Over the years, the beard has become an integral part of the peloton. Simon Geschke, 36, is starting in the Tour de France for the tenth time, and the man with the distinctive facial hair has experienced many a bizarre moment. About that morning in 2015 when, after leaving the hotel room, he realized that his cycling shoes had been stolen – and he wondered who on earth could do anything with these stinky parts. But at least the shoe theft seven years ago didn’t prevent him from clinching his biggest career success to date a few days later: a stage win at the top of the Tour in Pra-Loup.
Now Geschke is once again experiencing a hitherto unknown feeling of elation. Because he skilfully placed himself in a breakaway group on Sunday, he can wear the coveted white jersey with the red dots for the time being. This shirt has adorned the leader of the mountain classification since 1933, but up to now only seven Germans have worn it. If everything goes normally, Geschke will soon be rid of the mountain shirt. The first really tough Alpine stages are coming up this week, including the hairpin bends of Alpe d’Huez, that’s no longer his terrain. “I’ll just go full throttle. Of course it would be super nice if I had it for several days,” said Geschke on Monday.
The ride in the mountain jersey was not only an important moment for Geschke personally and his Cofidis team – but also for German cycling as a whole. Only nine German riders are part of the Tour’s field of participants this year, fewer than since 2002. And the further prospects give those responsible cause for concern; Accordingly, good results and performances are longed for by the few starters.
“We don’t have that many riders with us, but we have a lot of quality. I hope that one of us wins a stage and that we present ourselves in good shape so that we can promote the sport,” said Lennard Kämna from the German Bora Said team before the start. And nobody was closer to this goal than the 25-year-old himself when he drove towards the day’s success as a soloist on the difficult Vosges stage and was only 100 meters from the finish on a steep gravel ramp oversprinted by the Slovenian Tour dominator Tadej Pogacar.
Only 100 meters were missing to win the stage: Bora driver Lennard Kämna in the Vosges.
(Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP)
From a German point of view, the accents on the tour have shifted a little. In the 1910s, Tony Martin and the muscle men André Greipel and Marcel Kittel regularly clinched stage victories in the time trial and sprint segments. Then, for a few events, the focus was on the question of how far up the Ravensburger Emanuel Buchmann would make it in the overall classification; It even finished fourth in 2019.
But now the strongest German drivers are most likely to stand out as soloists or in escape groups: Geschke and Kämna, but also his Bora colleagues Nils Politt, who won a stage last year, and Maximilian Schachmann. Whereby the German Bora troika does not have a completely free ride, but it is their main job to protect captain Alexander Wlasow – at least as long as he shows that he can keep up with the class riders despite a fall.
The number of tour starters does not necessarily say anything about the general situation in German cycling. Some well-known forces are missing this year for team tactical reasons; such as classification driver Buchmann (also Bora), or sprinter Pascal Ackermann, who now drives for UAE Emirates, where everything is subordinated to Pogacar’s third triumph. At least 34 of the 533 riders who are under contract with a World Tour team are German. Only five other nations – Belgium (68), France (59), Italy (54), Netherlands (44) and Spain (35) – are represented more often.
But overall, connoisseurs like the Bora boss Ralph Denk state that it still fits at the top, but is becoming more and more difficult in the breadth. At the Federation of German Cyclists (BDR) they have been living with the situation for a few years that the number of members and the number of amateur athletes is increasing slightly – but – but the foundation for professional sport seems to be breaking away. The number of licenses in the junior area has almost halved in the past ten years and is now 369, the number of races has shrunk by around 30 percent according to BDR.
Cycling is not fighting the tough battle for more youngsters alone, it affects many disciplines. The peloton’s dark past does its part, but there are a few other problems as well. Those responsible have been moaning for a long time that it is becoming increasingly difficult for legal and financial reasons to organize bike races at all; i.e. securing a course and getting all the permits for it.
BDR President Rudolf Scharping has repeatedly made political advances in this regard in recent years. But no progress can be seen, on the contrary: It will become even more difficult, the association announced on Monday.