Бывший топ-бегун Гэвин Шерри подписал контракт с европейской командой и переходит в элитный дивизион велоспорта

When Gavin Sherry left Connecticut for Stanford University four years ago, he was one of the top high school runners in state history. He expected to continue that career in college and hoped eventually to become a professional runner. But it didn’t work out that way. Sherry, of West Hartford, was injured the spring of his senior year at Conard High and missed much of his final high school season. Those injuries followed him to Stanford, where he found himself spending more and more time on a stationary bike trying to stay in shape to get back to running again. It was frustrating. But the injuries, mainly stress fractures in his legs, allowed him to inadvertently discover his new sport. His sophomore year at Stanford, he bought a road bike, refurbished it and took it out for a ride. “It was the greatest thing I’d ever discovered,” Sherry said. “It was so much fun; such a contrast to grinding alone inside.” Fast forward a few years: Sherry, 22, is now a professional cyclist in Europe, one of the top under-23 riders for USA Cycling. On July 31, he signed a contract with EF Education-Aevolo, an American under-23 development cycling team. Next year, he will move up to the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) WorldTour level, the highest in the sport, which encompasses the teams that compete in the Tour de France. “If I’m one of the top riders on this team within the next two years, I could be in the Tour de France two years from now,” Sherry said. “It’s crazy. I did not imagine this would be the case until last year — I sort of started to see a little bit of where I could go but I didn’t think it would come this fast. It’s been so fast.” It’s not surprising to those who know Sherry and his competitive drive and work ethic. “I’m delighted that he discovered another avenue to showcase his competitive spirit,” Sherry’s former Conard cross country and track coach Ron Knapp said in a text. “His innate ability to put in the effort and concentrate on his goals equips him with the necessary tools for future success.” Sherry finished second in one of the top under-23 stage races in Austria as part of the U.S. team earlier in the summer and after that finish, was contacted by a number of teams, including EF Education-Aevolo, with whom he signed. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science and has been in Europe, with a brief visit home, since then. “I was always hoping to come out of a college as a pro runner and sort of switched roles, but I’m pretty happy with where I’m at,” Sherry said. “It’s pretty awesome.” Sherry, along with his twin brother Callum (who also ran at Stanford), burst onto the state high school scene as a freshman cross country runner when he won the prestigious Manchester (N.H.) Invitational in 15 minutes, 49 seconds. He finished second in the State Open that year and won it the following year. His junior year, Sherry came back after not competing in outdoor track or cross country in 2020 due to the pandemic to run the fastest high school time in the state in the 1,600 meters (4:01.88) and he broke the State Open record in the 3,200 meters (8:59.80). The previous state record in the 1,600 was 4:08.42 set by Eric Van Der Els in 2016. He had also won the State Open title in cross country that year. His senior year, he finished third at the Eastbay national high school cross country championships after winning the Northeast Regionals and the New England and State Open titles. During the indoor season, in 2022, he won the Millrose Games high school mile (4:06.58) and finished fourth at the 2022 New Balance indoor nationals in a personal best and state indoor record (4:02.69). He missed most of the 2022 outdoor season with an injury, coming back to run the 4×800 relay in the Class L meet and State Open, where his team set a school record (8:04.51). He got into shape over the summer and went to Stanford and was injured again. “I was injured pretty much my entire time at Stanford,” he said. “It was the classic sort of every runner’s nightmare. One injury turns into another. You train, you gain fitness, you come back and right as things are starting to click again, you feel some pain, you have to back off … that sort of thing. “I could see sort of the pessimistic outlook on my future in high school, when I had my first couple of injuries – I could see, ‘Oh, what if I never really got to do much in running because of this’ – sort of that nightmare scenario coming to fruition.” The injuries were mainly stress fractures but the first year, after he recovered from a femoral stress fracture, he rolled his ankle on a training run. “The summers, I would train and build mileage, then I’d get injured as intensity started again,” he said. “I did have a tibial stress fracture – that’s what I had in high school my sophomore and senior year. I had that two times in my left tibia. I had that twice in college as well.” So he spent a lot of time on the stationary bike and when he discovered outdoor cycling, it was a whole new world. He said he tried to get a medical retirement from the school but it was denied. “For my final year, my coach was like, ‘Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, I agree with you – this sport, you’re putting yourself through a little too much. I think you should just focus on cycling, stay on the team, be a good teammate, go to practice – but yeah, you can explore on the bike,’” Sherry said. He joined the Stanford cycling club, stopped training for running and started training for bike racing. “I just started doing really, really well,” he said. “It was super exciting.” He also rediscovered his affinity for climbing hills, much as he enjoyed running up the hills at Wickham Park during his high school cross country career and used them to his advantage. At the end of his junior year at Stanford, he had been training with his road bike on an approximately 5- kilometer hill climb on Old La Honda Road in Woodside, Calif., where cyclists would test their climbing skills and he found himself ranked in the top 10 on the segment on Strava. “I was out for a group ride and this one guy – we were doing a pretty hard hill climb and we dropped most of the other people and there’s this one pretty good climber and he’s on a very nice bike and he saw me climbing, he was like, ‘Dude, if you took my bike, I bet you’d get the record on this climb,’” Sherry said. “I was like, ‘Nah, surely there’s no way that would happen.’ He said, ‘You’ll see.’ “A week later, he invited me to his house. We swapped bikes. He drove behind me. He was blaring music. I was one second off the record. We did it again a couple weeks later and I got the record by one second. “I had a couple people reach out to me and said, ‘Dude, the numbers you produced up this climb, the power you put in, it’s crazy, comparable to some of the best pros.’ That was right before I decided to stop running. So I got a new bike, I got on the team. I started racing and that sort of sealed the deal.” He’s raced in the Czech Republic and Austria and last week, he did a stage race in France, which went through the Alps. He has a few more races in October. He’s still learning about cycling – the tactics, the drafting, handling himself in a pack, positioning himself for key moments in a race – but he’s adapting quickly. And after a difficult four years, he has discovered, once again, an athletic niche for himself. “It was tough,” he said. “But I found my thing.”