Fisher-Black becomes Roglic's domestique, but he also aims for his own success: "I felt like I was missing something at UAE"

His promising start brought him to the development team of (then) Jumbo-Visma, after which he signed a contract with UAE Team Emirates in 2022. There, everything seemed to go according to plan until disaster struck. During the final stage of the 2022 Boucles de la Mayenne, Fisher-Black crashed heavily and broke his femur. For eight months, he had to undergo rehabilitation, which derailed his first season as a pro.

The road back to his old level proved long and challenging. "It was a really big setback. I was on a good trajectory and making steps, but it took the wind out of my sails. I kind of stagnated, I was starting at zero again and had to build up," Fisher-Black looks back to Rouleur. "I wasn’t the talent that everyone thought I was. They thought I was going to just go straight into winning races. It's taken me time to come back to that level."

At UAE Team Emirates, however, he noticed that he was not getting the opportunities he was hoping for. Due to the immense competition within the team, he was often used as a domestique. Moreover, he did not ride a grand tour in 2024. '"AE just had an unbelievable amount of talent. Every year, they just bring more and more in. When you're there for a few years, you start to fit into this mould of what the team expects you to be and you start to believe it. I was meant to go to races as a helper a lot of the time, but I’m only 23 and I think I’m too young to settle into that."

So there was only one thing to do: leave. The Kiwi made the move to Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. "It's interesting to leave a team that is already at the top with UAE Team Emirates, so they don’t need to make an effort to get any better. It’s about staying there. Now I have come to a team that really wants to come up the ranks and they are putting effort into every aspect. That’s cool for me and makes it an exciting project to join," Fisher-Black explained.

With the move, his training approach also changed. Fisher-Black and his new coach focused on endurance, especially for longer races like the Ardennes Classics. "I've always really struggled in the longer races, especially in 200km plus races, I feel like that is something I was missing in training. We've already nailed that as my first thing to improve with my new coach," Fisher-Black says. "You can do specific training to improve durability, like when you do your efforts and how far into the ride. In my mind, if I want to be good at six-and-a-half hour long races, I need to be doing six-and-a-half hour long rides."

His training weeks are now more intense than before. "I’ve been doing much bigger weeks than I ever did at UAE, so 28 to 30 hours. That’s massive compared to what I did on UAE – it’s not that the training is bad there and it’s obviously working but I felt that I was missing something and hopefully we found that. In addition to physical training, mental resilience is also crucial for Fisher-Black. Indeed, his first years in Europe were tough. I remember my first year living in Europe was super rough. I was 18 and I’d just left home, my rent was more than my salary. It was character building and I think it's good to do that as an under-23. There's so many guys now you see go from under-19 straight to World-Tour, and they have the luxury of having so much support so early on."

After five years in the pro peloton, he knows how high the level is and how difficult it is to win. Still, he continues to believe in his chances. "I think the nature of professional cycling is that if you don't believe you can do it on the start line, then there's no point being there. This year was really a domination from Tadej, but I think this will start to change cycling a bit and people will realise, okay, if we can't beat him head-to-head on a climb, we're going to have to find another way to do it. That's sport, and that is how it's going to evolve. No one can stay at the top forever."

For Fisher-Black, the goal is clear: victories in the WorldTour (preferably in a grand tour) and strong performances in the Ardennes classics." I love the Grand Tours too and that’s when I feel like cycling reaches the rest of the world. That is the biggest stage, and that’s where I want to be."