'This could be redemption for him' - Old teammates back Taylor Phinney's surprise Olympic dream

Taylor Phinney’s announcement that he was returning to competition with a view to lining up in the team pursuit at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics came somewhere deep out of leftfield. Even old teammates were caught off guard by the news. Tejay van Garderen, who raced with Phinney at BMC and again at EF, initially wondered if it was all a put on.

“I learned about it the same way everyone else did, and I probably had the same idea that everyone else did,” Van Garderen told Domestique. “At first, I thought, ‘Is this a joke? Am I getting April fooled or something?’”

Tudor’s Larry Warbasse, who started his pro career alongside Phinney at BMC, was equally taken aback, but he was quick to realise that his old comrade never really does things by halves. If Phinney is taking aim at the Los Angeles Olympics, then there’s every chance he will make it.

“I’m really surprised, but I would also not be surprised at all to see him do super well,” Warbasse told us. “I mean, he is physiologically a huge talent, and he was twice world champion in the individual pursuit before, so I think he’s probably exactly what the US track team needs.”

Van Garderen, now a sports director with EF, quickly came around to the same line of thought once he had seen the news picked up and confirmed by publications the world over. Six years on from hanging up his wheels, Phinney was back.

“Once I started thinking about it properly, I realised he’ll probably be the best guy on the team if he really takes it seriously, which I know he will,” Van Garderen said. “He doesn’t do anything if he’s not ready to give it 100%, so I think it's great. I’m rooting for him. I think it’s a hell of a story. And I was always sad about the way he ended his career. I think this could be a bit of redemption for him.”

Phinney was still a junior when he competed in the individual pursuit at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, and he won two world titles in the discipline before moving into the WorldTour with BMC in 2011. 

Together with Van Garderen, Phinney represented American cycling’s future as it sought to move past the Lance Armstrong era, and he underlined that promise in his early seasons. In 2012, he won the prologue of the Giro d'Italia and then placed fourth in both the time trial and road race at the London Olympics. 

By 2014, Phinney was beginning to deliver on his potential in the Classics, but his career was interrupted by the serious injuries sustained in a horrific crash at that year’s US national championships. A compound fracture of the tibia and a severed patellar tendon kept Phinney out of action for more than a year.

Remarkably, he would recover sufficiently to compete in the time trial at the Rio Olympics, but by then, cycling had seemed to become more of a duty than a dream. Although Phinney lingered in the peloton until 2019, completing two Tours de France and placing in the top 10 at Paris-Roubaix, he was already shuffling towards the exit.

“Ever since the Brazil Olympics, it seemed like Taylor was a bit over it,” Van Garderen said. “He was able to come back from his injury, and he was still racing for BMC, so we were still teammates at the time. I remember one of his first races back, he won a stage of the USA Pro challenge and I thought, ‘Oh my God, Taylor just went through this horrendous thing and now it’s just going to be a thing of the past, he’s going to get over it, and he’s going to still be Taylor Phinney. 

“But it wasn’t as simple as that. There were still follow-up operations, and built-up scar tissue, and lots of chronic pain. He really went full gas for the Brazil Olympics, he trained so hard for it, and it was a disaster. You can’t fault him for it, because it just wasn’t his kind of course. But after that, I think he just lost motivation. He never really went all in for anything anymore. But now I think he’s found something that he’s like, ‘Alright, I’m willing to go all in for this.’”

Phinney hails from American cycling royalty, the son of 1984 Olympic champion Connie Carpenter and two-time Tour de France stage winner Davis Phinney. His pro career started under the watch of Jim Ochowicz, his father’s old manager at 7-Eleven, and his teammates in those first two seasons included George Hincapie, who had straddled generations of American cycling between his stints at Motorola, US Postal, Highroad and BMC.

“I’m really close with the Phinney family,” Hincapie told Domestique. “I was on my way out at BMC when Taylor was on the way in, and I was always super impressed with his riding capabilities, his power and just how much of a natural he was on the bike.”

Hincapie, co-owner of the Modern Adventure team, is adamant that Phinney can succeed in his ambition to make the American squad for the Los Angeles Olympics despite his long time away from competition.

In the six years since retirement, Phinney has dabbled in some gravel racing alongside pursuing his passion for painting, but the gap between semi-competitive events and the rigour required for the Olympic programme is considerable. Even so, Hincapie maintains that Phinney’s raw talent hasn’t simply disappeared, and the extended hiatus might play in his favour from a motivational standpoint.

“He’s got a tonne of time to get ready for the Olympics and it’s not like he jumped away totally from the sport,” Hincapie said. “He’s been riding his gravel bike, having fun and just rebuilding the joy of being a cyclist and being able to explore on the bike. Having that foundation can turn into real high-end speed fairly quickly at his age and with his talent.”

And, as Warbasse points out, Phinney’s journey back to full-time cycling is surely helped by his marriage to one of the best cyclists on the planet. His wife Katarzyna Niewiadoma won the Tour de France Femmes in 2024.

“Obviously, his wife is like, next level,” Warbasse said. “So it’ll be cool. I guess they’ll get to train together a bit now, and I expect him to do super well.”

The thought is echoed by Van Garderen. Phinney has only been back in training since November and he has yet to race on the track – the aim is to line out in World Cup events later this year – but Van Garderen is convinced the project is a valid one. 

“He’s obviously kept in good shape, and he rides his bike all the time,” Van Garderen said. “He’s probably been riding more mountain bikes or gravel, so whether or not that translates into the explosive nature of the team pursuit, I have no idea. But he’s such a talent that I think if he puts his mind to something, he’ll do it.” 

Above all, Van Garderen believes Phinney will be driven by the prospect of a more satisfying coda to his racing career than his final outings in 2019 when, still short of his 30th birthday, he opted to step away from the sport.

“I was teammates with him again the year he ended, and I think the Tour of California in 2019 was basically his last race,” Van Garderen said. “It was a bit sad, because he didn’t finish that race. He got dropped and then time cut. That was the last of Taylor, and for such an amazingly talented rider and such a good guy, I would have liked to see it end differently for him. Maybe this is his chance.”