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Jonas Rutsch is fighting for his career

Jonas Rutsch has been there for exactly one year. Professional on a WorldTour team for a year. And in its premiere year 2020, it already got the full dose of what makes cycling so physically draining, mentally brutal and emotionally high-revving for its protagonists. All in all, says Rutsch, he is “satisfied” with his entry. “But it was a constant up and down like being on a roller coaster,” says the 22-year-old.



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For the newcomer, the 2020 season offered a lot of material that the Erbacher could put on his hard drive. For example, on that day in February, there was still no talk of a pandemic that would put cycling to the test. With the classic Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the biggest performance of his young career was about to take off – before he put an end to the supposed favor of the hour in slapstick fashion. What happened? The young professional was 75 kilometers from the finish in the breakaway group, the members of which ultimately decided the victory among themselves. But Rutsch got tangled up in the fabric when he took off his raincoat – and had to let go of the group and his hopes.

The Odenwälder had previously made a name for himself in the peloton in a hurry. At the season opener in Australia, he hadn’t presented himself as an apprentice, but as a flywheel for his EF team. In Australian newspapers, people asked themselves who this “fat German” was who, despite his 1.97 meters body length and 82 kilograms, climbs the mountains so amazingly fast. In the first few weeks of the season, Rutsch impressed with his strength and his big racing heart. And then the emergency braking, the new, sweet life as a carefree new professional jetting around the world was suddenly stopped – Corona. It was not easy as an inexperienced driver to deal with the unfamiliar situation, said Rutsch. “I was too dogged. In retrospect, it was nonsense to train hard – for nothing. “

Escape from uncertainty

In the first few weeks of lockdown, cycling was like an hour-long escape from uncertainty. Before the voices that the transcontinental touring circus cycling could be brought to its knees by the virus. Just then, when he made the long and hard way into the top division of his sport. Rutsch did not run a single race between the beginning of March and the beginning of August. Only on digital platforms. “It’s hard work,” he says. “It feels like a cage in which you kick for 50 minutes to the point of throwing up.”

The low point of the year follows the restart of the street season for the Wiesbaden resident at the end of August. Shortly before the one-day race Bretagne Classic in the hotel room, Rutsch measures 40 degrees fever. The fault was a failed corona test in which a doctor inflicted an injury in his throat that became infected. Of course, a possible Covid infection was immediately in the room. And so Rutsch was not allowed to leave the French hotel room for five days in complete isolation with a constant temperature of almost 40 degrees.

Private training camp in Mallorca

Back home and apparently recovered, Rutsch hardly got going again physically. He had a complete blood count done, the result came while he was visiting classic series in Belgium: Pfeiffer’s glandular fever. He returned to racing at the end of September, just in time for the classics that were postponed to autumn. He sustained a painful hand injury in a fall near Gent-Wevelgem. But that didn’t stop the team management from nominating Rutsch for the Tour of Flanders. The Erbacher had arrived there – at one of the most prestigious races – that he had only dreamed of before. “A race of 243 kilometers was very good for my development,” said Rutsch.

In mid-November, the professional started training for the 2021 season, at the end of which his contract with the American team expires. In times of shrinking budgets and team squads in cycling, the Hessian will have to fight to continue his first-class career. Shortly before Christmas, Rutsch and Oberursel-based professional John Degenkolb completed a joint private training camp on Mallorca. For a year with a little more stringency and less roller coaster. Will it be enough to take part in his first three-week country tour? “I”, says Rutsch from the experience of his first year, “am not closing myself off to anything.”

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