A few days before the end of the 112nd Tour de France, the chances are good that with Florian Lipowitz a German cyclist behind Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard will be on the podium. However, his coach John Wakefield does not want to know anything about comparisons with cycling legend Jan Ullrich.
“Personally, I don’t think it is fair to build up such a pressure on Lipo. He is still very young, especially when we look at his training and racing experience,” emphasized the Director of Development at the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe racing team, in “Sport1” interview: “The last thing we want to do is to build even exaggerated pressure.”
The “better approach” is to “think about how we can support him as a country or as fans, that he can grow into such a role instead of saying that he has to do it,” continued the 48-year-old about his protégé, who is causing a sensation for his first tour de France.
Lipowitz better than Pogacar and Vingegaard at some point?
Nevertheless, Wakefield still trusts the 24-year-old a lot for the future: “Especially because he does not ride a bike for so long, we can still get a lot out of it. He has not yet physiologically reached his peak. From this point of view, exciting years are still waiting for us in which we can tease out more.”
However, the South African does not want to speculate whether it will be enough for the first German tour triumph since Ullrich in 1997.
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“As his trainer, of course, I would like him to do it,” said Wakefield: “It is difficult to predict something like that. For example, we look at Jonas Vingegaard. It was written everywhere before this year’s tour that he had the best form of his career and that the team has a great strategy.