Lockdown launched my career...now I'll find out how good I can be

WITHIN a one-kilometre south London lived Fred, Ethan, Leo and Tom

- Majendie

All different characters, all with their different strengths, they came as a four, racing each other day after day, lap after lap, around Herne Hill Velodrome for as long as they can remember.

Just three years separate the four, who all find themselves part of cycling's professional peloton, making this pocket of the capital an unlikely conveyor belt of biking talent.

The Hayter brothers Ethan and Leo - are on Ineos Grenadiers' books, while Fred Wright has been at Team Bahrain Victorious since 2020.

Tom Gloag is the last to make his mark, at Jumbo-Visma, impressing enough to warrant a late call-up for the current Giro d'Italia, after team-mate Jan Tratnik was hit by a car on the last training ride before the race.

Going around and around at Herne Hill, he was quick but was always given a pasting by the rest of his quartet. And anyway, cycling, which essentially began as cheap childcare - £5 for five hours in the summer holidays, was more for enjoyment than pure competition.

A keen maths and physics student, with three A-star and an A at A-level, he was enamoured with the film.

Moneyball and had aspirations to put mathematics to some similar use.