Ben's Profile

Time trial specialist Watson has earned himself medals at three consecutive UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships and has also enjoyed success on the track prior to his selection for his debut Paralympics in 2021.

The Glossop-based rider was selected for the time trial and road race in the MC3 category after developing well since joining the Great Britain Cycling Team foundation programme in 2017.

Watson made quick strides after being introduced to Para-cycling and has established himself as a regular contender for medals at road events in recent years, with the time trial a particular speciality.

As early as September 2017, Watson was medalling on his UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships debut in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, where he took silver in the time trial, behind Canada’s Michael Sametz. Watson also collected an impressive tenth-place finish in the road race, a sign of things to come as he made the podium at the next two World Championships, in 2018 and 2019.

At the former, in Maniago, Italy, he finished third, with his rival Sametz again taking gold, while 12 months later, in Emmen, Netherlands, he took an excellent fifth in the road race while claiming another bronze in the time trial.

In 2019, Watson also picked up his most impressive road race victory to date, winning the event at the Yorkshire Para-cycling International, the first time that a para event had been held in conjunction with the UCI Road World Championships.

A regular contender for the podium at UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup events, Watson’s haul includes the highpoint of a gold medal in the road race in Ostend, Belgium in 2019 and four medals in the time trial – second places at Ostend in 2018 and Baie-Comeau, Canada, in 2019, plus bronze medals at Emmen in 2017 and Ostend in 2019.

With the 2020 season lost to the Covid-19 pandemic, 2021 dawned with Watson and his team-mates looking for much-needed racing to fine tune their form ahead of the delayed Tokyo Paralympics.

At the Para-cyling Classics Ronde In Flanders Brugge-Ronse one day road race in May, Watson finished second, sandwiched between GB team mates Fin Graham and Jaco van Gass, in a British clean sweep of the podium. And, a few days later, at the Para-cycling Road World Cup round in Ostend he was Great Britain’s highest-placed finisher in both the time trial, in which he came fifth, and the road race, where he was fourth.

A month later, at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Cascais, Portugal, Watson was close to a medal in the time trial, finishing fourth in a race won by Italy’s Florian Bouziani, while he finished just outside the top ten in the road race.

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