Rolf Aldag

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Aldag at the German Road Championship 2004

Rolf Aldag (born August 25, 1968 in Beckum ) is a sports manager and former German racing cyclist .

Cyclist

Rolf Aldag was a versatile and fast-paced driver who was valued as a good team helper with a great tactical flair. He was also successful on the track , so he won a. a. eight times the six-day races in Dortmund, twice in Berlin. After success as an amateur a . a. with the road foursome at the UCI road world championships in 1989 as third and in 1990 he moved from his club team RC Olympia Dortmund to the professional camp for the Swiss cycling team Helvetia-La Suisse .

At the "Around the Henninger Tower Race" (2000)

In 1993 he moved to Team Telekom . For this team he did all Grand Tours . He took part ten times in the Tour de France alone , six times in the Vuelta a España and once in the Giro d'Italia . In particular, he was part of the team for the 1996 Tour de France for overall winner Bjarne Riis and for the 1997 Tour de France for overall winner Jan Ullrich , which also won the team championship. Aldag was also involved in the green jersey of Erik Zabel in 1996, 1997 and 1998 , with his characteristic combines a friendship.

In the Tour de France 2003 he had to admit defeat on the difficult seventh stage from Lyon to Morzine, only Richard Virusque . As runner-up in the mountain classification , he was allowed to drive the following famous stage to L'Alpe d'Huez in the dotted jersey, as Virenque, who was leading in this classification, was already wearing the yellow jersey of the overall leader.

He had a special relationship with the classic Paris – Roubaix , a race that he by no means loved, because: “Anyone who says they love it tells nonsense,” says Rolf Aldag of Paris-Roubaix, because: “It's actually nonsense and not a cycling race, but modern gladiatorialism. ”In 1995 , 1997 and 2003 he took ninth place at Paris-Roubaix. He achieved his best classics placement in the 2004 Tour of Flanders in seventh place.

Aldag's most important successes include the German Road Championship in 2000 , the overall classification victories at the Hofbräu Cup in 1994 and the Bayern Tour in 1999, as well as stage wins at the Tour de Romandie in 1993, the Tour de Suisse in 1997 and the Germany Tour in 1999 and 2001 . On the Germany Tour 2001 he was also third overall.

He drove his last international road race in October 2005 at the Tour of Lombardy . The following winter he contested his last six-day race in Berlin .

2006 marathon, triathlon, farewell race

A few months after his career as a professional cyclist, Rolf Aldag ran a time of 2:42:54 h over the marathon distance of 42.195 kilometers at the Hamburg Marathon in April 2006. The plan to run the marathon resulted from a bet with his friend and supervisor Wolfgang Berrens.

At the Ironman Lanzarote , Aldag achieved a time of 10:22:14 h on May 20, 2006. On the toughest bike course of all Ironman events (180 km, 2500 meters in altitude with often strong winds), the professional triathlete and former owner of the course record Thomas Hellriegel and former professional cyclist and teammate Kai Hundertmarck were among his competitors. Aldag qualified with his time for the Ironman Hawaii 2006, where he did not start because he had not trained enough for professional reasons.

Aldag competed on April 29, 2006 in a farewell race organized by his home club, in which numerous well-known drivers such as Erik Zabel and Jens Voigt took part. The route of the circuit race was the same as in Aldag's first race, where he finished sixth as a 12-year-old and won the following year.

Sports manager since 2006

After his sports career, Aldag initially worked in communications management at T-Mobile before becoming the new sports director of the T-Mobile team on November 1, 2006 . Together with team manager Bob Stapleton , he replaced the previous team management around Olaf Ludwig and Mario Kummer after the sponsor T-Mobile lost confidence in the previous sporting management in connection with the Fuentes doping scandal . The team, which was renamed Team High Road after the sponsor's withdrawal in 2007 , should, according to Aldag, combine active doping avoidance with success and was one of the most successful in international road cycling until the end of the 2011 season , in particular through numerous stage victories of Mark Cavendish

2007 confession of doping

In the course of the doping confessions of Bert Dietz , Christian Henn , Brian Holm and Udo Bölts , Rolf Aldag also admitted regular EPO doping at a press conference called on May 24, 2007, in which Erik Zabel also admitted doping . In part, he injected himself with EPO. Aldag also confessed that he had lied to the public for years. Team manager Bob Stapleton announced that Aldag could continue to work as athletic director. The series of confessions was triggered by the revelations of the carer Jef D'Hont in his book "Memoires van een wieler-verzorger" ("Memories of a cyclist carer") published in April 2007 and the great media coverage that followed the book publication.

On October 3, 2011 it was announced that Aldag was taking over the position of Managing Director Germany of the World Triathlon Corporation . Aldag was responsible for the prestigious Ironman Germany event in Frankfurt am Main. At the end of 2012, Aldag left his position as manager of the World Triathlon Corporation for personal reasons.

Aldag switched back to cycling for the 2013 season as a sports and development manager for the Omega Pharma-Quickstep team , to which Cavendish also switched. In October 2015, the team (now called Etixx-Quick Step ) announced the amicable separation from Aldag, who switched to the Dimension Data team . Cavendish also moved to this team.

For the 2020 season, Aldag left the Dimension Data team, as did Cavendish. He switched to the German UCI Women's WorldTeam Canyon SRAM Racing as the new Sports Director .

Others

  • Together with his teammates, he received the Bambi Media Prize in the year Jan Ullrich won the tour in 1997 and was honored with the Silver Laurel Leaf .
  • During the Tour de France 2003, the documentary film Hell Tour was made , in which director Pepe Danquart Aldag and Erik Zabel accompanied during the tour.
  • During the Tour de France 2005 and 2006 he worked as a co-commentator and expert for ZDF .
  • The father of three lives with his family on a farm in Westphalia.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Holger Pauler: The shadow man. In: taz.de . July 5, 2004, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b “A deep admiration for these men”. In: FAZ.net . July 15, 2014, accessed February 2, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Leichtathletik.de of April 25, 2006: Rolf Aldag - A marathon is followed by a triathlon
  4. ↑ speedalliance.net: Rolf Aldag and the Hamburg Marathon ( Memento from February 22, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed on November 4, 2012.
  5. ↑ Successful triathlon premiere on aldags-sehen.de , accessed on November 4, 2012.
  6. ↑ tri2b.com from September 20, 2006: Aldag not to Hawaii ( Memento from February 4, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  7. ^ "Adieu Rolf" - the farewell race for Rolf Aldag , accessed on November 2, 2012.
  8. ↑ a b c general-anzeiger-bonn.de of September 30, 2006: "We don't want success at any price"
  9. ↑ spiegel.de of May 24, 2007: "Zabel and Aldag - doping confession with tears"
  10. ↑ dnf-is-no-option.com of October 3, 2011: "Rolf Aldag new Managing Director for Ironman in Germany"
  11. ↑ fr-online.de of September 18, 2012: Aldag stops
  12. ↑ radsport-news.com from October 25th, 2012: Aldag returns to cycling
  13. ↑ Rainer Seele: New Dimension: Major attack at sprint speed . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 5, 2015, p. 40.
  14. ↑ Transfer hammer! Aldag follows Cavendish to Dimension Data. In: radsport-news.com. April 23, 2015, accessed November 2, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Aldag becomes Sports Director at Canyon - SRAM. In: radsport-news.com. December 19, 2019, accessed December 19, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Aldag, Rolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cyclist and sports manager
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Beckum