Cycling in Germany: Grand Depart 2017 | Deutschland Tour Returns | inCycle

We hear from the likes of John Degenkolb in our feature that looks ahead to next year’s Grand Depart in Dusseldorf and the return of the Deutschland Tour, signs that Germany is falling back in love with pro cycling after a few difficult years.

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cycling was really uh in a bad place in Germany and um was not easy uh becoming a pro in the first place and then also uh yeah always having these questions or having uh that that really bad image um as a professional cyclist which uh was not my fault but the the fault of the generation before me and yeah there was uh not the best time to to be a pro cyclist but now it’s much better for a German like zimon Gesa being a professional cyclist has been a frustrating business in the last 10 years boasting some of the fastest men in the peltin German winners haven’t exactly been in short supply of late what has been is support from home everybody was crazy about cycling and this really went until you know 2005 2006 and then when all the the Affairs came up all everybody was talking about doping and also our big star fell the deception was really high in Germany so we could see it immediately in our spectator in our spectator ratings we also at that time broadcasted the the late German tour for 8 years and also there the the numbers dropped so much that well anyway they organized and we had to stop nobody was watching it anymore but at the end we stopped in 2011 as cycling dropped off Public Television over the next three tours the 16 German stage wins would go virtually unnoticed in their Homeland that was until Marcel K and then teammate John de Corb stepped in to try to persuade TV to return to the tour we just gave our input and uh tried to convince them that uh yeah the fans uh the fans definitely want to see what we are doing here in France and um we see ourself of course in a in a position which where we have a lot of responsibility and we try to be a good example all the time and um that’s what we are doing and um I’m happy to to have Ard back broadcasting the tour and I also hope that they will extend the contracts because now after this tour is it’s ending the contract and uh next year we have uh the start in Germany so I think the signs are pretty good but uh there’s no decision yet what I uh so far as I concerned last year we came back with our live coverage and we are not live the whole day but we do always doing the last 2 hours and yeah and the spectators are they are coming back but it takes some time of course they weren’t used we were away for 3 years uh and then we came back and now they it’s it’s going slightly going back again it takes some time but we don’t have one who is riding against Christopher FR which would help us a lot the Germans have good sprinters but that’s it at the moment it’s hard to to imagine public TV won’t be back again next year particularly with the tours grandapa in dorf in addition the organization behind the tour ASO is bringing back another casualty of Germany’s troubled years the Deutschland tour returns in 2018 Germany is a very important country in Europe in the world and Europe that’s the same for sports you can’t think about sport in Europe with Germany 10 years ago 15 years ago there was such a passion for sighting for the H in Germany last time we went there with with stages in 2005 there were huge crowds enthusiasm it was just unbelievable and Unforgettable after the bad years all disappeared and now I’m very happy I’m glad I’m proud to say it’s there is a rebirth there will be the rebirth of of the tour of Germany and uh I’m quite sure we will have again these huge crowds we had in Germany Germany 10 or 15 years ago it was Yorkshire what’s more Germany could soon have a second world tour team Bora argon 18 even with pet San cycling’s biggest personality confirmed to be joining them the boss still hopes they can stay German for me is important the German core and the German values and the German structures uh and we would like to set up our team next year of the roots what we have already we would like to send the application to the UCI but the final decision is in the UCI but I’m very optimistic we can fulfill all our the the criterias what we have to do and yeah then uh if we have the license we are part of the first division in cycling for sure it’s uh nice for Germany then we have two teams in Germany and we have also the Grande par next year and uh in 2018 the deut tour uh coming back so from this point um yeah all very positive for uh the chman [Music]