23rd Jul 2008
The Young Man to Garmin!
Well Christian's got big news - he's landed himself a stagiare deal with Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H3O (whew, that's a mouthful). We couldn't be more proud and happy for Christian. It has always been our goal to develop Canadian Cycling and our own talent. Ideally that means our team grows at the same rate as our athletes, but if we can't do that we are proud to see them move on.
Let's be blunt, Garmin is in the Tour de France right now, that's the pinnacle of the sport and we have to admit we are not there. We're not going to stand in the way of a 23 year old kid's opportunity to be a part of that team. When you start bike racing you dream of riding on teams like that. And we are proud that teams like that look at teams like ours for emerging talent - it validates what we are doing and the choices we are making with our guys and the races we do. Of course we're now on the hunt for the next emerging Christian. We wish the young man all the best and hope it works out in 2009.
For those who don't know, a 'stagiare' role is like a try-out. Garmin isn't making a commitment to Christian for 2009 just yet. He's gotta prove himself. But we know he's got the right character to mix well with that team. His athletic ability isn't at question. And he has the same values about clean sport that is central to Slipstream Sports.
For Christian this is the third great thing that's happened to him in three weeks. First the Nationals win, then he got engaged to his lady friend, and now the Garmin deal. Bad thing for us is we may just have to race against the young man in Missouri this fall!
Finally, we think it's great that he'll be wearing the maple leaf jersey in Europe. Ryder had the TT jersey this year and Christian will keep it rolling. I think the last time the road jersey was over there in the big show was 1997 with Steve Rover? It will be pretty special to see it in the Giro di Lombardia - if that race works out as planned on Christian's schedule. I may just have to make another trip over to lake Como to see that.
Czeslaw Lukascewicz was Canadian Champ in 1999 and 2000. He '99/00 he rode for Wüstenrot-ZVVZ
and then in 2001 in rode for Servisco. I'm not sure what your definition of big show is, but Czeslaw was a Canadian Champ riding for European teams.
Hey Lance, thanks for your comments. I know Czeslaw pretty well and didn't know about Servisco?
You are right and I didn't mean to dismiss Chester's results. However, I'm not sure he ever got to ride one of the big monuments of cycling in the jersey? If all goes as planned Christian will ride the Tour of Lombardy. Czeslaw also spent most of his time riding here in North America when he was on those teams. I remember, I was racing him then :)
Mark Walters wore the jersey in Europe a bit with Navigators too - in 2002.
In 2003 Dominique Perras was riding for the Belgian team Flanders-IteamNova when he won the jersey… I'm sure he likely went back to Europe and rode some races.
So there we go. I might have overstated. There's our Canadians who have ridden pro in Europe with the maple leaf: Czeslaw, Mark, Dom and Steve (Rover).
Congratulations to Christian, and to Symmetrics! It will be great to see more Canadians in the big races, and it is even better that a team like Symmetrics can help cultivate young talent, even as the team grows and gets stronger. Rock on!