Given his 7th overall finish in this year’s Tour de France, you might think it’s been smooth-sailing all year for NetApp-Endura’s Leopold König, but almost from day one this season, things have not exactly gone according to plan for the rising Czech star. Having battled through a knee injury early in the year and a tough bout with illness more recently, 26-year-old König is now stateside to participate in the USA Pro Challenge, and he battled spotty reception in the Colorado mountains (much to the gratitude of VeloHuman) to answer a few questions about his fight to overcome one obstacle after another on his way to some fantastic results on the sport’s biggest stage, and what lies ahead for the rest of the year.
König closed out his 2013 season on a high note, notching a stage win and 9th overall at the Vuelta a España, delivering the kind of performance for Pro Continental squad NetApp-Endura that announced to everyone just how deserving they were of a wildcard invitation. With an invite to ride in the Tour de France in 2014, it was fairly obvious what NetApp-Endura’s plan would be: build a team around this fast-rising talent to support his GC ambitions and again prove themselves worthy of their wildcard invite.
With the sport’s main event on the horizon, König set out to build his form over the early months to be at his best for the big race in July, but just as the season began, his plans were derailed by a nagging knee injury.
“Ligament issues,” he told VeloHuman. “It wasn’t too serious but the problem was the healing process lasted so long, and the only way to fix it was to relax the knee and not put any pressure on it. So that was very frustrating because we didn’t know how long it would last and finally it was more than one month, it was actually a long time.”
Any plans to target a particular aspect of his skillset for improvement in training went out the window.
“To be honest, there wasn’t much time to get specific training in, and we had to adjust a lot of training because I was one month off the bike and it was just a race with time to get to the Tour in time and to get prepared,” he said. “I actually just did one real training block in the Sierra Nevada that was more focused on climbing, and then I went to Bayern and the Dauphiné. So there wasn’t really much time to get specific training in for the Tour.”
As might be expected, not being able to prepare for the biggest goal of his career was not easy for König.
“I tried to stay relaxed and not really think about it but it was pretty hard to manage mentally because, as I mentioned, we didn’t know when I would be able to train properly, or when I would be able to race,” he explained. “I tried to stay relaxed but there were moments when it wasn’t really easy. But finally it worked out.”
At last on his way back to recovery (he finished 4th at the Bayern Rundfahrt and 11th at the Critérium du Dauphiné), König took on his very first Tour de France with the added expectations that come with being a team leader.
“Everything was much bigger, all the pressure, the media attention, and the things around are just bigger than the Giro and Vuelta, but we went into the Tour with a strong team and we wanted to prove to the organizers that the wildcard we got was worth it,” he said.
König’s Tour campaign itself got off to a rocky start. He lost more time than many of his GC rivals on the cobbles and then crashed hard on Stage 8, losing several minutes. At the end of Stage 9 he was already more than nine minutes off the lead and sitting in 28th place. However, from then on he put in one great ride after another (including a 3rd place performance on Stage 13), climbing higher and higher up the GC leaderboard as the Tour became more mountainous. König attributes his strong second half to his endurance and his ability to get into a groove.
“I think that’s just the way my body is built,” he said. “I’ve done just 2 Grand Tours but I can feel that every week I’m improving and feeling better. The first ten days of the Tour were especially hard and unlucky for me but then I just started to feel day by day more relaxed and powerful.”
By the penultimate stage of the race, König had soared all the way to 9th place, but a stellar time trial catapulted him even higher. He jumped to 7th overall in the Stage 20 ITT, to the surprise of many, though König himself had been anticipating success in the chrono all along.
“To be honest I expected that. I looked forward to this TT as it was supposed to suit me well. And finally you know that’s the last real stage of the Tour and the race is almost done so I really wanted to enjoy it,” he said.
In spite of an inability to train as planned in the run-up to the race, and further difficulty in the first few stages of the Tour de France, König finished 7th overall, among some very impressive company. Now with two Grand Tour Top 10s under his belt, he has cemented his status as one of the sport’s brightest young GC talents. After a short rest period following the Tour, König is now focused on a few late-season goals. He is currently racing in the USA Pro Challenge, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, this part of the season has not been without difficulties of its own, difficulties that saw him lose time on the opening day of the Pro Challenge, though he still has ambitions for the racing that remains.
“On the way to Colorado I got some virus and spent two days in bed with fever so my GC ambitions are gone but I want to try to win at least one stage,” König said. “After Colorado I’m supposed to race the Tour of Britain, which I really like.”
Somewhere in between all the racing, König has also had to find time to think about his future. He’s in the final year of his contract with NetApp-Endura, and having notched so much success (and shown some serious mental toughness battling difficulties along the way) over the past two years, he has plenty of suitors hoping to win his services in 2015 and beyond. While several big-name riders have signed in the past few weeks, König has taken his time weighing offers, but that may be about to change.
“Things are moving ahead now so it’s going to be sorted out very soon,” he said.
After delivering Top 10 performances in his first two Grand Tours, König’s impending decision will be closely watched around the sport. Having established himself as a capable GC contender not easily deterred from his goals, Leopold König is certain to make waves in whatever team kit he is wearing in 2015.
-Dane Cash
Photos by TNE/BrakeThrough Media.
