Six days in the green jersey, two best-ever WorldTour results, and a huge confidence boost along the way: it has been some week for Nadav Raisberg at the Tour Auvergne – Rhône-Alpes.
The 25-year-old Israeli started the eight-day French race, which featured one of its hardest parcours in the last 25 years, largely looking to support the team’s leaders.
However, after an aggressive and incredibly determined performance, he came away as the dominant points classification winner, becoming the first rider from Israel to achieve this in a top-ranked event.
Raisberg joins an elite group of riders – Michael Woods, Stevie Williams, Ethan Vernon, and Matthew Riccitello – who have won a jersey in a WorldTour stage race for this team.
“It’s just unbelievable,” he says. “I feel like I’m dreaming it. I’m super happy and super proud.
“For me, even getting one top-10 would have been unbelievable.
“Then, to wear this jersey for one stage, was an incredible feeling. To get two top-10s and win the jersey, it’s a dream for me.”
Consistency was the key for Raisberg, who scored points in the first five road stages, including maximum hauls at the intermediate sprints on stages one, two, four, and six.
He led the standings from stage two onwards, after spending over 215 kilometers at the front of the race in a breakaway.
Raisberg’s sprint to finish seventh at Parc des Oiseaux on stage five – notably the best WorldTour result of his three-year pro career so far – also proved invaluable.
Nonetheless, he still had to finish the race, which ended with three fearsome mountain stages. Sunday’s finale packed in over 3,800 meters of elevation in just 120 kilometers, however he easily made it home in 69th place.
He adds: “Actually, having in mind that I needed to get to the finish line, that really gave me some wind. I felt so good on the bike and I just wanted to get to the line with the jersey.”
Only Vernon – at the Tour of Guangxi in 2024 – had previously won the points classification in a WorldTour race for this team.
Raisberg now gets added to that list, which also features Woods (Tour de Suisse king of the mountains, 2021), Williams (Tour Down Under winner, 2024), and Riccitello (Vuelta a España 2025, best young rider) as the other jersey winners in the sport’s most prestigious stage races.
“Wow,” he says after discovering that list. “Now I’m one of them. Well, that makes me even more proud.”
DS Rene Mandri praised the team’s performance in the race, which culminated with George Bennett finishing 11th in this afternoon’s final stage at Plateau de Solaison.
He says: “It was a super hard race, one of the hardest we’ve had in years, but we rode really well every day. We looked for stage wins every day, we got in breakaways, and also we were present on the sprint day.
“We had a few health problems, which meant we had just three to start the final stage, but we ended on a high with George finishing 11th and Nadav securing the jersey.
“In this team, we do not have many distinctive jerseys from WorldTour races, and Nadav did brilliantly to win it. He had to race hard every day, and we’re really happy for him.”