbourne, and then we’ll go to Adelaide for the Tour Down Under.”
By then, the off-season will be fast receding in her memory; so too the amazing season that preceded it. Looking back now, though, Bradbury is rightfully delighted with all she achieved in 2024.
“I’m really happy with my season,” she says. “I think that’s what made off-season even more special is that I felt like I deserve to celebrate. I had something to celebrate. I’m really happy with it and I can take a lot of positives from it and hopefully step up again next year.”
Given the step up Bradbury took in 2024, that’s quite an exciting prospect. And with Bradbury set to stay with Canyon-SRAM through to the end of 2027, she’s got plenty of time to continue honing her craft; to continue establishing herself as an imposing force on the world stage.
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