Vuelta a Espana: The plans of Bora-Hansgrohe – Sport

The professional cyclist Maximilian Schachmann, at 27 years of age and the merits he has earned, has long since ceased to be a green on the scene; at the Vuelta a Espana, which begins on Saturday, he is also a learner again. For the first time, Schachmann is taking part in the industry’s third-largest tour of the country, and he recites the reports from colleagues with a sweet and sour smile: “I always hear: It’s hot and hard.”

He actually likes the route profile, Schachmann likes the time trial and the mountains, and both are due early this time, an individual time trial in Burgos to kick off, on the third day an arrival on the 1500 meter high Picon Blanco. But it’s a free gift: He’ll probably look from day to day, said Schachmann in a media round on Thursday, his Olympic excursion, tenth place in the tough street race, is still in his bones: “I was hoping that I would recover a little better.” , he said. Otherwise he would like one thing above all for the Vuelta: “That our supervisors pack lots of ice packs.”

This year’s loop through Spain will focus on others, such as the defending champion Primoz Roglic from Slovenia, as well as Egan Bernal and Richard Carapaz, the Giro triumphant and the Olympic champion from the Ineos team. If Schachmann’s employer, the Raubling-based Bora-Hansgrohe team, has its way, that should change in the not too distant future.

The goal is not brand new, team boss Ralph Denk has presented it many times: To win a big tour of the country, preferably of course the Tour de France, the main prize. For a while now, Denk has been pouring a lot of resources into talent scouts, databases, performance departments. The staff is new, because Denk’s team, in which some fronts had hardened recently, is in a self-proclaimed “upheaval”. Peter Sagan, the three-time world champion from Slovakia, will join the French second division Total Energie next year. And Pascal Ackermann, who had matured into one of the world’s best sprinters at Bora, was recently very upset that he was spurned for the tour; In the future he will drive for the UAE team of Tour winner Tadej Pogacar. It is true that one of the best sprinters in the Irish Sam Bennett is returning to Raubling, and with him some loyal starters. Otherwise, the team is pushing more and more towards the classification and climbing path.

Open detailed view

The team boss once described the blueprint behind it as follows: “We tend to want racing drivers who have practically laxly trained, have not yet fed themselves optimally and have still come a long way.” You can then shape them to your taste in the in-house forge. Like the Australian Jai Hindley, 25, who finished second in the Giro d’Italia last year and comes from Team DSM, the second German selection in the World Tour. Or Alexander Vlasow, a 25-year-old Russian who last impressed at Astana, on the mountain and in the time trial. Also new on board are Sergio Higuita, 24, a mountain-versed Colombian, and the Austrian Marco Haller, 30, a versatile adjutant for the tours. And then there is the Belgian Cian Uijtdebroeks, a diamond that Bora had already exhibited in his junior team last year. In his home country, they call the 18-year-old similar classification qualities as Remco Evenepoel, although Evenepoel’s prophesied ascent, it can happen that quickly, is stuttering a bit after a serious fall.

Sagan’s move was like “Lionel Messi at 1. FC Nürnberg”

If you add the regular employees Emmanuel Buchmann and Wilco Keldermann, who were fourth and fifth on the tour, this does not exactly result in understaffing. But the past few years, says Denk, have shown that you have to employ drivers who play many roles in order to be able to determine the races. It will be exciting to see how Maximilian Schachmann will appear in this ensemble in the future. Hardly any German professional has so many skills in their repertoire: the medium-hard stage races like Paris – Nice, which he has already won twice, the one-day classics, also stages in national tours. Quite a few in the scene trust him to compete as a serious competitor in the rankings even on a major tour of the country, whereby Schachmann would have to write off one or the other classic project. But that, he said on Thursday, he wanted to discuss with his team in peace.

Peter Sagan, who always combined many roles, evidently saw no future in this light. Denk said goodbye to his figurehead, however, with great gratitude, and that was really remarkable: that four years ago a world champion joined a selection that had just been promoted to the first cycling league. “It was like Lionel Messi moving to 1. FC Nürnberg,” Denk recently recalled in an interview. It brought a lot of hustle and bustle, but back then there were also “a lot of virgin structures with us that he could help shape” when it came to training or strategies in the race. “That was never from above,” said Denk, “Peter played a big part in making the team what it is today.” Maybe also about what it will be soon.