by Jens Voigt
But I won, and for an old East German like me, it was like winning the Tour de France. Of course, I never came close to winning the Tour de France, but even to this day, the Peace Race remains one of my most memorable victories.
FIRST PROFESSIONAL CONTRACT
“Nope, we can’t let you enter. There’s a race going on!”
Jens as seen by Samuel Abt, who wrote about bicycle racing for more than 30 years for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times:
The first of many times I interviewed Jens Voigt was during the 1999 Tour de France, and I was struck immediately by his upbeat manner and his way of brushing aside disappointments in the race. When he told me how he came to be riding for Crédit Agricole, I realized that he had overcome many setbacks before.
Despite a strong record as a member of Germany’s national amateur team, he found it nearly impossible to find a job when he decided to turn professional in 1997.
“I made a little book about me, what races I did and the years, how many kilometers I trained, and I sent it to the top 22 teams,” he said. “I really put a big effort into it: colors and photographs and printed on a computer; really nice. Then I had it translated into English and French.
“I sent it to the teams and I said: ‘Hey, please at least answer me. Say yes or no, but answer me. What’s the story?’ But only two teams answered, Festina and Rabobank, and both said no.”
The Telekom team in his native Germany was especially uninterested. “I tried for three years to get a contract with them, and they never wanted me,” Voigt said.
He finally signed with the ZVVZ-Giant team in Australia, performed well, and was recommended by officials there to Crédit Agricole, then under the colors of the GAN insurance company. In his first season in France in 1998, he rode so well that he was elected third-leading racer of the year in Germany, behind Erik Zabel and Jan Ullrich of Telekom.
“I think Telekom would like to have me now,” Voigt said with a laugh. “Too late. I’m happy where I am.”
It was a pretty story, and I wrote it at the end of an account of that day’s stage. Considering his pluck then, I’m not surprised that, over the long years ahead, Jens Voigt would move up in my reporting from the bottom of an article to the top.
In 1994, I was at the height of my amateur career. I’d won the overall World Cup competition after winning the Peace Race, not to mention the Commonwealth Bank Classic in Australia. But still I could not get a professional contract.
At the time, Germany really only had one professional team, Team Telekom, and they just weren’t interested in me. I mean, every time we would race together in some mixed pro-am race, I would ask them, “So is there a chance for me to ride with you?” But it just didn’t happen. For two full years, this went on, and by 1996, I was basically on my knees pleading with them, saying “I’m a good rider. Just give me a chance!”
But Walter Godefroot, the general manager, was unmoved. And to this day, I don’t know why the doors of Team Telekom remained closed to me. Was it something I said? Did somebody speak badly about me behind my back? I just don’t know.
You know, though, sometimes I have to thank Telekom for not taking me. Often, I think that one of the reasons I’ve had such a long career is that I struggled for so long to get my first professional contract. I knew how hard I’d worked to finally get a shot at the pro ranks, and so I just never, ever took it for granted!
By the end of 1996, some small German teams were coming up, but finally I had an offer from an up-and-coming Australian team. With backing from the Czech Republic, and a onetime East German coach in Heiko Salzwedel, the little ZVVZ-Giant team was the first to give me an opportunity to race professionally. Heiko had largely been responsible for the rise of track cycling in Australia after working with the AIS, the Australian Institute of Sport.
At first, I was set to go with a new team run by Hans-Michael Holczer, who would later run the Gerolsteiner professional team. I had given him my okay just before leaving for Australia to race in the Commonwealth Bank Classic at the end of 1996. But that opportunity fell through at the last minute.
I remember it well, because I had just arrived in Australia in October, and another German rider from the Nuremberg team said, “Hey, Jens, did you hear? Holczer’s team isn’t going to happen.”
I said, “What? This is not possible!” Now again, this was before the Internet and portable telephones were commonplace. So there I was, halfway around the world, hearing that my first professional contract had just fallen through.
To make matters worse, I had just refused a contract with Heiko’s ZVVZ-Giant team. At first, I had a lead with Nuremberg, but I didn’t like the way they nickeled-and-dimed me simply because they thought I was desperate to sign.
So I went back to Heiko and said, “Heiko, I know I said no to you just a couple of weeks ago, but here’s the situation. And if you still have a place for me, I would like to ride for you.”
He said, “Okay, give me a couple of days and let me see.” And a couple of days later, he came back to me and said, “Okay, we have a place.” I was actually being paid by the Czech sponsor, but I was riding with young Australians such as Matthew White and a guy whom I would later meet up with again in France, Jay Sweet.
Things started out well. My first race was the Tour of Malaysia, where I finished second overall. I made tons of money at that race and was feeling pretty good about turning professional, but then we came back to Europe and just got our heads kicked in!
I’ll never forget my first race in France, the Grand Prix Cholet-Pays de Loire. I got dropped with a small group, and by the time I hit the finishing circuit, the road was closed. The race official just said, “Nope, we can’t let you enter. There’s a race going on!”
We had just come from racing in the heat and were not ready for the low temperatures and the high speeds. That was a proper, seriously hard race. Then we went to the Critérium International and things continued to go poorly, so poorly, in fact, that I was the only survivor. Can you imagine? I was the only rider on my team to finish a two-day race! Of course, the Critérium would prove to be one of my best races, and I would win it five times. But not this year!
About the only positive note in the Critérium that year was that I started the final time trial between two established stars, Evgeni Berzin and Tony Rominger. They were both on big teams, and there I was, a neo-pro with ZVVZ-Giant, and I didn’t even have a time trial bike. But I was quite proud of the fact that even on my road bike, no one was able to catch me. That in itself was a small victory.
Worse than the racing, though, was that about halfway through the season, our Czech sponsor, ZVVZ, announced that they would not be able to continue supporting the team the following year. They produced a lot of air conditioners, and a large part of their customer base was in the Middle East. The problem was that with all the tensions with Iraq and Iran, especially after the first Iraq War, NATO suddenly forbade them to sell air conditioners in these countries because they feared that some of the parts of their air conditioners could apparently be used by Iraq to cool down its nuclear weapons facilities. So, suddenly, ZVVZ lost a huge part of their market and had to make huge layoffs. As a result, sponsoring a professional cycling team was no longer justifiable.
Soon enough, it was back to the drawing board. I was looking once again for a professional contract, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. Fortunately, Roger Legeay showed interest with the French GAN team. Heiko had been trying to find a place for me and actually had contacted Denis Roux, a retired pro who had ridden for Roger’s team and was now a coach on the team. At first, there was some skepticism. I guess you could say that I was already a victim of my own success, because the directors on the big teams were like, “Hey, if this Jens guy has so many points, why haven’t we heard of him? There must be some problem.”
But Roger gave me a chance. He sent me a plane ticket and flew me to Paris, where the team picked me up. I met up with Roger the night before
the Paris-Tours race, and we sat down and talked. It was basically an interview, because he wanted to know more about me, where I came from, what I thought I could do for the team, what I thought my place in cycling would be. I guess I passed the interview, because soon enough, I signed a contract.
While I had some of my fondest memories with the GAN team, I cannot say the same about this postcard where I am looking pale and overweight. (Courtesy of Jens Voigt)
CYCLING’S BIG TIME
“What is a wheel called? Une roue?”
Jens as seen by Roger Legeay (former manager of the Peugeot, Z, GAN, and Crédit Agricole teams):
As every team manager does toward the end of the season, I was looking around for a few good riders to fill out our squad in the autumn of 1997. Suddenly, I came across the CV of a rider I’d never heard of: Jens Voigt. And when I looked him up, I noticed that he was already one of the top-50 ranked riders in the world. I was dumbfounded! How does some unknown guy get into the top 50? Obviously, because he was on a small team, he didn’t get into the big races that carry a lot of points. So that means he really had to have a lot of results in the races he did do. It was impressive. He’d already won the Peace Race, one of the world’s best amateur races. Normally, winning such a race would be a passport, a sort of guarantee, for a big contract. But for whatever reason, Jens didn’t manage to find another team.
So I contacted him and met him. I liked what I saw and hired him. It’s safe to say that he had a look all his own. And, at first, the guys on the team didn’t know what to make of him. But he had already had a lot of good results, and that’s what mattered to me.
Today Jens remains one of the recruits I’m most proud of, because I honestly think that if I hadn’t given him his chance with Team GAN, Jens Voigt would have been one of those promising riders that never broke into cycling’s big time. He was already 25 or 26 years old. That’s late to sign with a big pro team, so it would have been difficult for him to find another team. And what a loss that would have been!
He proved himself immediately, and what a career! And Jens didn’t forget the opportunity he had in coming to GAN. A couple of years later when he really had a lot of good results, Team Telekom, the big German team at the time, tried to hire him. Obviously, they had missed a huge German rider when they failed to sign him earlier, and they had the money to bring him back. But Jens never forgot. He said, “No, no, I’m with Roger, and I’m staying with Roger.”
It would have been logical for him to return to Germany, but he never questioned his place on my team. It was pure Jens. From the beginning, he forged his own path. And that’s what makes him so unique. If he had been on a German team, he would have been just another German on a German team. His career was so remarkable, in part, because he was so, well, international.
I finally signed my first big pro contract with Team GAN at the end of 1997. God, I remember it well! It was the night before the Paris-Tours race in October. I showed up with my “hockey player” haircut. You know, short in the front, long in the back. A mullet, essentially. At least that’s what people tell me. I guess I already stood out. My soon-to-be teammates were like, “Where in the hell did Roger find this guy? Where does Roger find these people?” But Roger Legeay, the team manager, wasn’t affected by such things. You know, Roger had been recruiting foreign riders for years on teams such as Peugeot, Z, and GAN and had already worked with American cycling legend Greg LeMond as well as my new teammates, such as British rider Chris Boardman and Australian Stuart O’Grady. None of those guys came from countries with a big cycling tradition, but they were all exceptional athletes. So by the time I showed up with my best “Wayne Gretzky” haircut, Roger had enough experience in the sport to know that you can’t judge a book by its cover! And he gave me a chance. It was the only chance I really needed.
I remember I earned 11,000 francs a month. Today that would only be about 1,700 euros, basically nothing by professional standards. But I didn’t care! I remember getting an offer from a small German team as well, for about 95,000 deutsche marks a year, almost three times as much, but I really wanted to ride for a major team, and Roger gave me that chance.
Stephanie, my wife, was there for me, too, and really helped at this critical moment. We already had one kid, our first son, Marc. I had to choose between an easy life riding for a well-paying team located just an hour-and-a-half from Berlin or to ride for this French team for a lot less money. I could stay in Germany, race easier races, and win easier races. But no! I decided to throw it out the window for a shit contract in a foreign country! Stephanie was really cool with that, just really supportive. She was like, “If it’s important for you, go for it!”
And there were real consequences. We had to give up our apartment in Berlin. She had to move back in with her parents with our first son. And I went off to France. It must sound stupid in retrospect. I only had a one-year contract. I only had one chance. But I didn’t want to give up that one chance to really make it. At least that way I could always say I gave it my best shot. Even if it didn’t work out, when I got old, I would never say to myself that I didn’t give it a shot. There would be no “ifs.” And there would be no “what-ifs.”
You know, I’ve met a lot of good riders who didn’t take their chances to go pro so that they could compete in the Olympics or something. And those people almost always regretted it. I knew one rider who had a tryout as a stagiaire with PDM. He has pictures of himself with Sean Kelly and Greg LeMond. But he stayed amateur so he could compete in the Olympics the next year. In the end, he never turned professional, and he’s regretted it ever since!
And I know myself. I would be mad at myself if I had chosen to ride for that small German team. I would be miserable with myself. And I would be mad and miserable with myself until the end of my life! The money is a nice by-product. It’s a nice bonus. But what really counts is proving to yourself that you have what it takes. At least that was what mattered to me. I just wanted to prove that I was alive and part of this sport at its highest level!
So I signed with Roger and the GAN team to ride with them in 1998. I didn’t know one word of French except “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” And I didn’t even know what that meant! I remember some of the boys on my team would ask me if I spoke any French, and I would just say, “Yeah, voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” And they would just sort of look at me! I don’t know if I said it to Roger, though. That might have been a bit much!
I do remember one thing, however. I didn’t have much time to prepare for this new life. I did a crash course in French just before going to the first training camp in January. The classes were held close to my house in Berlin. I’ll never forget the first day of class. I came back and Stephanie asked, “So how did it go?” And I was like, “Great, my teacher is this young woman named Emmanuelle!” Now this was around the time that all those erotic Emmanuelle movies were making their way around the world, and you should have seen Stephanie’s face. It was priceless! She just said, “What, are you kidding me?” And I was like, “No, no, she’s a short, married brunette and wears glasses!”
But soon enough my little prep class in French was over. As I said, it was a crash course. And then I was off. I stuffed all my things into my car, an Opel Astra. I must have looked pretty funny driving this little Astra down the autobahn with three bikes on the roof, including my mountain bike, a race bike, and a training bike with fenders. I had everything I needed for the winter. But inside the car, it was even worse. There was my television, my microwave, silverware, cups, plates, just everything. My whole life was in that car!
But from the get-go, everything was perfectly organized by Roger Legeay and his logistics manager, Michel Laurent. Now this was back in the day before the Internet exploded. Everything arrived in the mail, every plane ticket, paychecks, everything. And in my six years with the team, they never missed a click. I never missed one flight, and even with all the French holidays and everything, my paychecks always arrived on time. And eve
ry year, in December, a big box arrived with everything I needed to start out the new season. It contained all my new team clothes, the team backpack, the new team bike, just everything I needed. And never once was there the slightest hiccup, never one missed payment, nothing. Unbelievable, just unbelievable!
But that doesn’t mean things were easy. Even after my little crash course with Emmanuelle, my French was, how do you say, basique? I remember taking out a piece of paper and drawing a bike and asking my teammates, “What is a wheel called? Une roue? What is a tire called? What is a derailleur called?” Then I took out another piece of paper and drew a body and asked, “What is an arm called? What is a leg called? What is a hand called?” Then I sketched all a cyclist’s clothes on the body and said, “What are leg warmers called? What is a jersey called? What are shoes called?” And that’s how I learned French! Pretty basic, huh?
Training with my buddies around the hills of Toulouse in 1999. I only have good memories of the six years I lived and trained there. (James Startt)
MOVING TO FRANCE
“Oh my God! They’re going to fire me!”
Jens as seen by Chris Boardman (former hour record holder and teammate to Voigt on GAN and Crédit Agricole):
Jens, quite simply, extended my career by two full years. By 1998, when he came on board with the GAN team, I was having a tough time. It was getting harder and harder to win anything. But when Jens came into the team, everything for him was an adventure, everything! It was brilliant. He was brilliant! He just chose this attitude at the start of his life that said pretty much, “I’m going to look for ways to have an adventure.” That’s exactly what he did, looked at everything as an adventure.