“426 days since I last pinned a number on, [and] many many more since I last did a race I looked forward to.” The words hang next to a photo of Leo Hayter tucked on his bike, flying through the countryside.
The former Ineos Grenadiers rider and winner of the 2022 Baby Giro took a break from professional cycling last year due to mental health struggles that saw him wrestle with depression, anxiety and disordered eating.
“It’s something that for a long time I just “dealt with”. I assumed I was just lazy, [that] I lacked motivation,” the 23 year-old wrote in a blog post in August 2024 announcing his break from professional cycling.
“To make it clear, this pressure always comes from myself,” he continued in the post last year.
“An internal pressure to be the best, obsessed with perfection, which in sport is just not something realistic or achievable day in day out. Small setbacks are part of sport, but I just can’t deal with them in a good way. One bad performance or day and I panic to the point where it spirals out of control.
"When I can get in the right place of mind there’s nothing I enjoy more. It’s like an addiction to me. That’s what makes it feel so painful that I can’t do it at this moment. I have everything I’ve ever wanted, but I’m still not happy.”
His struggle had come to a head in the spring before his announcement. Despite appearances at the Tour Down Under and the Tour of Guangxi, and a course of medication that temporarily eased his depression, Hayter found himself grappling again with debilitating anxiety that kept him from training, sleeping, and sometimes eating.
He made the decision not to return for the following season.
Now, one year, “lots of therapy, frequent phone calls” and “lots of hard work” later, Hayter is ready to return to professional cycling, with the therapeutic tools to “shift my mindset and above all, regain my drive.” And he’s better for the break, and is hoping to re-enter the world of pro cycling next year.
“For a long time bad performances and appearance defined my self image,” he wrote in the post this week.
“When, as an athlete, those things inevitably swing, it would be crushing. I wouldn’t want to train with, or even see my own friends in the worry they would have the same degrading opinion I had of myself. It’s so easy to look back on in hindsight as stupid, but it was a constant battle for me at the time.”
The blanket blue skies and tree lined roadsides splay out behind Hayter as he tucks down the road in his Instagram post - a confident rider back doing what he loves. Flick through the slides and see him standing behind his Pinarello bike, holding a small trophy for his recent success in the Catalan Time Trial Championship. He smiles softly towards the camera, content, excited to be racing again.
“I spent the last few weeks preparing for it and executed a ride I’m really proud of,” he wrote.
“I had the fastest time of the day and honestly it’s one of the best time trial performances I’ve ever done, albeit 15kg heavier than when I was a pro. Step by step and all that.
"Getting myself into some kind of shape hasn’t been difficult. The biggest of thank yous to my therapist and friend Tim, my coach John, my strength coach/s Chris and Xavi, my girlfriend Nora for putting up with me, and also everyone who has reached out to me over the past few months.
I’m sorry if I didn’t respond, sometimes it’s hard to know what to say, but please nudge "me!”
The courage to be vulnerable whilst competing at the height of your sport is something that Hayter will be known for. In a sport coming to slow terms with the accumulated impact of mental health challenges, physically demanding training schedules and pressure from both riders themselves, and their teams, Hayter can show us that taking time to reassess, readjust and to seek out help and support, is time well spent - “step by step”.
Plus, now he’s looking for a new sponsor.
