As a young road cyclist trying to make their mark on the sport, securing a contract with a professional team is a big deal. It's a ticket to racing in Europe, to getting noticed by bigger teams, to kickstarting a professional career.
But what do you do in a situation where there's only one contract available, and it's between you and your teammate to see who gets it? How does the team decide who gets the nod?
That's the situation facing two riders – Sophie Marr and Talia Appleton – and their Praties team in Brisbane this coming weekend. But first, let's back up a step.
This weekend is the final round of the ProVelo Super League (PSL), Australia's new top-level domestic road racing competition. The winner of the U23 classification in both the men's and women's series will receive a contract with the GreenEdge organisation. For the top ranked male that's a stagiaire contract with the Jayco AlUla WorldTour team later this season. For the top-ranked U23 female, that's a full season with the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental development team in 2026.
And coming into this weekend's Q Tour in Brisbane – a three-day, four-stage race – it's still not clear who those contracts are going to. Both competitions are tight.
In the men’s series, just 43 points separate current leader Jack Ward (Team Brennan – 381 points) and second-placed Zac Marriage (Butterfields-Ziptrack – 338 points) after Marriage was second at Grafton to Inverell last weekend. Two of Ward’s teammates, Brendon Davids (293 points) and Tristan Saunders (290 points) are within striking distance of the overall title too, but only Ward and Marriage are U23s and therefore eligible for the contract.
Ward missed the Grafton to Inverell last weekend, opting instead to race Australia’s MTB Nationals where he won the short-track title, and finished second in the XCO event. He will return to the PSL at the Q Tour this weekend, keen to finish the job.
“I think it will be a fight everyday for bonus seconds and the [stage 2] TT being pretty crucial as I’m sure it will be very close between us at the end of the tour,” Ward told Escape of his battle with Marriage. “I think the time gaps won’t be quite as big as the climb in Tassie just because of how short the climb is [on the final stage of the Q Tour] although I expect it to be similarly blown apart.”
That "climb in Tassie" that Ward refers to was the tour-ending ascent of the Tour of Tasmania (see video below) where Ward won solo, 17 seconds clear of Marriage to win the tour overall.
Again, Ward and Marriage are currently separated by just 43 points. Marriage winning the tour and Ward finishing fifth would be enough for Marriage to win the contract. But with points available based on GC placings, for the top five on each stage, and for the top three in the KOM and sprint classifications, there are many permutations to consider.
Ultimately, a pro contract could hinge on just a handful of points.
Where the men's competition is close between two riders from rival teams, the women's competition is perhaps even more intriguing.
Praties currently occupies the top two spots on the leaderboard. Twenty-year-old Sophie Marr leads with 496 points, ahead of 19-year-old Talia Appleton on 423. Their biggest rival, Aussie U23 ITT champ Alli Anderson (Butterfields-Ziptrack), sits third with 342 points.
While it’s unlikely Anderson will overhaul the two Praties riders ahead of her, it is mathematically possible. With 100 points available for winning the Q Tour overall, 20 points available per stage win, and 24 points for a QOM classification of sprint classification win, there are enough points on the table for Anderson to win the contract. But that's only if the two Praties riders don’t feature at all.
In all likelihood, missing the opening round of the PSL – to instead race for the Australian national team at Tour Down Under – might have cost Anderson a contract for next year (at least via this avenue). But she won’t die wondering – she'll be all-in this weekend.
“I will be giving it everything I’ve got to win that contract,” she told Escape. “I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. It’s a shame I had to miss out on the Adelaide round – it’s had me chasing my tail this whole series. Regardless I’ll be happy to finish in the top three on GC, but I won’t go down without a fight.”
So if it is one of the Praties riders that wins the contract, who will it be? The faster-finishing Sophie Marr, or the better climber, Talia Appleton? Who better to ask than the team's sports director, a legend of Australian cycling, Andrew Christie-Johnston.
“It's always a challenge to manage the goals of individuals and the goals of the team," he told Escape. "The goal of the team is to win everything we can, and I can't really buy into who's [going] to win, as a DS – I just get into the race and let them try and figure that out, and whoever really puts their best foot forward, then we support that.”
More specifically, that will likely mean seeing who of Marr and Appleton rides the better time trial on stage 2 and then going from there.
“I've always been that, you know, if you've got someone that's in the lead, you protect that lead, and sometimes you protect that lead, and there's still opportunity," Christie-Johnston said, before noting that he sees Alli Anderson as perhaps the one to beat in the ITT and the tour overall. "I think that it'll probably be an internal TT battle to start with."
The man known to many as ACJ said that the tour-ending climb might well decide the contract between Marr and Appleton.
"Maybe it'll come down to the final climb, and I can't push either of them," he said. "So I think it'll be a battle and a fair battle, and I think they'll be both given that opportunity to battle it out whilst respecting that.”
While the Praties team has shown a united front, how have Marr and Appleton been handling the fact they are effectively battling one another for the contract?
“I think pretty well," Christie-Johnston said. "There's obviously disappointment in a tour if you haven't done as well as what you have liked, but that's probably just a personal thing. At this stage, really, neither of them have had to work for each other, which is important for me. They certainly don't work against each other, but the entire team has been thrown at both of them."
He's hopeful that, whatever the outcome, both riders will be able to see the positives.
“I think that the person that maybe gets second – I think that they should be happy that their teammate got that contract," he said. "They should be proud of what they've achieved. And I think that that will be the most important thing; that there's no regrets; that they gave it their best shot, and have shown that the team comes first.
"Because I think that's important going to take that next step anyway. You might be riding at the top of the tree here [in the PSL], but you're going to jump into a team role [in a pro team] and I think showing that you're also a teammate first is equally as important as just a winner.
“One of those will hopefully get a big contract, but to be honest, I hope the other has shown enough that they can also get a contract, either with that team [GreenEdge] or elsewhere. They're both excellent athletes."
On paper, Marr is in prime position to take the GreenEdge contract. For starters she sits 73 points clear of Appleton. Plus, stages 1 and 3 of the Q Tour should end in a sprint, where Marr should pick up points, if not win.
Appleton will likely be the stronger on the stage 4 queen stage – which finishes with a punchy 2.3 km at 9.5%. Meanwhile, the potentially decisive stage 2 ITT could go either way. Appleton won the Willunga Hill ITT in round 1, but Marr finished higher than Appleton in the Tour of Tasmania ITT.
ACJ doesn't think the undulating ITT suits one rider in particular over the other.
"It'll be about who delivers and a TT – with no TT bikes, riding on road bikes – certainly changes it, because it's a positional thing," he said. "It's who can hold that road bike aero position and who's done that work. I'd probably back Talia as the better time trialist on a time trial bike, but we saw in Tassie that Sophie out-time-trialled Talia.
"A time trial is a funny thing. You warm up and you hope you nail it."
It’s too early to say whether the inaugural ProVelo Super League has been a success or not. There are audience numbers to be crunched and sponsor ROIs to be assessed. But on the sporting front at least, the series has delivered an interesting contest right through to the final round. Not least when it comes to the battle for those all-important pro contracts.
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