After a strong performance on Green Mountain, Drapac’s talented Australian Brendan Canty has left Brendan Canty in a top ten position overall and in the best young rider jersey at the Tour of Oman. It signals the beginning of his coming out party, as he has only been riding a bike for three years.

“The stagiaire ride I did with Drapac at Abu Dhabi was my first chance to ride like that against WorldTour riders and I took a lot from that,” Canty told Cyclingnews in Yiti on Saturday. “Not too many are aware of who I am or what I’ve done, being relatively new to the sport, but things have just been improving constantly so it’s exciting to see where things head in the future.”

Rather than being scared of racing about Grand Tour winner and stage winners, Canty appeared to be inspired by the company he was keeping in the Middle East’s hardest climb.

“You dream about trying to beat guys like that in a stage like that, so to be in that scenario, it’s incredible,” he said. “It’s always a surprise I guess when you race against the best riders in the world and you’re slightly competitive against them. I haven’t raced too much at this level so my expectations of what I should be able to achieve is a bit of an unknown at the moment.”

While Drapac will race lots in Asia, Canty is expected to target the races the do in Europe and the USA, where he will want to try and remain up there with the best when the road kicks upwards.

“To come here and do well again is good for the confidence,” said Canty, who will hope to reproduce his Middle East form when he makes his European debut later in the spring. “The team’s got a lot of races in Asia but I think I’ll be sticking mainly to Europe. There’s a lot of big climbs in some of the races we might be doing there.”