Career ends 2024: Rüdiger Selig - mediocre as a sprinter, world class as a starter

Rüdiger Selig celebrated his greatest success when he wasn't even a professional yet. As a stagiaire for the Luxembourg team Leopard-Trek, he rode to victory at the Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke in 2011. It was the first time that Selig was able to celebrate in a professional race. However, the Saxon-born rider had already proven his good form earlier in the season. He finished fourth in the sprint at the U23 World Championships in Copenhagen, beaten by new title winner Arnaud Demare, among others. It seemed only a formality that the Luxembourgers would turn the 22-year-old German into a professional next season.

But things turned out differently. Presumably also due to far-reaching sponsor changes, Radioshack-Nissan, as the team was to be called the following year, decided against signing the youngster. And so someone else stepped in: former Gerolsteiner boss Hans-Michael Holczer, who took over the Russian racing team three years after his German team folded, secured the services of the young sprinter.

Kristoff makes Selig the starter

However, this step may have proved to be the wrong one for a great career with its own successes, as Selig explains in a review of his career at cycling-news.com recapitulated. In the same year, Alexander Kristoff, one year older than Selig, joined the team. The Norwegian was also regarded as highly talented and - unlike the Berlin-based German - won victories in his first year. "Perhaps he saw me as competition and offered me the chance to be his last man on the sprint train, with the promise that he would look after me if I extended my contract or changed teams. Well, young and naive as I was, I trusted that."

Initially, things were still running smoothly, with Rüdiger Selig taking his first victory for the team at the Volta Limburg Classic in 2013. "But when I catapulted myself into overtraining in 2014, I was very quickly sidelined. After that, I lacked the final consistency and probably also the self-confidence, which you need a lot of as a sprinter." The year turned out to be the weakest of his 13 seasons as a professional. His contract expired in 2015. And while Kristoff stayed with the Russian team for a few more years, Selig had to take the supposed step backwards and leave the World Tour.

Selig narrowly misses out on a stage win in his first two Grand Tours

He joined Bora - Argon 18. Ralph Denk's team was still riding in the second division of cycling that season, but this was soon to change. Selig's work profile changed even more quickly, however, shifting strongly in the direction of rider and falling on fertile ground at Bora. But first the now 27-year-old took his own chance, as the team had started the Vuelta without any real sprinters apart from Rüdiger Selig. And Selig also stayed out of the finals in his first Grand Tour in the bunch sprints. But on the 16th stage, only a reduced field made it into the final, in which the really big names of the fast men were missing. Selig, on the other hand, was there, but he failed to close the gap immediately after Jempy Drucker's attack. The Luxembourger won the stage, leaving Selig in second place ahead of Nikias Arndt.

In 2017, Peter Sagan, one of the best sprinters of his generation, joins Bora, which now has Hansgrohe as its second name sponsor and has been promoted to the World Tour. In addition, the young German sprint hopeful Pascal Ackermann is joining the team, which already has an established winning rider in its ranks in Sam Bennett. The team continues to focus on sprint finishes. Driven by the great new challenges, Selig is also continuing to improve in his profession. "I realised that I had a lot more fun as a lead-out rider and that I could make myself more indispensable in this niche," says Selig, who nevertheless continued to get his own opportunities.

At the Clasica de Almeria in Spain at the start of the season in February, Selig again finished second, only Magnus Cort was faster. After the classics campaign, he then went to the Giro as Bennett's rider. But before Selig was able to pilot the Irishman to four podium finishes, he was given the chance to sprint for victory himself. On stage 3, the peloton broke up on the last ten kilometres of the day on the edge of the wind. Selig made it into the seven-man lead group, but was beaten by Fernando Gaviria.

After Sagan's Tour withdrawal: Selig finishes in the top 10 four times

After his debut at the Giro, Rüdiger Selig, nicknamed "Rudi", also had his first Tour de France on the programme. And although he was able to deliver four top 10 results himself, it remained his only appearance in the Tour of France. Having been brought along as a rider for Sagan, the duo was broken up again after four stages and one victory, after the world champion was disqualified on the fourth stage because he elbowed Mark Cavendish into the barriers in the finale, causing the Briton to fall. Without a regular sprinter, Selig had to fill the gap and did a great job as a substitute. Especially on stage 10, which was both the highlight and the end of the German sprinters' years at the Tour. Selig finished fourth. Only Dylan Groenewegen prevented an all-German podium after Marcel Kittel had won in Bergerac ahead of John Degenkolb. Kittel also won the following day, but there were no further German successes in the bunch sprint until today.

For Selig, too, it was the best year of his career in terms of personal results thanks to his good performance in the Giro and Tour and further top 10 results in smaller races, although he was able to celebrate his third and final victory in the Tour of Slovakia the following year. Otherwise, the 1.88 metre tall professional was almost exclusively a helper, as Ackermann made his breakthrough in 2018. The rider from the Palatinate celebrated nine victories - Selig was almost always there.

Rüdiger Selig has matured into a world-class rider

And just as Ackermann developed in the following years, so did Selig. In the peloton, he had earned a reputation as a world-class rider and he also considered himself to be one of the three best in the world in that profession - with the aim of taking the top position. This can hardly be measured or assessed objectively. However, the victories of the associated sprinter are hard currency. And because Ackermann was even better in 2019 than in the previous year, celebrating 13 victories and taking the points jersey at the Giro d'Italia, Selig, who could also sprint to the podium himself if his finisher was prevented, as he did on stage 10 of the Giro, was still highly rated.

But the "magical years" at Bora, as Selig called them, were soon to come to an end. The team somehow managed to salvage the difficult coronavirus year of 2020 with victories at the Tirreno-Adriatico and the Vuelta, but the circumstances meant that there was no real joy anywhere. And 2021 was also unlikely to offer much cause for celebration. In January, Selig was hit by a car at a training camp on Lake Garda, as were some of his team-mates, and after suffering a severe concussion, racing was not possible again until mid-March. But even then, things did not go smoothly for him and his captain Ackermann. Bora decided against extending his contract. While the sprinter switched to UAE Emirates the following year, there was - once again - no room for his rider. He went to Lotto-Soudal (later Lotto-Dstny) to prepare the sprints for the Australian Caleb Ewan.

Lotto's reputation suffers

However, there was never any real harmony, even though the Belgian team had an all-German trio of riders. Rüdiger Selig and Michael Schwarzmann also moved from Bora to Lotto, where they both met Roger Kluge, who had been with the team since 2019. Another unfortunate start to the season was partly responsible for this. Selig crashed in his first race for the new team at the Saudi Tour, breaking two ribs. This was followed by a tough coronavirus infection. Seven of his first ten races, including the Giro d'Italia, are marked with a DNF - did not finish.

This also ended his dream of a second Tour de France, for which he was actually firmly planned as part of Ewan's sprint train. And because things didn't go any better for the entire team, his relegation from the World Tour at the end of the year could no longer be avoided. At least from a personal point of view, 2023 didn't really go any better either, so the now 34-year-old looked for a new challenge for 2024 and signed with Astana Qazqastan for a year.

His reputation as a top rider had suffered during his two years with Lotto, but the Kazakhs offered him a new home. In return, he was to accompany Max Kanter on his way to his first professional victory. And it worked: the rider from Cottbus took a stage win at the Tour of Turkey. Selig led his compatriot to further good results at the Deutschland Tour and at the end of the year in China.

Involuntary end after 13 years

However, this was not enough for a new contract. Although, according to his own statements, the team-orientated professional delivered better wattage values than ever before at an advanced age, the 13th season was his last as a professional cyclist. The end was not entirely voluntary; he could have imagined another year or two. "13 years of career have suddenly come to an end," Selig wrote on Instagram on 11 October, making the end official. "Cycling was not only my profession, but also my lifestyle for as long as I can remember. It taught me life lessons that I wouldn't have learnt anywhere else." This includes both positive and negative moments.

Rüdiger Selig has left it open as to whether he will stay in cycling or whether he will take a different path. Either way, he wanted to take it easy in the first few months after the end of his career. With the exception of his honeymoon with his Belgian wife Julie, whom he married at the end of October.

Rüdiger Selig's greatest successes

• 3 victories as a professional, including the Frank Vandenbroucke Memorial
• 7 Grand Tour participations
• 12 participations in the monuments of cycling, including 9 times at Paris-Roubaix
• Stage runner-up at the 2016 Vuelta, plus two more top 10 finishes in the same year
• Stage runner-up at the Giro d'Italia 2017, plus two more top 10 finishes in the same year
• Fourth in a stage at the 2017 Tour de France, plus three more top 10 finishes in the same year