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Daily Record
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Daily Record
Scots cycling sensation Oscar Onley pledged to be Tour de France star at 10
The Kelso rider watched local riders race from his window - then beat them all by the age of 15 as he rose to top of the sport. Scottish cycling sensation Oscar Onley decided he'd compete in the Tour de France after watching the race on TV with his mum when he was ten. The kid, from Kelso ,has now proved all doubters wrong, thrilling millions with his heroics in the world's biggest bike race. Oscar, 22, is currently in fourth place in the gruelling, three week spectacular, fighting it out for the white jersey prize for the best young rider. He looks set to match Robert Millar's best ever finish for a Scottish rider - fourth in 1884. Friends and family in Oscar's home town have told how he very quickly put all his eggs in one basket - throwing everything into his quest to be a top cyclist. His sister Harriet, 19, said: 'We are all thrilled at what Oscar is achieving in the Tour de France and he is doing even better than we hoped for. She said: 'We do all think that his success was very unlikely because he just took a notion for it when he was watching the race on TV with mum when he was around ten. 'He'd done various other sports and he was a very good cross country runner - but the cycling thing quickly stuck. 'The next thing he was asking to go along to the local club and he's been pretty much obsessed with cycling ever since.' Harriet, who studies marine biology at university, said Oscar had taken little interest in school once his passion for bike racing took hold. 'He got very focused on getting better and better and he was urged to get a back-up plan but he didn't really bother with that. 'So we're all very proud to see him doing so well in the Tour de France.' Harriet said she had spoken to Oscar only a few times since the big race, which covers more than 2,000 miles over 21 stages. She said: 'He rides hard all day and then he has a lot of stuff to discuss with the team, We we don't really like to bother him too much while he's racing. 'But he is having a great time and he wants to keep it going until the end.' David Burgher was Oscar's next door neighbour and the Kelso Wheelers club time trial champion when 10-year-old Oscar was taken along to the club by mum Sharon in 2013. David, 54, said: 'He was just a little guy who wanted to the 10 mile time trial and but he was so young that we couldn't let him out on the open road on his own. 'We had to ask his dad, Steve, who was a black Hackney taxi driver, to accompany him on the ride. 'Steve wasn't a serious cyclist but he got his sleeves rolled up and did the event with Oscar. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. 'After the first event I don't know how long Steve would have been able to keep up with his son. But there were lot of grown men, decent cyclists, who would have been outstripped by this skinny wee boy in the years to come, including myself.' David, 54, said the club time trial route went past his and Oscar's homes, which may have ignited the youngster's cycling flame. He said: 'I was club champion for a couple of years and very much in the twilight of my competitive cycling when Oscar came along. 'I said I would retire when Oscar started to beat me, which he promptly did when he was a mere 15 years old. That said, he was beating everyone on the hill climbs well before that.' Oscar's talent was, by this time, being noticed by top teams and coaches. David said: 'Four years ago, in the Tour of Britain, former top pro Steve Cummins commented to a friend on how if he'd improve on his descending he'd be world class. He was slow going down but more than made up for it on the hills. 'After crashing and breaking his collarbone three times he has certainly improved his bike handling and descending. Oscar's talent was spotted by bosses of French team AG2R, who signed him for their development team- meaning he was given the best of coaching and a gruelling training schedule. He later joined the Dutch DSM team, which meant training specifically for top events and scaling hundreds of miles uphill to supercharge his climbing ability. Viewers among the four billion worldwide audience have witnessed young Oscar mixing it with the best in the world, including three time champ Tadej Pogacar and double winner Jonas Vingegaard. Oscar is in a dogfight with Florian Lipowitz, both for a top three podium finish and the coveted white jersey. He hopes the young German, who is two minutes ahead, will crack in the two remaining big mountain stages. Oscar, whose parents are English, had his big breakthrough win in 2022 at the Giro Valle d'Aosta, an Italian stage race, before he finished third at the CRO Race - a stage race in Croatia. In 2023 he finished third at the Tour of Switzerland then made a debut in the Tour de France in 2024 - finishing 39th. After starring in the first week of this year's Tour de France, Oscar posted on social media a photo taken by his mum from 2013 - of him and little sister Harriet - just after his cycling journey started. Kitted out in Team Sky gear, he had watched their star rider Chris Froome race to second on the day and tighten his grip on the leader's yellow jersey. Oscar wrote: 'We were on holiday somewhere in Brittany in 2013 when we watched the TT that finished at Saint-Michel. We also went for a day in San-Malo, so I could remember it a little bit.' The Tour de France ends on Sunday.
BBC News
10-07-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
The Scot rubbing shoulders with greats at Tour de France
Oscar Onley set himself the lofty ambition of winning a stage at just his second Tour de five stages in to the three-week epic, and the 22-year-old Scot has come sixth and fourth, rubbing shoulders with not just the world's best cyclists but some of the greatest ever to race."Some of my team-mates and staff say to me you are one of these guys," Onley told ITV before stage four. "I don't really see it like that yet."By the end of the 174km run into Rouen on Tuesday, he had come in just behind defending Tour king Tadej Pogacar, former world champion Mathieu van der Poel, and two-time yellow jersey winner Jonas be involved in such company was a magnificent achievement, particularly given the toughness of the racing across lumpy fact it followed a similar performance on stage two on the ramp up to the line in Boulogne-sur-Mer made it even more there has been no victory yet, Onley has competed with the best in an unexpected way."It's pretty cool - it doesn't get much bigger in terms of races and competitors," Onley said. "It's nice to prove to myself I can be there right at the top." Onley's rise to top Those who follow cycling closely will know of Onley's steady progress since taking to the senior ranks in 2023 with his Dutch team, Picnic his journey started in the Scottish Borders, when local club Kelso Wheelers' time trial route passed right by his front door and he got juggled lots of sports as a kid, particularly cross-country running, before committing to the described himself as "never the best" as a youngster, but as he grew physically his results picked big breakthrough came at the Tour Down Under in 2024 when he won on the finish up Willunga Hill for his first professional Scot then managed second at the Tour of Britain. Amid all that he had to deal with two broken collarbones due to year he has bounced back, and last month climbed on to the podium at the Tour de Suisse, winning stage five in the in the rolling hills of the south of Scotland, Onley is most at home when the road gradient makes the legs strain and is based in the high mountains of the big behemoth mountain ranges, the Alps and Pyrenees, still to come there is opportunity to make a bright start to the Tour de France truly memorable. How far can Onley go? Onley, a calm and unflustered character when interviewed, and his team say they have not changed the goal for the race. The main target is to win a stage, rather than go for a top-10 finish as an end in itself. Feet remain firmly on the ground, or rather the over three weeks in the biggest race of them all is a different beast from the one-week races in which Onley has shown he can compete at the top of the general he has form in his legs and a fearlessness needed amidst the madness of the long-term goal is to be a serious contender to win the Grand Tours, whether in France, Italy or Spain."That's the pinnacle, really," Onley said. "It's a plan we have as a team. "Just now, it's difficult to say how far I can take that, because I've never tried it before. That's the goal, though."In the short term, Onley will aim to keep making a name for himself on the biggest stage in cycling.
