A finish line has two sides. One in front and one behind. When Fabian Cancellara crossed the finish line in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016, as the Olympic champion in the individual time trial, he was rolling into uncharted territory, so to speak. His time as a professional cyclist was over. He had already sworn that to himself beforehand. But he was not much further ahead with his future plans. What was he going to do next? A life without cycling - after 16 professional years in the saddle? If you like, the golden moment in Brazil was something like the birth of the Tudor Pro Cycling Team - even if the project was still a long way off at the time.
Tudor Pro Cycling: The upward trend continues
The racing team from Switzerland can currently be considered the rising star in the professional peloton - and Fabian Cancellara is the owner. Even in France, there is debate as to whether the team, which is ranked second according to its UCI licence, might not be a suitable candidate for a Wildcard invitation to the Tour de France would be. After all, France's cycling favourite Julian Alaphilippe is the most prominent newcomer - the man who has already won six stages of the Grande Boucle, wore the yellow jersey for a fortnight in 2019 and finished fifth overall at the time. The second new leader is currently the best Swiss professional cyclist Marc Hirschi, who impressed with his riding style as a newcomer at the 2020 Tour and won a stage.
So the cards are not the worst - around a year after his Grand Tour debut at the Giro d'Italia. "I'm always an optimist. It would be a dream to be at the Tour with the team," says Alaphilippe. Even if it doesn't work out straight away with the leap onto the biggest stage in world cycling, the two newly signed riders can definitely form a dangerous double lead to challenge the established teams in the so-called Ardennes Classics, i.e. the hilly races such as Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Tudor is already on the guest list there for the first time.
So things are continuing to improve. Over the turn of the year, a grey mouse in the peloton has become a much-noticed climber in the pecking order of the world's best teams - even without a World Tour racing team licence. The previous top riders around Matteo Trentin have been joined by other top performers such as the Austrian Marco Haller.
Tudor Pro Cycling began with a rescue operation
At the age of 44, Cancellara is once again very close to the world elite - now as team owner. For the 2008 and 2016 Olympic champion, the team is a mixture of a kind of personal job creation scheme, a new focus for his sporting ambition and - something that is particularly emphasised by those close to him - an incentive to give something back to cycling. After all, the sport has made the child of Italian labour migrants successful, famous and certainly wealthy.
When the Swiss Racing Academy team fell apart, they called me. I said to Raphi: Let's help! ~ Fabian Cancellara
After a discovery phase, during which the ex-professional mainly promoted the grassroots sport project "Chasing Cancellara" and managed Marc Hirschi, the joint history of Tudor and Cancellara began as a rescue operation. When the small junior team Swiss Racing Academy was on the brink of collapse because team boss Pirmin Lang was involved in the Operation Aderlass doping scandal, Cancellara saw it as his duty: "They called me. I said to Raphi (the current team manager Raphael Meyer; editor's note): Let's help!"
Otherwise, around a dozen young Swiss riders would have suddenly lost their dream of becoming professional cyclists. Cancellara took over with partner Raphael Meyer - without any experience of managing a professional team. The man who, as a three-time winner of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, has a willingness to take risks in his blood, laid the foundation for solid, constant and yet rapid growth with his name alone: a junior team with a Conti licence in 2022 became an internationally established professional team the following year, which immediately received opportunities to start in major races such as Milan-San Remo and the Tour de Suisse. The debut at the Giro followed the previous year.
Swiss main sponsor
The fact that the team's main sponsor, the Swiss watch brand Tudor, is also the official timekeeper for the Italian race organiser RCS, whose portfolio includes Milan-San Remo and the Giro, certainly didn't help. Swiss. Human. Performance. These are the slogans used to convey the philosophy of the racing team. After all, few things are more typical of Switzerland than watches. As a manufacturer of luxury products, Tudor, a subsidiary of the Rolex Group, is an unusual sponsor in road cycling, where insurance companies, banks, car manufacturers, grocery chains and manufacturers of DIY products in particular are looking for customer proximity.
But sports sponsorship has a long tradition at Rolex. The company founder, Hans Wilsdorf from Kulmbach, advertised the indestructibility of his products as early as 1927 by giving the British swimmer Mercedes Gleitze a wristwatch from his production on a crossing of the English Channel - although Gleitze did not reach the French coast, Wilsdorf used the many hours in salt water, which the chronometer is said to have survived without damage, for an expensive advertising campaign. Swiss makers, Swiss sponsor, team headquarters in Sursee in Switzerland - despite the associated customs problems with the regular transport of materials. You can hardly get more Swiss than that.
It humanises - successfully
There is also a lot of humanity in the Cancellara household. Everyone you speak to emphasises this. The boss personally knows from his riders where they live, whether they currently have a girlfriend or not and where their problems lie. "The focus is on people," emphasises German Sebastian Deckert, who heads up the coaching team. And he believes that humanity and performance go well together within the team.
After all, Cancellara, Meyer, Deckert & Co. have quite a few successful projects to their name: The now 31-year-old Dutch sprinter Arvid de Kleijn was more of a no-name in the international peloton before he suddenly left the world's best competitors behind him in the Tudor jersey, including at his stage win at Paris-Nice. He had collected five victories by shortly before his 29th birthday. In the two following seasons after switching to Tudor, he had eleven - despite a long injury break. "I didn't have the support before. Now I have a great future ahead of me," said de Kleijn at the start of the year.
Tudor Pro Cycling: Springboard for German talent
And German cycling is also benefiting: Marco Brenner, who already had a reputation as a huge talent as a teenager, was unable to find his feet in the professional ranks for a long time and remained largely unsuccessful with Team DSM for three years before the Augsburg-born rider was able to make it to the top last year after the Transfer to Tudor mutated into a winner and at the German Championships, he virtually outpaced the assembled Bora-Hansgrohe team as a soloist.
We believe in racers that other teams no longer believe in. ~ Marcel Sieberg
Compatriot Florian Stork had a similar career behind him, having swum in the peloton for years before he was able to celebrate his first victory as a professional after moving to Switzerland in Mallorca at the beginning of January. At the age of 27. "It shows that we believe in guys that other teams no longer believed in," says Marcel Sieberg, one of the sporting directors.
Alongside 33-year-old veteran Alexander Krieger, other German talents such as Marius Mayrhofer, Mika Heming and Hannes Wilksch can also hope to ignite the career turbo thanks to Swiss development aid. The arrival of stars Alaphilippe and Hirschi will certainly change things - in terms of the internal hierarchy, public attention and the pressure to succeed. The team managers were delighted to see Alaphilippe sit down for a coffee with Brenner during pre-season - both have talent and a desire to attack in common.
While the 22-year-old German is regarded as a playful youngster and can take a bit of rest from the veteran, the 32-year-old former world champion Alaphilippe may feel reminded of his time as a young professional after a career dip with long-time employer Soudal Quick-Step. "Julian is someone who sometimes steps back," Sieberg has observed and therefore does not fear that the cherished talents could be pushed back into the ranks by the newcomers. "Julian takes the boys with him and sometimes kicks them in the arse," assures the sporting director.
Waiting for the guest list
The overall project still requires patience. "We're waiting for wildcards," says Sieberg at the start of the season. You have to plan for the long term in Sursee: the wildcards for the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France will only be awarded in the course of the spring. In future, they no longer want to be dependent on the favour of the race organisers. The goal for the 2025 season is clear: "If we continue to race like we have so far, then we can achieve our goal of being one of the two best Pro teams. Then planning will be easier," says Cancellara.
It is a kind of shortcut to the WorldTour. This is because the two best teams from the second tier according to the world rankings are allowed to start in all the important one-day races and three-week stage races, including the Tour de France, in the following racing year. A WorldTour licence seems out of reach for the 2026 season: the newcomer's points deficit is too great for it to be placed among the best 18 teams in the world for the 2023 to 2025 billing period.
New freedom for Alaphilippe
Alaphilippe says: "I didn't think about whether or not to join the World Tour team when I made my decision. I relied on my gut feeling. I have the freedom to be who I want to be here." It sounds like a well-worded job offer for further new recruits. The boss should like the words. Cancellara emphasises that he stays in the background and is only available if his advice is needed. He sets the tone. "Happy people perform better," he says. The man who once successfully carried the battle name "Spartacus" over the cobblestones is now a willing helper, clearing obstacles out of the way for others.
Andreas Kublik
Editor
