'Even if you're old as a cow, you can still learn' – Lennart Jasch's path from speed skating to pro cycling

Lennart Jasch was as surprised as anyone else to find himself fielding questions in the winner’s press conference after stage 4 of the Tour of the Alps in Trento. His Tudor team came here to retain Michael Storer’s overall title, and he confessed to a touch of imposter syndrome when he took a seat in the press room.

“They brought me here to support Michael to win the GC again, and hopefully he does, but now I’m sitting here giving an interview, not him,” Jasch smiled. “That feels a bit wrong…”

This day last year, Jasch had abandoned this very race on the road to Obertilliach, broken by the harshness of the weather and the route. On Thursday, the German mastered the toughest leg of the Tour of the Alps, joining the early escape on the Passo Bordala, dropping his breakaway companions on the final climb to Povo and then holding off the favourites on the run-in to Trento.

“I did this race for the first time last year and the weather wasn’t on my side,” Jasch said. “I completely bombed on the fourth stage, and I needed to abandon the race. And now, I’m sitting here on the fourth stage as the winner… That shows how much happened in the last year.”

Then again, a lot of things have happened very quickly in Jasch’s cycling life to this point. Growing up near Rosenheim in Bavira, his first sporting love was speed skating, and he was part of the German national team until 2023, when a muscular injury interrupted his career. His rehabilitation included cycling, and he was encouraged by his efforts in some virtual races. “I noticed, oh shit, I’m actually quite good at cycling, at least from the watts point of view,” Jasch said.

Those numbers caught the attention of Dan Lorang, head of performance at Red Bull, and he drafted Jasch into their development squad last season. He competed with the elite squad on occasion, including at the Tour of the Alps, where current race leader Giulio Pellizzari was among his teammates.

“I really, really liked it and it was super fun, even though I had to learn so much,” Jasch said, turning to Pellizzari as he recalled their time together at a Mallorca training camp at the beginning of last year. “I can also remember when I came back from Mallorca with you in the plane and we were talking about this exact race and you told me how insanely hard it was… I think I’ve had quite a steep learning curve in the last two and a half years.” 

The 25-year-old has been absorbing the lessons quickly. He won overall title at Giro della Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia last year before moving to Tudor last winter. Although Jasch is technically registered to Tudor’s development set-up, he has featured regularly with the elite squad this season.

“I did lot of strength training and things that the usual cyclist doesn’t do, so maybe this helped today,” he said when asked what attributes he had brought with him from his old sport. “And in my case, speed skating was six and a half to seven minutes of full focus, and that’s pretty much what the decisive climb at the end was today.”

Jasch is, incidentally, not the only former skater in the Tudor squad this week. French hope Mathys Rondel – currently sixth overall – also has a background in the sport, having competed as both a speed skater and in-line skater before switching to cycling at 17. Jasch’s late arrival in cycling means that, at least in theory, he has ample margin for improvement.

“There is a German saying, and I will translate it now, but I don’t know if it makes sense: Even if you’re old as a cow, you can still learn,” Jasch joked. “And I think that’s true for everyone. No matter how old you are, you can always learn something. 

“I think even Giulio can learn something, and for sure, I have way less experience than him, so my room to learn is probably a lot bigger. Time will tell how much you can learn, but when I look back how much I’ve already done in those two years, it’s incredible. 

“It’s probably almost impossible to say how much I still can learn. Maybe we need to wait and then we’ll sit here in again in another year and then we’ll another story.”