Rolf Wolfshohl

Rolf Wolfshohl

Rolf Wolfshohl (2014)
To person
Nickname	Le Loup
Date of birth	December 27, 1938
nation	Germany
discipline	Cross country , road
Team (s)
1960 1961 1962 1963–1964 1965–1966 1967–1969 1970–1971 1972	Rapha-Gitane-Dunlop Peugeot-BP-Dunlop Gitane-Leroux-Dunlop-R. Geminiani Peugeot-BP-Englebert Mercier-BP-Hutchinson Bic Fagor-Mercier Rokado
Most important successes
Cyclo-cross sports 1960, 1961, 1963 : - World Championships Road racing 1965 : Vuelta a España 1968 : Paris – Nice
Team (s) as sporting director
1973-1976	Rocado
Last updated: April 25, 2015

Rolf Wolfshohl (born December 27, 1938 in Cologne ) is a former German racing cyclist . During his professional career in the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the most successful athletes in Germany.

biography

Youth and education

Rolf Wolfshohl grew up in the Buchheim district of Cologne . During the Second World War , the family - mother with two children - was evacuated to Jena , the father died in the last days of the war. In 1947 the family returned to Cologne. At the age of 14 he began an apprenticeship as a cutting machine operator at Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz in Cologne-Mülheim . Every day he rode his bike to work; On the way, Wolfshohl, who was considered unsportsmanlike at school and had also got a "five" in sport, saw the cyclists from RC Tempo Mülheim who were training on the Merheimer Heide and began to get enthusiastic about cycling. He joined the club, his first equipment was loaned to him. His role model was Jupp Arents , German champion from 1938, under whom he also trained.

Athletic career

In 1956, Rolf Wolfshohl was German youth champion in road racing , two years later German champion of the elite in cross-country racing (bike cross). At the instigation of Otto Weckerling , the boss of the Dortmund six-day race , Wolfshohl was supposed to be brought onto the track . But at his only six-day start, he gave up the race and from then on concentrated on cross-country races. For a more intensive occupation with the cyclo-cross sport, he became a member of the Luxembourg club UC du Nord for a while and competed in many races in Luxembourg.

Wolfshohl's greatest goal, however, was a victory in the Tour de France , in which he started nine times between 1962 and 1972 and where - derived from his name - he was respectfully called le loup . In 1967 and 1970 he won one stage each. In 1968 he wore the yellow jersey for two days and finished sixth, his best place in the overall standings after falling during the race.

In total, he was German champion 14 times in the course of his career, 13 times in cross-country races and once, in 1968, in road races. In 1960 he won the first of three world titles in cross-country; In total, he won twelve World Cup medals. His greatest successes in road cycling were the victory at the Vuelta a España in 1965 and at Paris – Nice 1968. In the cycling monuments , he was able to place second twice: 1962 at Liège – Bastogne – Liège and 1963 at Milan – Sanremo . In 1973 he contested his final race.

Wolfshohl was considered to be a hyper-nervous and individualistic person, whose character traits caused difficulties in his teams.

Family and work

Wolfshohl's son Rolf-Dieter (1960–2011) was also a cyclist. At the German road championships in 1984 he broke a cervical vertebra in a mass fall and has been paralyzed to the neck ever since. He died on November 13, 2011.

After the end of his active cycling career , Rolf Wolfshohl was the sporting director of the Rokado cycling team . From 1995 to 2000 he was honorary sports director of the race around Cologne . Together with his wife, he runs a cycling shop with a frame construction workshop (brand "rowona"), which was initially located in Cologne-Rath and is now based in Cologne-Neubrück (as of 2015). He lives in the Bergisches Land and cycles to work every day. He is committed to the next generation of cyclists in the RSC "le loup" .

In 1997 Wolfshohl was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Grand Tours placements

Grand Tour	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969	1970	1971
Vuelta a España	-	-	-	-	1	-	15th	-	6th	DNF	20th
Giro d'Italia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tour de France	-	15th	DNF	-	DNF	39	31	6th	-	37	71

Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Web links

Commons : Rolf Wolfshohl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Rolf Wolfshohl in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Rolf Wolfshohl in the Tour de France database(French / English )
• Rolf Wolfshohl in the Memoire du Cyclisme database (French)
• Official website of Rowona
• ?? Cross-sport has become more attractive "- Interview with Rolf Wolfshohl. In: rad-net.de. March 25, 2013, accessed on April 25, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Verena Koll: "The world champion with the five in sport". Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , November 18, 2014
2. ↑ ^{a b} Cycling4Fans - Portraits: Ex-Pros: Wolfshohl, Rolf. In: cycling4fans.de. Retrieved April 25, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Cycling: Cycling . Ed .: Association of German Cyclists. No. 7/1962 . Deutscher Sportverlag Kurt Stoof, Cologne 1962, p. 7 .
4. ↑ Rolf-Dieter Wolfshohl died on radsport-news.com v. November 13, 2011
5. ↑ Rowona.de. About us . Retrieved June 27, 2020.