Interview with Hans-Michael Holczer
TOUR: The Swabian turns 40 "clever"they say. What will the Swabian Holczer be at 70?
Hans-Michael Holczer: Most people think you have to become calmer. I don't feel anything like that yet. Since the end of my involvement in professional cycling in 2016, I've mainly been working in the bike shop I founded 49 years ago, I still accompany Škoda events at big races and I'm finally cycling more myself again.
TOUR: And what else is possible?
Hans-Michael Holczer: By the end of the year, it will probably be just under 4000 kilometres. Most of it will be on my racing bike, with an e-bike instead of a car for everyday use. I came third in my new age group in the Jedermänner on 1 May in Frankfurt, I won the Cyclassics in Hamburg and I actually came second in the final of the Deutschland Tour in Bremen over 106 kilometres, but I wasn't entered in my age group. As an old track rider with little talent, I don't ride a metre in the wind. I still think that's fine for an old man (laughs).
TOUR: Let's go back 15 years. Team Gerolsteiner had a great season in 2008. Stefan Schumacher won both time trials in the Tour de France, rode two days in yellow, Bernhard Kohl took the mountain jersey. Despite these successes, they were unable to find a new main sponsor to succeed Gerolsteiner, even though the successes were still free of doping shadows. Schumacher, Kohl and later Davide Rebellin were only exposed as dopers after the announced end of the team.
Hans-Michael Holczer: It was mainly due to the times. Cycling was at the very bottom of public perception in Germany, someone would have had to find the money and the chutzpah to say: I'm doing this now. I had countless conversations with companies that could have afforded it, but the overriding doping issue was simply too negative. Although, as we know, it doesn't necessarily harm the sponsors.
TOUR: What do you mean by that?
Hans-Michael Holczer: Despite Lance Armstrong, Trek hasn't sold a single bike less. You also know that the sponsor won't go home with a doping scandal, most of it will remain with the rider and the team.
TOUR: At the end of 2007, you were invited by the American Gillette family to a Liverpool FC match against Chelsea. Gillette was a financier at Anfield Road at the time and was planning to get into cycling and take over your team?
Hans-Michael Holczer: That's right, just before Christmas it looked like Gillette was going to buy our team. But that wouldn't have been a sponsorship, it would have been an investment where Gillette would have been looking to increase the value of the team. In the end, we didn't fit into their portfolio after all.
TOUR: A few months later, Team Gerolsteiner came to an end; shortly afterwards, in October 2008, Stefan Schumacher and Bernhard Kohl were accused of doping and banned. Davide Rebellin was also banned in 2009.
Hans-Michael Holczer: I was very surprised at the time that only Gerolsteiner riders were said to have been positive. I don't want to spread conspiracy theories, but it was probably a skilful moment for whoever to demonstrate decisive action. And incidentally to give the anti-doping activist Holczer a lesson for his role in the dispute between the big names in cycling. After the publication of my book "Garantiert positiv" in 2010, I was threatened with legal action, but not a single one has been received to date. And I haven't had to retract a single sentence to this day, not even the fact that Bernhard Kohl spoke of a list of 40 professionals who were allegedly caught using the EPO drug Cera during the 2008 Tour. Officially, only Kohl and Schumacher tested positive and were banned.
TOUR: Later, there was a trial against Stefan Schumacher, who was accused of fraud at the expense of his employer, i.e. you. The trial was a first in German legal history and ended with an acquittal. And hardly anyone believed that you actually knew nothing about the doping practices in the team.
Hans-Michael Holczer: I have to live with that, I know that wasn't the case. I have always been an opponent of doping and in 2007 I signed the MPCC (Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible, Movement for a Credible Cycling; editor's note.) from the baptism. Incidentally, if I had known about the practices at the time, had tolerated them or been involved in them, I would have jeopardised my material existence and that of my family with a mineral water manufacturer as my main sponsor, whose products stand for health and purity. Only someone with little or nothing to lose would do something like that. Many of those who pointed the finger at me at the time didn't have the slightest idea how such a cycling team works. I saw some riders maybe five times a year. Every year, all the pros had to declare which managers, trainers or doctors they worked with. It was impossible to monitor compliance with this information with riders living all over Europe. Incidentally, that's not the job of a team manager either. However, I made my anti-doping position crystal clear to the professionals, explaining time and again why doping has no place in our team. But I didn't really get through to some of them.
TOUR: In your time you said that with ten million euros a year you can really make a difference in professional cycling. Is that still true today?
Hans-Michael Holczer: No, that requires completely different sums these days. In 2008, I had four and a half million euros per season at my disposal from Gerolsteiner, and occasionally it was a little more than six. Today there are professionals whose annual salary is in this range. But that is also justified and good for the riders. Cycling is one of the oldest sports with professional athletes, still highly commercialised today and at the same time in an indescribable imbalance. The teams are not involved in either spectator or television revenue. What big football club could survive like that? So the money has to come from somewhere else.
TOUR: From sponsors?
Hans-Michael Holczer: Ideally, yes, but the sums of money you have to put up today are hard to come by. The scene has changed. There are more and more super-rich people who can afford a top team, even if I don't think it's a worthwhile investment. It was different in my day: Gerolsteiner, Telekom and Milram profited massively from their sponsorship. Telekom once calculated its expenditure of ten million marks with a return of 57 million. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the ratios are pretty good. However, such ratios no longer exist today with a changed communications landscape.
TOUR: There is currently a German World Tour team in Bora-Hansgrohe. If you compare them with your Gerolsteiner team, what are the differences?
Hans-Michael Holczer: In terms of cost and possibilities, the differences are not that great. I don't know the figures for Bora, but I'm sure that our budget was significantly smaller. In retrospect, my greatest achievement was to have had this success with the budget. Bora-Hansgrohe has significantly more money at its disposal, but also completely different costs for the professionals. The organisation, on the other hand, is completely different. The sponsor obliged me to enter as many German pros as possible in the big races like the Tour de France. Communicative success seemed more important than sporting success. Bora is forced to be much more international. After winning the Giro in 2022, they also want to be on the podium at the Tour, and if there is currently no German candidate, they have to look internationally and sign an absolute world star like Primoz Roglic.
TOUR: Keyword German pros. Things don't look so rosy there at the moment. Or is that deceptive?
Hans-Michael Holczer: I don't think we're in such a bad position, many young riders are currently getting professional contracts, even in really big teams. To put it bluntly, our problem in Germany is that if someone can't win the Tour de France, it doesn't count for much. As soon as Lennard Kämna rides a great Giro, the press asks whether he could also be at the front in the Tour. And there's no name that comes to mind at the moment. But even in my time there was only one - Jan Ullrich. We don't have any sprinters as successful as André Greipel or Marcel Kittel at the moment. But overall there are quite a few German pros with potential, even if one or two have fallen a little short of their potential this year. Things could look very different in 2024. Our former Öschelbronn rider Kim Heiduk, in whose sporting career I also played a very small role, has signed a contract with Ineos in England and rode a really strong Vuelta and European Championships in September.
TOUR: What is also different today: Very young riders are increasingly scoring big successes. Egan Bernal, Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel are winning three-week tours and the junior classification at the same time. At their age, young professionals used to go for a taster in a tour.
Hans-Michael Holczer: That surprises me too, it's really amazing. But I don't have a well-founded explanation for it. Perhaps we were simply wrong in thinking that people in their thirties are strongest on long tours. In addition, training methods have improved and become more specific, and sports science now plays a much more decisive role. As a result, different gear ratios are now used. In the past, even on the steepest climbs like the Angliru at the Vuelta, we had a maximum of 39 x 27 available. In exceptional cases, we experimented with triple cranks. Today they sometimes ride 34x34. On the other hand, the organisers are sensibly shortening the stages. Perhaps all of this favours younger athletes. We'll have to wait another five to eight years to see whether it's simply a shift in the peak of performance or whether they can still pedal like that when they're over 30.
TOUR: How do you view the brash youth?
Hans-Michael Holczer: I like it when Tadej Pogacar drives off with a youthful carefree attitude and doesn't constantly look at his power meter. That's refreshing. But of course, experience teaches us to be cautious when assessing such performances. Success and suspicion stick together in all top-class sport. I've come to terms with it and can enjoy watching cycling again.
TOUR: After Gerolsteiner, you worked as a manager and consultant for the Russian racing team Katyusha until 2012. What else did that time bring you?
Hans-Michael Holczer: It was important for me personally to return as manager of a top team after the end of Gerolsteiner. I went back to work as a teacher in 2010, but I didn't get back into teaching the way I knew it. I had the feeling that many parents thought: What does he want with our children? Others asked me for autographs and dedications in my book at parents' evenings. During the summer holidays, I was offered the opportunity to work at the very top as general manager at Katjuscha, with the biggest budget I'd ever had. Unfortunately, I didn't meet any reliable partners there, but that wasn't down to the owner Igor Makarov, but rather his entourage. We were more successful than we had been for a long time - Purito (Joaquim Rodríguez; editor's note.) won the World Tour, the team was number two in the world rankings and we had an U23 world champion for Russia for the first time in a long time. But I still got a lot of flak from Makarov's direct environment.
In retrospect, it is clear that the influence of the "court" was in danger of dwindling with the successes. I announced my resignation after 15 months and switched to the role of consultant. At the time, it was important to me to be able to quit Gerolsteiner in a self-determined way after being forced out.
TOUR: What do you still do in cycling today?
Hans-Michael Holczer: I still have close ties with Škoda, the only sponsor that has remained steadfastly committed to German cycling since 2008. I look after guests at major races, including on the bike at the Tour de France and the amateur races. Then there's the Holczer cycling team for young cyclists, which is mainly looked after by my son-in-law Ronny Scholz. Apart from that, I watch with interest from the outside.
TOUR: And if you were suddenly offered the chance to lead a World Tour team, would you be tempted again at the age of 70?
Hans-Michael Holczer: If someone had come along five or six years ago and it had worked out, I would probably have left my comfort zone again. In terms of experience and fitness, I would still have the confidence to do it today. But in the end, rationality would win out and I'd keep my hands off it.
TOUR: What does the ratio say?
Hans-Michael Holczer: After all my experience, I can't fulfil my claim of being able to lead a team successfully and cleanly. And by the way: on the Tour, you are no longer allowed to drive a jury car in the race from the age of 60, that would be unthinkable for me (laughs).
About Hans-Michael Holczer
- Born: 22 December 1953 in Herrenberg
- Marital status: Married to Renate, one daughter, two sons, six grandchildren
Holczer rode amateur races in his youth. He began his career as a cycling man of action in 1974 as manager of the RSV Öschelbronn amateur team. At the same time, Holczer worked as a civil servant teacher of history, maths and sport at the Friedrich-Schiller-Realschule in Böblingen. In 1997, the Schauff-Öschelbronn team turned professional. The team became Team Gerolsteiner in 1999. Despite many successes, Gerolsteiner's involvement ended in 2008, when the doping cases of Stefan Schumacher, Bernhard Kohl and, in spring 2009, Davide Rebellin came to light. From 2011, Holczer managed the Russian team Katyusha for 15 months before retiring from professional cycling. Today, Holczer runs a cycling shop in Herrenberg, not far from Stuttgart.
