Uno-X shuts down cycling switch rumours for Norwegian Olympic legend
After dominating the Winter Olympics in Italy with an unprecedented six gold medals, Johannes Klaebo has once again sparked curiosity about a possible move from cross country skiing to cycling. But inside the Uno-X camp, the message is clear: the Norwegian star is not about to swap skis for wheels any time soon.
The speculation is not new. Klaebo has long been linked to Uno-X through sponsorship, and he has occasionally trained with the team’s riders.
Last summer, while visiting Uno-X at the Tour de France, he posted an Instagram clip that inevitably set tongues wagging. “First I need to do the Olympic Games, and then we’ll see,” Klaebo said. “After that I’ll really start thinking about what I want to do. Maybe signing with Uno-X should be the next goal.”
For cycling fans, that was enough. When an athlete like him starts talking about new goals, people pay attention. Six gold medals in Milano Cortina only made the rumours louder.
The Belgian Uno-X sports director Gino Van Oudenhove, however, is keen to keep the idea in perspective. “Social media is social media,” he said, playing down any suggestion that a contract is quietly in the works. “If something like that happens, we’ll jump on it. But it is absolutely not the intention that he goes racing.”
Since the Olympics, Klaebo has also shifted the focus back to what comes next on skis. During the Milano Cortina Games he made clear that the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps is already on his radar, suggesting the immediate plan is to stay in his own sport and build further on his record.
If Klaebo were to make the switch after all, he certainly would not be the only rider in the peloton with a background in cross country skiing. Norwegian talent Jørgen Nordhagen of Visma | Lease a Bike was a junior world champion in the discipline before ultimately committing fully to a career in cycling.
Van Oudenhove did acknowledge that Norway’s endurance culture makes crossover talk easier to imagine than in most countries. He even pointed to football club Bodø Glimt as a wider example of Norway’s sporting rise, sharing a detail that underlined just how deep that aerobic base can run.
“The striker of Bodø Glimt, Kasper Høgh, once beat Klaebo in cross country skiing when they were 15,” he said. “In Norway we are a step further with endurance sports. You saw it in smaller sports, now also in bigger sports.”
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