GINO MÄDER - THE FUN REPORT

SWITZERLAND’ S GINO MÄDER HAD A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR IN 2021, WITH A STAGE WIN AT THE GIRO. HOWEVER, IT WAS HIS FIFTH PLACE AT THE VUELT A WHICH REALLY CAPTIVATED THE ATTENTION.  PROCYCLING FOLLOWED HIM THROUGH THE SPANISH GRAND TOUR

Procycling / December 2021  #53

Writer: Kate Wagner

Images: Cor Vos. 

Long before he would take a bow, clad in the white jersey, on the podium in the shadow of the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, long before he would rise in clever, frenetic fashion to fifth on GC in the Vuelta a España, Gino Mäder rolled to a halt at the foot of a different cathedral in Burgos, the evening light pooling shadows in its high-Gothic tendrils and spirals. Big disc wheel slowing, whomp, whomp, whomp, he stopped when called and coughed into his fist from the dry heat.

“You cut your hair,” I observed. We had never spoken before, and this was an easy opener, the absence of Mäder’s familiar head of afro-like curls. He laughed.

“I had to do something to help with the heat.”

“Did it help?”

He shook his head. “No.”

A pause. “Though maybe I will profit on the last stage.” The time trial. Even in the beginning, Mäder was thinking about what could be wrestled from the long days of the Vuelta. But at the moment, Gino Mäder stood in the mixed zone in Burgos, complaining about the heat and insisting, with a characteristic intensity, that he was no more than a domestique for Mikel Landa. However even then, I – and I suspect many others as well – knew that the young Swiss, 24, coming off his first grand tour stage win in the Giro, and a stage in the Tour de Suisse – had something up his sleeve. Perhaps more than any of us expected. 

Gino Mäder was born in Flawil, a small village in the east of Switzerland, to a family of cyclists.

A middle child out of four, he started cycling in his teens, following both parents, including a father who once wanted to become a pro until life got in the way. Part of a group of young and talented Swiss cyclists – the strongest national showing since Fabian Cancellara - Mäder attributes this golden era to “an incredible spirit” born of being from a small country and seeing the same rivals every week. “On my holidays, I went to visit my fellow cyclists and we would train together and just have a really, really good time,” he recalled. “And in the races, we beat the shit out of each other.”

As evidence, he told the story of the time he had to throw up behind the podium with Reto Müller and Mario Spengler after going too deep during a junior race.

“This close,” he emphasised, “this close was the relationship we had between each other. We would talk about everything together.”  

Mäder spent his early years on various amateur teams as well as working with the national team. He was a strong junior, and an even better U23. His breakthrough year came in 2018 when he finished third in the Tour de l’Avenir, where he also won two stages. However, the most formative race of that year was the Worlds Road Race in Innsbruck, where he helped team-mate Marc Hirschi secure the win. Mäder, despite English being his third language, is a gifted storyteller, often playing the roles of his teammates, devoting himself to the retelling of events with photographic precision. He gives me a blow-byblow of the finale of that race, how he followed the attack of Eddie Dunbar and was able to launch Hirschi for the win. “It was natural. We had zero information. We didn’t know the gaps. We didn’t know anything. We just knew how to race and how to enjoy the race as well, because for me, that’s the most important part.” He pauses. “When you do something with joy, it shows.” Mäder celebrates a win on home roads at the 2021 Tour de Suisse Leading the break on stage 6 of the 2021 Giro, from which he would be the lone winner

***

By stage 3 of the Vuelta, on the craggy, coastal slopes of Picón Blanco, Mikel Landa had already lost 39 seconds to Primož Roglič in the GC. In 10th place, Landa’s young Swiss domestique trailed him by a single second. Still, it was a very different race than the one we would end up with three weeks later. For Bahrain Victorious, Jack Haig, who would finish third, was a whopping three minutes behind, in 43rd. The crashes in stage 5 and the crosswinds in stage 6 would further jostle up the GC. A clever placement in the break on stage 7 saw Haig ascend to seventh, nearly a minute up on Landa. Bahrain changed plans quickly.

The scent of sun on pine needles, the dust kicked up by the team cars as things came to a climax at the crest of the Balcon de Alicante. I don’t remember how it started, but it became a running theme in my interviews with Mäder to ask him whether the race was or would be fun. (This became known as the fun report.)

“Was it fun?”

“Kinda,” he said, with a chuckle. “It wasn’t too bad. But the first climb was ridden at the highest pace and put me in a bad place. I got dropped and was like, uh-oh. Buuut, I pulled it back together and helped Mikel. And it was fun, until,” he groaned, “the last 2k.”

“Yeah. It was so narrow.”

“I’m actually quite surprised they managed to put tarmac on it.”

“Now you get to ride back down.”

“Now that is going to be fun.”

“This is the fun report.”

“Ah, we choose it ourselves.” 

He took off his helmet, shook the sweat from his hair. “We choose it ourselves.”

***

After his year grabbing the U23 category by the scruff of its neck, Mäder went to the WorldTour in 2019 with Dimension Data. It was in these formative years that the real Gino Mäder revealed himself. Beneath his funny tweets and his dramatic storytelling skills (complete with impressions) is a serious and thoughtful young person prone to moments of vulnerability, a political actor with a complex view of the world and an awareness of his privileged position in it. Like many riders in their early 20s, Mäder struggled in his first two seasons as a pro. When I asked him why he’d finally come into his own at Bahrain, Mäder replied that his breakthrough had less to do with the team he was on and more that the rest of his life had settled into place.

“As a kid, as a teenager, as U23s, we were still working, still going to school, and then suddenly you’re a pro. You’ve got nothing else to do. And you’re a little bit lost at first. In the first year, for me, it was that and rising expectations. You really want to prove yourself…and sometimes you’re overreaching and your mental health isn’t at its top. You just struggle. To get consistency… to just get more races done – those were things that had to happen, and only now does it pay off.”

In addition to adapting to the lifestyle, it was at Di-Data that Mäder developed his moral compass as a cyclist, his belief – as executed at the Vuelta through his charity initiative that raised over 4,500 euro (one euro accumulated for every rider he beat each day) for the African rewilding campaign JustDiggit – that cycling could be used to better the world.

“It was really a learning experience for me when I was with Qhubeka and when I saw that cycling can be positive. When you are there at the handover of Qhubeka bikes and you see the joy in children’s eyes one day when they receive a simple bike and yet, seven days ago, you got your new race bikes for free with all the fancy carbon stuff. And you’re like,  that’s a bit heavy, isn’t it? You see  the joy of a kid who saves an hour  every day to go to school and back  and you’re like, that’s real. It  changed something in me, gave  a purpose to being famous. And  why should you be famous? There’s no good coming from being famous,  except, well, you can maybe change  the world.” 

***

At the start of stage 11, in a parking  lot in Antequera, the heat rippled  in waves off the tarmac, distorting the colourful tents of the fan zone in the distance. I’d finished interviewing Egan Bernal and Aleksandr Vlasov  about the fight for the white jersey, in which Bernal had a 1:26 lead over Vlasov, and Vlasov 0:42 over Gino Mäder. Their reasons for wanting the jersey were equally valid. For Bernal, it was a part of a bigger GC campaign, and for Vlasov, this was his last chance to win it before he turned 26. And then there was Mäder, a coy smile on his lips. 

“I think white would really suit me, like, as a type of look,” he said, extending his arms, gazing at them.  “I think I would look really good in white, especially now with a little bit more sun, a bit more tan. It wouldn’t look too bad, would it?” 

I laughed. “No, it wouldn’t. Do you have a strategy?” 

He thought about it. “I think I can’t rely on Bernal and Vlasov to lose time. It’s me who’s the nobody. I’m a bit of an underdog, so I can take that role and maybe sneak in the break one day, where I can also be helpful for Jack in GC.” Always the faithful domestique. “But,” he added, for the first time in this Vuelta, “where I can also have an eye out for my own goals.” 

It’s remarkable, in retrospect, how prescient this statement would turn out to be. As Haig took a top-10 spot, Landa had plummeted, finishing stage 10 18 minutes down. The Spaniard notoriously demands fealty from his team-mates, but Haig, as a leader, is more relaxed. The liberation from Plan A could already be felt in the team with Damiano Caruso’s solo win a few days prior on the Alto de Velefique. 

For Mäder, once the idea of the white jersey was formed, it became a fixation. On the first rest day, he told me: “The white jersey, it’s not that far away. If you think how much you lost on stage 6 with the crosswinds when you were in a miserable place, you think, it might happen to them as well. It’s still Bernal. To now be in a position where I’m thinking of taking him on, really battling against him, makes me proud. I’d like to make sure he knows my name by the end of the Vuelta.” 

“That’s quite a bold statement.” 

“But really! Put my name on the cycling map. Everyone knows me for a second place in Paris-Nice. Maybe it’s time to provide a new story.” 

***

In one of the most infamous days of the 2021 cycling season, Gino Mäder was preparing to take his first WorldTour win on stage 7 of Paris Nice, only to be, in the words of cycling journalist Daniel Friebe, Roglified. Primož Roglič came out of nowhere and pipped a bewildered Mäder at the line, sparking a debate about the unwritten rules of peloton secured his 50th win, should have let Mäder have the day. 

“I don’t really get it,” Mäder said about the loss. “People on Twitter… they were acting like it was a big deal. It was bike racing. It came down to a fight between him and me, and imagine he stops with Max Schachmann on the wheel and Schachmann jumps him. Everyone would be like, what a stupid guy accelerates to the finish line. He’s not looking back once, which is what he has to do. You cannot look back.” 

Mäder would soon have his day in the sun, winning solo on stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia, a much bigger prize. His retelling of this day is very an amusing impression of team - him to the foot of the final climb. Yet when asked how he felt on that day, Mäder’s answer is nuanced and complex. 

“Honestly, it wasn’t as special as I imagined it was going to be,” he said. “The experience itself - the joy of crossing the finish line - it maybe lasted for 10, 15 seconds. And then that first kick in adrenaline, happiness, it’s gone. And you’re like, yeah, that was nice. But now what? I quickly realised it doesn’t mean anything. It’s like, job done.” 

“Was that disappointing?” 

“No, not disappointing, but just you imagine it’s something huge and life-changing…And then it’s not.” He paused. “The stage win in the Tour de Suisse was much more special, because I had my family and my girlfriend waiting there at the finish. And also maybe because for me, winning out of a breakaway, it’s not the real deal. The real deal for me is when you can win a stage. 

Like in Suisse, when you’re with the strongest riders of the day, maybe even of the race, you get the deepest satisfaction from that win. When you win from breakaways, it’s whether the others want you to win…It’s kind of like a gift.” 

“So, the Tour de Suisse win, that was the greatest day of your life?” I asked. 

“No,” he said. “So many days are much more worth it. Simple days. Cycling, it does create emotions, obviously. But life is so much more giving than cycling can ever be.” 

***

During the second half of the Vuelta, there were many days Gino Mäder could have tried his luck in search of the white jersey. Often in the mixed zone, I would ask him if that day was a day for Gino. And he would respond with a certain coquettishness: “We’ll see.” However, strategically speaking, Mäder was in a bit of a Catch-22. First, by the start of week three, he was still relatively high up in GC, sitting 12th after the second rest day. At almost seven minutes down, he walked too fine a line to be allowed to break away. Second, he was in the tricky situation of being Jack Haig’s most valuable climbing domestique. Hence, the only way Mäder could escape was if Haig, then fifth in GC, went with him. As the stages ticked down, the pair from Bahrain Victorious were running out of days. 

Mäder had been hinting at stage 20 a few days earlier. After the queen stage, on the chilly, foggy top of the  Alto de Gamoniteiru, I joked, “The  worst part is over.” To which he  responded: “No. Having a look at  Saturday, I’m slightly terrified.” 

“Terrified?” 

“It looks so bad. Proper Liège-Bastogne-Liège racing, where you can really pull the race apart.”

That day came quickly, and that morning, in the mixed zone, my question was simple: “Do you have plans?”

He laughed mischievously. “We do have plans. We’ll see what the

legs have to say to these plans.”

“Are you involved in these plans?”

A wink.

“Oh, absolutely.”

For a long time, Stage 20 appeared to be unfolding in a typical breakaway win, with the group out front taking 11 minutes on the bunch behind. However, just as we left to go to the finish, Ineos came to the front and started drilling. Hard. By the time we arrived at the mixed zone, the situation had changed, completely and dramatically. Adam Yates, with nothing to lose, had gone off the front, taking with him Roglicx, Enric Mas, Haig, and Mäder. Left behind, crucially, were Yates’s team-mate Bernal and Movistar’s Miguel Ángel López, who would abandon the race that day out of frustration. For Bahrain-Victorious, it was a tactical masterstroke, and they still had Mark Padun up front from the break. The Ukrainian dropped back to help pull the group as far away from the other GC riders as possible, putting five minutes into their pursuers. The group charged on, passing the remnants of the break in a race now shattered. The way things stood, Haig was now on the podium, and, having done his work, Mäder dropped back to ride in, arriving at the mixed zone soon afterwards.

“Told you!” he said. “What a ride – I think Jack is on the podium.”

“And you’re in the white jersey.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Has it sunk in yet?”

“No, I think it needs a bit of time.”

“When I first talked to you at the prologue, you told me you came here as a domestique for Landa. What about now?”

He laughed, took off his helmet. “I’m still a domestique,” he said. In the background, the jumbotron flashed to show the provisional GC with one stage to go.

Gino Mäder was in fifth.

***

The last day of the Vuelta is a bit of a celebration. In a narrative sense, it’s fitting that the story concludes in the old streets of Santiago de Compostela, the terminus of one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Christianity. Beneath the cathedral’s baroque flourishes, the men ride in one by one, day turning into dusk, culminating in the joyous of the jersey winners of the Vuelta are on their own pilgrimages – Tour de France attempt, Michael Storer’s trip from Romain Bardet’s helper to the king of the mountains. Fabio Jakobsen’s journey from his terrible crash in the Tour de Pologne to the green jersey of a grand tour in the space of a year. And then, there is Gino Mäder, who throughout this year and this Vuelta, has come of age. After three weeks with almost daily access, he’s too important to visit the written press first. Yet he manages to spare some time for the conclusion of our long partnership.

“It’s over. How do you feel?” 

Mäder takes off his helmet, lets out a deep breath. “Empty.”

“Have you picked a favourite part yet? Of the whole thing?”

“This. Right now. This.”

“Better than the Tour de Suisse?”

“No. I don’t know.” A knowing laugh. “Maybe.”

“Best day of your life?”

“There’s a lot missing to be the best day of my life,” he confesses with a shake of the head. “But it is

a really, really good day.” And like that, it is over. He smiles wistfully, hands his helmet to the soigneur who ushers him off for the podium ceremony. I watch him leave as dusk in turn becomes night, the square and the cathedral flooded with a wash of white light, like the extended flash of a big camera. A few minutes later, Gino Mäder steps onto the stage, fresh jersey crisp against his arms. He removes his cap and, always the consummate actor, illuminated by bright light, he takes a deep bow.