Riding hands-free, accepting drinking bottles, putting on a rain jacket – when Anton Palzer swapped his skis for a racing bike in 2021, he had to learn the basics of cycling. Now he drives at the Giro.
Somehow it’s still a dream for Anton Palzer to be on the starting line at the Giro d’Italia with stars like Geraint Thomas or Primoz Roglic. It was less than three years ago that the Bavarian was still trudging up the mountains on skis, and quite successfully at that.
As a ski mountaineer, Palzer had many successes and even became vice world champion. Until one day, team boss Ralph Denk from the Bora-hansgrohe racing team came up with a crazy idea and made a switch to cycling tempting for him.
The crazy idea became reality. Palzer has long since arrived in cycling and was part of the Giro for the first time as a helper in the team around the German hopeful Lennard Kämna. “Send Christopher Froome to a ski race or tell him to run over the Watzmann in less than three hours. That won’t work in a year or two, so I’m super happy with my process,” says Palzer, who “completely had to clear many “stones” out of the way. “If you start with 0.0 percent cycling experience in the Champions League, it’s not easy.”
Basics had to be practiced
He definitely had the physical requirements, but the rest… “I experienced what we practiced with him at the beginning: accepting bottles, putting on a rain jacket in a side wind, driving hands-free. Those were the basics,” remembers Denk and adds: “Talking on the radio, putting seven bottles under your jersey. That was all new territory for him. It’s impressive that he made it here. Great cinema.”
In 2017 Denk had seen Palzer’s victory in a ski mountaineering world cup in China in an ARD report and then invited the extreme athlete to a training camp. The manager was particularly impressed by the fact that Palzer achieved an enormous value of 92 for maximum oxygen uptake on skis. And the career changer did not disappoint. “Whether the victories will come at some point is a look into the crystal ball,” added Denk.
In addition to Palzer, a number of athletes have dared to switch to cycling – and managed to do so. The most prominent example is Roglic, the former ski jumper. Palzer’s compatriot Jason Osborne comes from rowing, where he once won the world title. He recently contested his first spring classic at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Different disciplines
Palzer finds it difficult to compare the two sports. “Cycling is harder for me because I learned to ski. There are different disciplines. Cycling is very tactical, which ski mountaineering is not. Ski mountaineering is definitely more technical,” says the 30-year-old.
Two years ago, the man from Ramsauer drove a three-week tour at the Vuelta. “I was completely inexperienced. I was a koan professional cyclist. I couldn’t help the team very much because I rode my first bike race five months earlier. It was like throwing a little baby into the water. Swim or sink.”
Palzer did not go under and should now help Kämna in the difficult third week of the Giro to secure a top ten place. He is familiar with the terrain. “When I think of the 19th stage, I once won the Drei-Zinnen-Lauf, which is one of the biggest mountain runs. Now I’m going up there with my bike,” says Palzer, who puts his own ambitions at the back. And when Rome is reached, the future can be discussed because his contract is expiring. But team boss Denk gives him hope: “I still have no arguments that it won’t go on.”
Source: Stern
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