Rambazamba has been cancelled, as has Remmidemmi. For the time being, Lennard Kämna will no longer stir up the peloton in these style forms, as he did so regularly. Last week in Italy, the planned transformation of the North German racing driver was easy to see. How in Tirreno-Adriatico he didn’t attack in individual stages, but stayed patiently and persistently in the group of favorites every day. In the race finals of the tough long-distance drive, it was not uncommon for her face to be contorted in pain on mountain roads with plenty of snow at the edges.
The most important finding of the seven-day race that ended on Sunday afternoon: it seems possible that the 26-year-old professional from the German team Bora-hansgrohe will go from being an aggressive driver who aims for individual day successes to becoming a serious competitor in the fight for the rankings.
Kämna, after even wearing the blue jersey of the leader in the overall standings, finished the long-distance race in a strong fourth place. “All in all I have to be satisfied with the last few days. My form is good. There was just that last bit missing, the last few percent to the very front,” said Kämna, who as a stage hunter has already had victories in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. Of course, there was nothing he could do against the show of the Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Team Jumbo-Visma), who was able to win three difficult stages in a row from Thursday to Saturday and thus also the tour on Sunday.
“It went very well for Lenny and absolutely in the right direction,” said Bora team boss Ralph Denk in an interview with the FAZ. For the first time in his time with the Raubliner team, Kämna spent almost two and a half weeks in a high-altitude training camp on Tenerife in February. It was important to Denk that the work at height not only benefits him, but that he can also derive an increase in performance from it.
At the 11.5-kilometer time trial at the start, the lightweight surprisingly finished second. As a junior, Kämna was once world champion in this discipline, but then as a professional no longer prioritized the fight against the clock. But good time trial skills are an important building block for ambitious tour riders. Especially when it comes to Kämna’s next big goal: the Giro d’Italia, the course of which includes plenty of time trial kilometers this year.
“I think I still have room for improvement,” said Kämna at the start of the season. “I’m still not there to say: I’m one of the top ten best climbers in the world.” This came true in the well-known Tirreno-Adriatico. But the man from the north German lowlands was also competitive on the Italian climbs. “It’s a shame that it wasn’t enough for the podium,” said Denk. “But who knows what that’s good for.”
Experienced deep personal crises
At Bora-hansgrohe, they make sure not to overload Kämna with expectations. Because the brooding disposition of the highly gifted has already gone through deep personal crises twice in his career. Most recently, in 2021, the drive for his sport was gone for months. He got lost, lived his life wrong, didn’t appreciate success and took setbacks too hard, he said. “We learned a lot as a team from him and through him. He gets a lot of trust and the stability he needs,” says Denk, who had extended Kämna’s contract until the end of 2024.
At the Giro, Kämna is to tackle the classification for the first time in a three-week tour. Of course, he shouldn’t bear the burden as the sole captain, teammate Alexander Vlasov also gets full support in the race. Especially since the German team is contesting the Tour of Italy as the defending champion after last year’s triumph by Jay Hindley (starts this summer on the tour).
Protected by his colleagues as a class driver: Lennard Kämna (in blue) in the Bora-hansgrohe team
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Image: dpa
So it’s started what many cycling fans in this country have been hoping for for a long time: that Kämna will channel his enormous talent down the most difficult path that there is in cycling. “The air is very thin up there,” says Denk. “Being a free spirit on the bike like before and attacking spectacularly is not compatible with the new path. He and we are aware of that – and hopefully his fans are too.”