Imagine you’re an ambitious youngster but your dad won almost two dozen pro races and wore the yellow jersey at the Tour de France: how do you forge your own identity and move out of your father’s shadow? For most of Jesse Yates’s childhood, he didn’t even try. Instead, he became obsessed with video games, and by the time he was 18 his weight had ballooned to almost 100kg. But then the Olympics came home to London and put a fire in the young man’s belly. Finally he picked up a bike and set about making sure that the Yates family legend lived on.
Born in 1960, Sean Yates rode no fewer than 12 Tours de France. Although he mostly served as a domestique, he also took stage wins in the Tour, Vuelta a España, became national champion in 1992, and rode for the Motorola team until 1996, when he retired. After hanging up his professional wheels, he continued to compete in domestic time trials, and then moved into management and sports Lifetime Achievement Award.
