by Jens Voigt
During the Tour in 2010, Bjarne came to me and asked me very directly, “So, Jens, what’s it going to be? Are you going to try the Luxembourg project or are you going to stay with me?” I told him that I wanted to try something new, and he understood. He tried to campaign a bit to keep me, but he knew that my mind was pretty much set. So he said, “Hey, no worries. I understand that after seven years, it’s good to change. It’s important to have new challenges.”
Bjarne and I left on good terms, without a doubt, and we’re still friends today.
But while Leopard Trek appeared to be the next superteam, things never really worked out that way. Why things didn’t work out is still up for debate, but mostly I would say that it was for a combination of reasons.
First off, just based on points, with riders like such as Fabian Cancellara as well as Frank and Andy Schleck, we began the season as the top-ranked team in the world. I mean, before we pinned the first number on our backs at the first race, everyone was looking at us like we were the best. And I guess we believed it ourselves. As a matter of fact, I remember very well a meeting at the December training camp in which I said, “Hey, boys, I don’t want to spoil the party or anything, but we’re the number-one-ranked team in the world without taking one pedal stroke. That’s the point. We haven’t done it yet. We haven’t earned that number-one ranking yet this year. We have a lot of expectations on us. We really need to focus. We can’t afford to be lazy. We can’t slack off. We need to perform the way people expect us to perform. It’s always easier to reach the top than it is to stay on the top.”
Looking back, I think people were too relaxed. The expectations were maybe too high, as well, but we were definitely too relaxed. I think it’s fair to say that we were too cocky, too. There was a general feeling that we were going to be very good, that we were going to rule the world. I didn’t want to be the bad guy and spoil the dream, but maybe with my age and experience, I should have stressed even more to the guys that we hadn’t yet proven anything, that you have to work, because nothing comes easy in life. Perhaps I should have gotten in people’s faces more and pulled the team back down to earth.
I think the whole team, all the way to the top, expected success to come easily. Our new team owner, Flavio Becca, expected that we would win left and right, that victory would just be a stroll in the park. But this is sports; victory is never easy. Look at any sport. Look at Formula 1 World Championships. Who would have expected that Sebastian Vettel would not win a fifth Formula 1 title after winning four years in a row? There is no guarantee of success in sports. You can set the stage just perfectly. You can put all the pieces in place. But you cannot guarantee victory.
In any sport, you’re only as good as your last result. And we underestimated that age-old rule of sports at Leopard Trek.
We did do a lot of things right. The team was really well organized. Looking back over the years, I think we had one of the best-looking team kits. We looked great, and we were very, very well liked by the fans. I think that Leopard Trek team was the most popular team I’ve ever been on. We had the most applause of any team all the time, wherever we went. It was really impressive! It was just constant applause. So, in many ways, it was a dream project. It was a dream working on that team. And we had a lot of very good results. But they were mostly second- and third-place finishes. What we did not have were big victories.
Fabian Cancellara finished second in Milan–San Remo, and he finished third in the Tour of Flanders. I think it’s safe to say that at Paris-Roubaix that year, he was the strongest rider in the race. He was the defending champion, and after his strong finishes in San Remo and Flanders, he was the heavy favorite. But there was a lot of negative racing that day. A lot of riders just seemed to be racing against Fabian. A big break got away, and Fabian pretty much had to chase them all down single-handedly. He caught just about everybody, but he couldn’t catch the Belgian Johan Vansummeren, who soloed to victory, and Fabian finished second.
Fabian realized that it was going to be close to impossible to win that year, and in my opinion he decided “Okay, you wheel-suckers, I will decide who wins this race.” And that’s when he decided to let a no-name win, to punish all the self-declared prerace favorites for riding like little schoolboys and just chasing him down all the time instead of trying to win themselves. It looked like a whole lot of riders had the attitude of “We’ll let anyone win except Fabian,” and he decided to let the brave and courageous Johan Vansummeren ride away and win the race. You don’t believe my theory? Well then, when was the last time an outsider won Roubaix?
Then in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, one of the hardest one-day classics, the Schleck brothers finished second and third. Two guys on the podium in a race like that is impressive, but it is not victory. That year, another Belgian, Philippe Gilbert, was having the best year of his life. He won all the Ardennes classics, the Amstel Gold Race, the Flèche Wallonne, and Liège. Nobody could beat him, including us, so we didn’t manage to win any of the big spring classics.
Overall, we were the best team in the classics that year, since we had a rider on the podium in every one of the major races. But we didn’t win one of them. Each time, Leopard Trek “only” finished second or third. That’s what the press wrote, and that’s what stuck in people’s minds.
And then the same thing happened in the Tour de France, where Andy and Frank Schleck finished second and third behind Cadel Evans. How great is that, to have two brothers from the same team on the podium in the world’s biggest bike race? But again, there was no victory. And because of the high expectations, the press, not to mention Becca, the team owner, were dissatisfied with our performance.
Flavio Becca was a real fan. He had a lot of theoretical knowledge of the sport. He knew the names of the teams and riders. At the first team camp, he already knew all the riders’ names and most of the staff, as well. He was very enthusiastic, and he obviously put in an effort to look at team pictures and learn people’s names. He wasn’t just invested in the team, he was also committed to it.
But perhaps he saw it like a big investment or a game. Perhaps he saw a bicycle team as something where, if you invest so much money, you get so much in return. If you put in so many millions of dollars, then you get so many victories in return. Perhaps he felt that because he put in more money than a lot of other teams, he was going to get more victories. But sports aren’t always like that.
A sport like cycling is all about giving maximum effort. One percent here and 1 percent there quickly adds up to 2, 3, 4, or 5 percent of a difference. And that’s a lot. That’s the difference between winning and losing. That’s the difference between first and second place.
While Leopard Trek ultimately disappointed some, we still had a strong season and won the Tour of Lombardy, one of cycling’s monuments, at the end of the season. That was a great victory by Oliver Zaugg, but it came too late. We never got the big win at the right time.
FAMILY
“I’m a grown-up man. I don’t cry for victories, nothing.
But I do cry when each kid arrives.”
In 1994, I was a part-time soldier, and I was racing for my little East Berlin cycling team, the Berliner TSC. The Berlin Wall had been down for five years, but a lot of the infrastructures were still in place. Essentially the team was an extension of my old sports school, and it was sponsored by the military; hence the soldiering aspect. In the old West Berlin there was a good team, the Opel-Schüler Berlin, that we raced against in all the regional and national races. It was run by Hans Jaroszewicz, who twice rode the Tour de France for Germany, back when the race was still organized by national teams.
Then one day at a race, a teammate mentioned that Jaroszewicz had a good-looking daughter. I remember saying at first, “Hans? A good-looking daughter? Nah, that’s not possible!” And then he pointed across the parking lot and said, “Well, look!”
And when I did, I just said, “Wow, that is his daughter?!” For the longest time, I never had an oppo
rtunity to chat with her, not even at the local races, where everybody knew each other. But one day, we were both at a race in northern Germany, the Internationale Niedersachsen-Rundfahrt. I was on the national team at the time, and she was there with her father’s team. The race started way up north on this island called Norderney, and since my parents lived in the north of Germany, they drove me up to the start. And who did they happen to park next to? Hans Jaroszewicz’s daughter, Stephanie.
I had a lot of gear and luggage to unload and take to my team car, but, suddenly, I realized that this was the moment. And I just said, “Hey! Hi, Stephanie! I’m Jens. Would you be kind enough to give me a hand and help me unload all this stuff?” She agreed, and soon enough, we started chatting.
Things started out slowly, though. The next day, it was just like, “Hi!” And the day after, “Hi! How are you?” But this was back in the amateur days, and it was really “roots” style. The entire race would often eat together in local gymnasiums or something, so we had time to talk and get to know each other that week. I was 23 and she was 24, and I was a lot younger in my head back then, just more childish. But I could tell by the way she smiled back at me that she didn’t hate me!
Stephanie was training to become a massage therapist, so part of her role on the team was to give the riders massages after the race. Toward the end of the race, I was in the leader’s jersey, and she even gave me a massage one night, which really gave us the chance to talk. It was my teammates, I think, who organized that for us, something I will be eternally grateful for! Then, on the last day, I ran into her after the stage, and she ripped off a corner of the brochure for the German League and wrote her phone number on it. It took me only a day to call her, but I kept that little piece of paper in my wallets for years, just as a souvenir.
I don’t think her parents exactly approved of me. In the first years after the Berlin Wall came down, there was a fair amount of tension between West Germans and the old East Germans. Plus, I had my “Wayne Gretzky” mullet! But then a lot of parents don’t think any guy is good enough for their daughters.
It was just a matter of time, however, before I wore them down. Eventually, they saw the man in the boy I was. It took Stephanie a little while to warm up to me, too. But I was insistent! Finally, I got a date with her and we went out to dinner. I remember thinking that, to be politically correct, it would be best to meet her in the middle of the city, so I proposed a restaurant at Alexanderplatz, in between the old east and west sides of town. I don’t know if I kissed her that night, but we did have an ice cream for two, which was pretty romantic in my eyes!
Things did move along quickly after we first started dating, fast enough that our first son, Marc, was born just a year-and-a-half after we first met, when I was still an amateur. And he proved to be just the first in a long line of Voigts, one that didn’t stop until 2011, when our sixth child, Helen, was born.
I remember Helen’s birth well because I had to miss the team presentation of my newly founded Leopard Trek team. When my teammates left for the first early-season training camp, I was in the maternity ward of our hospital in Berlin.
The father inside me, of course, would not have been anywhere else. There was just no question of where I wanted to be. No matter if it’s your first or your sixth child, every time is special, and it’s never routine.
Our fifth child, Maya, had a very difficult birth. Essentially, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck three times. As a result, every time contractions occurred, she would strangle herself. It was terrible. The midwife sensed that there was trouble, but the doctors waited way too long before coming to the same conclusion.
Right when I went out to get some tea for my wife and some coffee for me, the doctor pushed the alarm button for an emergency c-section. As I stood there in the hall with the tea and coffee in my hand, they rushed by me with my wife into the operating room. About fifteen additional doctors and nurses showed up and everybody was in a rush, so nobody had time to explain anything to me because they were focused on saving my child’s life. I remember it took only seven-and-a-half minutes from the pushing of the alarm button until Maya was born. And yes, even as a non-doctor, I could see that it was a last-second save. Fortunately, Maya was a strong little fighter and she survived, but that night, I thought I might lose both my wife and my baby.
Stephanie recovered a lot quicker than Maya, who had to stay in the hospital for a month. They used a new technology on her. The clinic put her on a cooling bed to slow down the metabolism in order to avoid any damaging swelling of her brain. I had to go home and tell my other four children that everything was going to be fine, that their mum would just be staying in the hospital for a few extra days. Those first days I was driving my wife around the hospital in her hospital bed and, later, in a wheelchair, until she recovered enough that she could walk again.
Back then my day started at 5 am, when I woke and drove straight to the hospital to see my wife and my daughter, reading books to her so she would know that we were there and that she was not alone. I would drive home around 6:30 to wake up the other kids and, together with my mother-in-law, get them ready for school. Afterward I would make some phone calls, answer some emails, or squeeze in an hour on the home trainer with the phone next to me. Then I’d pick up all the kids up from school again, help them with their homework, and in the late afternoon, drive back to the hospital to see my wife and my daughter again. Then it was back home to feed the kids their dinner and get them to bed. After they all fell asleep, I went one last time to the hospital to say goodnight to my wife and my daughter. And all the time I had to keep a smile on my face in front of my other four children so that they wouldn’t be afraid.
After the first night, the doctors said “we hope but cannot guarantee that she will survive.” After five days, they said “she will survive but we don’t know yet if she can hear or see.” After two weeks, the doctors said “we know she can hear because she reacts to noises, but we don’t know if she is able to see.” And after three weeks, they said “we know she will be able to see, but we are not sure yet if she will be able to walk or to speak or write or to attend a normal school.” After Maya was released from hospital, we had to go back there on a daily basis, then every other day, then once a week, once a month. Believe it or not, it was only last year, when Maya started school and was 7 years old, that we finally got released from the special surveillance program and the doctors confirmed what we already knew: that Maya is a perfectly fine and beautiful young girl. My wife and I were really grateful to live in country with great doctors and a great healthcare system. That’s one of the reasons I never moved to Switzerland or Monaco to save on taxes. Taxes in Germany are high because they pay for our hospitals, schools, museums, and police forces. Without taxpayers, we would not have such a great healthcare system, and who knows how it all might have ended up for little Maya. Today she is a beautiful, happy girl, a great lover of animals, and doing great in life. My wife and I know that life has been good to us. It’s been far from easy, but it all turned out absolutely great. And ever since our experience with Maya, we always remember to put things in perspective. Life is all about having the right priorities, isn’t it?!
After that experience, I knew I had to be there for Helen’s birth. The births of my children are the only moments in life when I always cry. I’m a grown-up man. I don’t cry for victories, nothing. But I do cry when each kid arrives. There’s always a tear in my eye. It’s just a special moment. And as much as I love being on the road at the races or at some special event, there’s nothing like turning the key of your house after you’ve been on the road for a week or two and having your kids come running and jumping into your arms. It’s in those moments that you feel most “alive.”
That said, you never can plan on having six children. Sometimes, I do pinch myself and go, “Jensie, what were you thinking?” I remember back in my early days as a professional when I was rooming with Chris Boardman. We talked a lot about the dif
ferences of growing up in a capitalist or communist state, but we also talked a lot about our families. I’ll never forget the time Chris first told me that he already had four children. I just blurted out, “Chris! Are you insane? What are you thinking? Your life is over! Why did you do that?”
And Chris just laughed, shook his head, and said, “Man, you’re just a silly young kid. You don’t know!”
Years later, I remember sending him a text saying, “Hey, Chris, I’m catching up. I’ve got four kids now!”
He responded, “If you could just see Sally [Boardman’s wife] and me laughing right now after you gave me so much grief! Do you remember when you said my life was over?”
And I was like, “Yes, I do remember, Chris. Yes, I do.”
But then the best came after Helen was born. I sent another message to Chris saying, “I’ve got six kids now. I finally caught up!”
He responded, “No, my son. You will always come in second to me. I’m on holiday with my six children and my pregnant wife!” At that point, I just gave up. I never could compete with Chris!
It’s true that I always wanted a big family. I had an older brother and a younger sister. So yes, I wanted to have several kids. But six? Like I said, you can’t plan for that! I remember saying to Stephanie after our third kid, “Hey, maybe we should stop? We have three kids just like my parents had. That was nice.” And then we had four and I said, “Hey, Stephanie, maybe we should stop. Four is nice. We have two boys and two girls. It’s a nice round number.” But as you can see, we just continued!