When NSN Cycling made its landmark signing in Biniam Girmay over the winter, they did so with a clear ambition in mind: to win a stage and chase green at the 2026 Tour de France. The Girmay transfer was a key piece of the puzzle, but so was carving a squad of riders around the Eritrean who could deliver him to Tour glory.
Jake Stewart is set to be an important cog in that machine when the Tour sets off from the team’s new ‘home’ in Barcelona, operating as Girmay’s last man in the NSN sprint train.
“The main ambition is the sprint stages with Biniam, We want to go and win a stage at the Tour de France,” Stewart tells Cycling Weekly ahead of his third Tour.
“That’s a huge goal. I think it’s the same as every other team’s goal when they go to the Tour de France, they want to win a stage there…We’ll start to shift our focus to the green jersey if we see that he’s in a good position to challenge for that in Paris,” Stewart adds.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The team endured a period of transition over the winter, taking on new branding and sponsorship following mass protests at the 2025 Vuelta a España against the team’s links to Israel, when the team was known as Israel-Premier Tech and bankrolled by billionaire Sylvan Adams.
Things have changed on the performance side, too, with Girmay replacing GC rider Derek Gee-West as the team’s talisman. The now Swiss-registered squad has had to morph into a Classics and sprint team, as opposed to focusing on the overall classification goals of Gee-West and Matthew Riccitello, who also departed.
“It’s been a shift in terms of the team’s focus this year,” Stewart says. “But it was also a discussion that we had within the team. It’s so difficult nowadays for teams to focus on everything. Either you’re a GC team, you’re a Classics team or you’re a sprint team.
“There’s very few teams nowadays that are going to Grand Tours and targeting a GC and also sprint stages.”
“So it kind of shifted the focus from that GC focus to stage-hunting, and I think it’s been really positive for the team. It takes away a lot of the pressure from GC, which is a lot of pressure and it allows guys to focus on the days that suit them best and what suits us best as a team.”
Becoming the world’s best lead out man
After racing the first part of the year in support of fellow Brit Ethan Vernon, Stewart linked up with Girmay for the first time at the Baloise Belgium Tour, guiding him to a stage win on the opening day. Stewart says that the pair have gelled well together and that Girmay “knows what he wants and how he wants to execute sprints.”
Having started his career with Groupama-FDJ chasing his own opportunities, Stewart has settled into a lead-out role as he has matured. He admitted that the pressure of sprinting for himself had been tough to handle at times and he has started to see a sports psychologist.
Now 27, Stewart is in his prime years as an athlete, and wants to build a reputation for his ability to deliver his sprinter to the line.
“My biggest ambition is to develop myself into one of the best lead out guys, the best last man in the world,” Stewart says.
“I think my characteristics as a bike racer suit that last man role rather than winning myself in these big bunch of gallops…If I do carry on progressing the way that I am, then I can kind of put myself in that realm of being one of the best last men in the world.”
“That’s definitely something that I’m striving to try and achieve. Obviously the Tour de France is the biggest stage to be able to show that on and execute that on. If I do a good enough job and Bini comes away with a stage win or two, then it’s going to be a successful Tour de France for me.”
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