SWIFT RISE
The big man-little man partnership is a classic trope of football. Think Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn tearing it up for Sunderland in the late 1990s, or John Toshack and Kevin Keegan scoring for fun at Liverpool in the 70s. The big target man would knock down long balls for the little man to nip in and score, a tactic that worked repeatedly. It’s seen less in cycling, but big man-little man partnership is a good fit for what Connor Swift and Nairo Quintana have going on at Arkéa-Samsic.
Quintana stands at just 1.67m, while Swift towers over him at 1.9m. Arkéa posted a video of the duo embracing each other after stage 7 of the Tour de France, Swift a whole head taller than the diminutive Colombian who nestles under the Yorkshireman’s chin. In the video they smile widely at each other and say, ‘Oh my god’ and ‘Allez’ - a few shared words they both understand. What makes the partnership all the more puzzling is that Quintana only speaks Spanish, and Swift only speaks English.
