A visit to Emil Herzog's home
A white winter coat covers the hilltops of the western Allgäu and the mountain ranges of the nearby Bregenz Forest. But the cloak is just beginning to show its first patches. It drips and flows, the ground eats its way through the snow cover in slowly widening brown-green holes. Nature on the border between Bavaria and Vorarlberg is in the process of shedding its winter coat - just before Christmas 2022.
In these times of climate change, there are sometimes only a few hours between the height of winter and spring, driving snow and thaw, icy wind and mild foehn air. Even on the shortest days of the year, the low sun melts the glistening glaze from the meadows and forests in no time at all - much to the chagrin of Emil Herzog. The 18-year-old from the Allgäu loves the mountains - and he loves the snow. As a child, he raced through the forest with his friends on two small ski lifts directly behind his parents' house in Simmerberg and flew over self-built jumps.
Visible climate change
"They used to open the ski lift when there was 35 centimetres of snow, now it's 20 centimetres," explains the sports enthusiast Herzog. And yet there are more and more days and winters without any skiing at all. Herzog no longer needs the lift - he prefers to push himself uphill with muscle power. Whether on cross-country or touring skis, mountain bike or racing bike. But even the local cross-country ski trail, which the Weiler-Simmerberg local authority has prepared not far from Herzog's parents' house, is becoming increasingly rare.
"I like snow. It's a shame that there's hardly any left," complains the young sportsman as he guides visitors along the streets of his home region, where the meltwater runs in streams deep in winter. Visible climate change.
Junior World Champion Emil Herzog
And so Emil Herzog fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional athlete not on snow, but on tarmac. With the highest conceivable qualification at cycling school: junior world champion. Last September, he won the rainbow jersey in the road race on the laps around the Australian coastal town of Wollongong - shortly after narrowly missing out on a medal at the Mountain Bike World Championships due to a flat tyre.
With these credentials, the blonde from the deepest south of Germany is considered one of the most sought-after cycling talents on the market - the world's best professional teams and the best-known management agencies were queuing up to sign the teenager, according to reports. And the fact that things turned out this way has a lot to do with the lack of snow in the Allgäu and climate change.
Emil Herzog: Ski or bike? The main thing is mountains
It could have turned out differently, as Herzog was the German cross-country skiing champion in the U16 category, where he regularly outclassed the competition with expansive skating strides and powerful pole strokes. It was at the beginning of 2020, after yet another winter with little snow, that Herzog was practically faced with the choice of where and over which surface his path should lead.
The Allgäu native likes to live in nature, with nature - and ultimately also from nature. "I might have become a cross-country skier in Norway," he says, who doesn't cite a professional cyclist as his greatest sporting role model, but rather the exalted Norwegian cross-country skiing star Petter Northug. His Scandinavian homeland is considered more snow-sure than the Allgäu. This fact ultimately decided the career of the young man, who can now be considered the world's best cyclist born in 2004.
"With cross-country skiing, it just sucked that there was less and less snow. The effort required for training was too great," says Herzog, explaining one of the reasons for switching to cycling. Instead of regularly commuting an hour to the monotonous one-kilometre night trail in Oberstdorf for cross-country training, he preferred to get on his racing bike or mountain bike on his doorstep. He would also have liked to pursue a career in the men's cross-country skiing World Cup. But nature and circumstances dictated otherwise.
Emil Herzog: An eco as father
Perhaps his decision also has something to do with the fact that Emil Herzog comes from a special family. "Our dad is a mad ecologist," says mum Nicole, adding: "He told us about climate change years ago - now we hear about it every day on the news." Dad Jacques, who was born in France, almost always travels the ten kilometres to work over the hills of the Allgäu by bike, whatever the weather, only sometimes by bus. His contribution to climate protection.
The children, Emil and his siblings Charlotte (16) and Karl (14), should travel by train as much as possible instead of by car. Emil often had to organise car pools for sports, as his parents didn't want to be involved. "We taught him to be independent," says Nicole Herzog. And environmental awareness. When the first-born recently flew privately for the first time in his life, shortly after his 18th birthday, to a training camp in Mallorca, his dad insisted that the offspring had to pay compensation for the CO2 emissions, 16 euros. Too little, according to the former legal guardian.
It would never have occurred to him to accompany his son to the World Championships in Australia. Hosting a World Cycling Championships in Australia, even though the vast majority of cyclists live in Europe: unlike the cycling association, he does not see this as part of a clever globalisation strategy, but considers it nonsensical or even irresponsible. But the senior also knows: "Emil is part of a system." After all, professional cycling is anything but climate-neutral, with many business trips by plane and a large accompanying entourage of combustion vehicles, and an athlete has to come to terms with this.
In addition, Jacques Herzog works as an engineer in the aviation industry, which is not very climate-friendly, and for this reason, even as a cycling eco-activist, he eventually comes to the end of his tether. But the Herzog family is quite happy that the next generation has taken a liking to a lifestyle that is close to nature and protects the climate. Emil Herzog doesn't have a car, even though he lives in the furthest corner of the country. Nor does he have access to an online training platform - an exception among young endurance athletes.
Training is outside
He comes to terms with the circumstances, with nature - even in training. "I hate riding on the roller," he says, looking out at the snow-covered garden with fruit trees outside the patio window of his parents' house on the upper outskirts of Simmerberg. "I cycle even when it's two degrees and sleeting. Whenever I can outside," he says and jumps on his racing bike in uncomfortable conditions for a short photo session through the melting snow without gloves or overshoes.
And he still tries to complete large parts of his winter training on snow whenever possible and justifiable. Even on this day, when he goes on a short ski tour to the Riedberger Horn for the guests of TOUR. Exceptionally short.
For him, a ski tour with an altitude difference of less than 3000 metres is not a ski tour - or not proper training. And he doesn't shy away from battling his way downhill through 50-degree gullies on the Hochgrat, thrills included thanks to the risk of falling. The combination of winter sports and cycling is his personal work-life balance.
Emil Herzog: One-man show at the World Cup
Emil Herzog has come a long way with his very special path - as the world was able to see at the end of September 2022 during the live broadcast of the Road World Championships from Australia.
He even amazed the experts during his most visible showcase of talent to date: as the most successful junior of the past season and as a closely watched top favourite, he went into the most important competition of the year having repeatedly rectified unfavourable constellations in the course of the race himself, and finally pushed ahead of the leading Portuguese rider Antonio Morgado in the final.
And then, at full speed, he very coolly settled the differences. I told him: "If he wants to sprint for the title, he has to ride from the front," he recounts the moment, which was broadcast around the world on TV and seemed as if he was negotiating with his only remaining rival for the world title - before beating his supposedly weakening rival by a hair's breadth in a breathtaking, extremely long sprint for the world title.
"Brutal ambition" is how Stefan Schubert describes the most important quality of the young man, who once stood in his bike shop as a twelve-year-old and asked for support to start in the national mountain bike league. When Herzog crashes, he picks himself up and tries to get back to the top. The longer Schubert talks about his former protégé, the more it becomes clear that he has long been a fan.
He never looks for excuses, even legitimate reasons for failure are rarely heard from him, adds his sponsor. "He doesn't get nervous, can assess his options, dares to say something in front of the group and is recognised as a leader," emphasises Christian Schrot, who most recently prepared him for professional sport with the Auto Eder junior team. Herzog could give a lot to cycling. "The sport has given him a lot of self-confidence," his father Jacques has observed in his eldest.
Good forecasts for the future?
In fact, Herzog junior is probably very clear in what he does - even if he seems lost in thought and distracted to observers from time to time, going on virtual journeys with his smartphone, from which he has to be brought back to reality. "He seems clueless. He's just the boy next door," says Schrot, who has seen many talents come and go, but few like his latest top graduate. "It's extraordinary how versatile he is. A real athlete, muscular, but also heavier than many cyclists. And he shows a robustness that allows him to climb amazingly well for his weight range," says the training scientist.
"Emil is a good technician, especially in wet conditions," Schrot continues to emphasise - Herzog likes to attack courageously on descents, races hard downhill at the limit, reads the races correctly, rides aggressively, offensively, entertainingly.
Everything done right?
While the cycling experts outdo each other with favourable predictions for the son's future, his mother Nicole, a primary school teacher, is tearing her hair out wondering whether she and her husband made the right decision. First they let their son drop out of grammar school, then finally his training with the police. And as legal guardians, they signed the contracts for their son that made him a professional athlete without vocational training.
However, as the past teaches us, a world championship title in the juniors is no guarantee of a job in professional cycling. This is shown by the stories of the two predecessors in the German national jersey: Holger Loew, title winner in 1996, was never able to make it as a professional after health problems; Jonas Bokeloh, surprise world champion in 2014, was not considered an outstanding talent in his age group and ended his cycling career in spring 2019 - without ever really becoming a professional cyclist.
Emil Herzog: The best of the year
But Herzog, as is clear from the scene, is a different calibre. In 2022, Herzog was the best cyclist in his age group. His season record included overall victories in four of the most important junior stage races (Cottbuser Junioren-Etappenfahrt, Friedensfahrt, Valromey-Tour and GP Rüebliland), plus victories in the high-calibre one-day races GP Primavera and GP West Bohemia, as well as European Championship bronze in the individual time trial plus two precious metals at the World Championships: before the gold in the road race, he had won bronze in the battle against the clock. The result of just 28 days of racing.
A career with foresight
Herzog knows what he can do and what he is worth on the market. "I won't ride for the minimum salary," he says. A self-confident statement for a young professional, who is often fobbed off with the minimum starting salary of 32,000 euros in the peloton. Herzog's future as a professional cyclist in the jersey of Bora-Hansgrohe is a certainty from 2024. But the shooting star is planning his career carefully: before he ventures onto the big stage, the Allgäu rising star is treating himself to a transitional year in the U23 class this season.
He competes for the prestigious US junior team Hagens Berman Axeon, led by Axel Merckx. "I didn't want to make the leap straight into the World Tour," explains the junior world champion. The young racer knows that only one 18-year-old has really managed that in recent years - super talent Evenepoel celebrated his first professional victories as an extremely precocious debutant.
Nevertheless, team boss Ralph Denk, who is rather reserved when it comes to assessing self-confident talents, is full of expectations for the future together. "Perhaps we already have the next Tom Pidcock", he says. The Briton has turned out to be a successful all-rounder in all cycling genres.
Promoting talent at Bora-Hansgrohe
The professional team Bora-Hansgrohe has a long tradition of focussing on young talent. But many people didn't even realise this for a long time. When Ralph Denk surprised the German media in the 2010 season by setting up a cycling team with the ambitious goal of taking part in the Tour de France amidst the confusion of the doping scandals that had barely passed the statute of limitations, some people smiled sceptically. The goal has long since been achieved. But while the spotlight fell on the stars around Peter Sagan, the future of cycling was being worked on in the background.
Headscout
Christian Schrot, who holds a doctorate in sports science, calls himself a "headscout" at Germany's only world-class racing team and heads the Auto Eder junior team, which has been supporting young riders in the background since 2007. Initially, as a team of the Bavarian Cycling Federation, mainly racing cyclists from Bavaria.
The team has been internationally orientated for two years and is so committed that it was able to lure the highly talented Belgian Cian Uijtdebroeks to Bavaria, who is often compared to super talent Remco Evenepoel in the local media. Last year, Uijtdebroeks won the Tour de l'Avenir, also known as the Tour de France for riders up to the age of 23, in the jersey of the Belgian national team.
Two teams as partners
While the Belgian went straight from the juniors to the pros at Bora-Hansgrohe, a gap in the junior concept has been closed for his successor. The step from the in-house junior team to the World Tour team is made easier - with a planned stopover in the U23 class.
To this end, Ralph Denk has concluded cooperation agreements with two racing teams that can offer a good international racing programme thanks to their third-class UCI Continental licence and have recently rendered outstanding services to young talent: The Lotto-Kern Haus team, based in Koblenz, will initially give sprinting Estonian Romet Pajur and all-rounder Mathieu Kockelmann from Luxembourg an additional year of training, during which they will continue to be coached by the Bora team.
Tug of war for the highly talented
Austrian talents Alexander Hajek and Marco Schrettl will continue to mature at Team Tirol, which competes in many mountain races in Italy - the long-term plan is for all of them to join the Bora-Hansgrohe professional squad. Emil Herzog, currently the biggest talent from the U19 development programme run by Auto Eder and Bora, had previously spent a year with the US junior team Hagens Berman Axeon, but is set to follow a similar path.
"This generation doesn't have more talent, it just performs earlier," emphasises young talent promoter Schrot. And yet the young racers still have deficits that need to be remedied before they make the leap to the pros. Overall, the top teams need to look much earlier and get involved in the tug-of-war for the highly talented - to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2020, when the Dutch World Tour team DSM snapped up Marco Brenner, who had grown up at Auto Eder. In hindsight, he might have preferred this route due to his teething troubles.
Andreas Kublik
Editor
