Paris 2024: Hard work doesn’t always pay off…

In some ways Paris was the opposite of Tokyo. Before Tokyo, I was an amateur, nobody had any expectations of a result (except maybe myself), there was hardly any media interest, zero funding, zero pressure. All these things were different leading into Paris. What hadn’t changed was my passion for the sport and my drive to prepare in the best way I possibly could.

I did prepare for Paris in the best way I could. The preparation was incredibly smooth. A 3-week altitude camp in St. Moritz was the perfect finish, physically I felt in great shape, my equipment was fast. I was ready. Or so I thought.

What I wasn’t ready for was a rainy day and slippery roads through the city of Paris. I had prepared for the summer heat wave, both physically and mentally. Of course, in hindsight it was stupid to make such an implicit assumption on the weather (on the other hand if one starts preparing for all possible scenarios, one can also go crazy quite quickly (especially if one has to handle most stuff on one’s own)).

Anyway, the Olympic time trial was a big disappointment. I crashed in one of the roundabouts, like so many other riders, hurting my elbow quite badly, and barely able to finish the race. I did finish it, but not in a way that I would call “racing”.

Unfortunately the consequences of the crash meant that I was also not in great shape for the Olympic road race a few days later. It was hard to deal with this challenging experience, and the media attention didn’t help at all.

Overall, I still take so many positives and valuable lessons from this year. Maybe it allowed me to return to my values even more, and these are not defined by shiny medals. We tend to judge success purely on an outcome-basis, but sometimes the outcome is beyond one’s control. I’m proud of the work I put in.

That’s it. On to another Olympic period of working hard, controling the controlables, and hoping that in the end things will align to also get a result.