Luca Schwarzbauer - World Championship 2023: The fallen man: "I was the big loser of the race."

It whistles and whirs, drips and steams, a water bottle circles above your head, spraying water to cool you down. And the sweat is pouring. The legs whirl, first moderately, then fast, faster and faster, finally with a cadence familiar from track sprinters. You can hear strained moaning - until the sounds of breathing are drowned out by a noise level reminiscent of a jet take-off - a melange of sounds from the whistling of the tread tyres and the roaring of the rollers of the roller trainer.

It looks like everything is at stake for the cyclist, who is currently putting in an impressive sprint in the awning of the Canyon CLLCTV XCO team truck, at least for a medal. Yet we are only in the warm-up programme for the World Championship race in the south of Scotland, which will start in half an hour's time a few pedal strokes away on the slopes of Glentress Forest.

During these minutes, the observers witness a transformation. Luca Schwarzbauer, the man on the roll, mutates from the nice boy next door into a doggedly pedalling, ambitious racer. "His warm-up programme is unique in the paddock," claims his team boss Claudia Baudry. Highly professional, focussed, capable of suffering, extremely ambitious - this is how Schwarzbauer looks ahead of what is perhaps the most important appearance of his MTB career.

Luca Schwarzbauer: At the top of the world at 26

Now, at the age of 26, he has finally arrived at the top of the world. He recently won three World Cup races in the short track and finished second in the longer cross-country competition at the World Cup in Leogang. And he wants to show this again on the biggest stage that mountain bikers have probably ever had at a world championship.

"Biggest cycling event ever", reads the advertising posters in Glasgow. It is the first Super World Championships organised by the UCI cycling world governing body, with almost every discipline that can be completed on two wheels. With more races, more broadcasts, more media, more attention - including for mountain bikers, who often remain hidden in a niche.

"What helps us a lot is the presence of van der Poel and Pidcock," says the current best German cyclist, explaining the tailwind that many in the scene are currently feeling. The two versatile top cycling stars are in vogue - thanks to their successes in the Tour de France and Road World Championships.

The big cycling show in and around Glasgow is set to be the highlight of Luca Schwarzbauer's biking career to date. "I wanted to become world champion here," he says on the sidelines of the World Championships. The man from the foot of the Swabian Alb has always wanted a lot - and has sometimes gone his own way. Not always successfully.

From the eating disorder back to the top

For national coach Peter Schaupp, it is no problem that the current best of his cross-country specialists is not completing his warm-up programme on the edge of the World Championship course in Glentress Forest in the national team camp, but in the camp of his racing team. Schaupp is delighted that the young man has found his sporting happiness, his form and can now showcase his talent at the highest level, which was evident early on.

In 2014, Schwarzbauer finished second at the European Championships and third at the World Junior Championships. The medals were a promise of a great future. But the young athlete wanted too much too soon. Schaupp estimates that his former protégé lost at least three years because he fell into a downward spiral. "Back then, even in the national squad, it was all about weight, about watts per kilogramme," says Schwarzbauer.

He wanted to slim down on his way to the top. He ate little, far too little, and trained a lot, too much. "I had an eating disorder," says Schwarzbauer - the industrial engineering student is unsparing and open in his analyses and self-criticism.

At 1.79 metres tall, the Swabian weighed just 63 kilograms. "I could barely cope with everyday life, let alone train properly," he says of this phase in 2015, when he was completely exhausted at the age of just under 19. He actually has a rather strong physique; his muscles and world-class cardiovascular system are somewhat more hidden under a bit of baby fat than others.

For many young athletes, such a clinical picture is likely to be the end of all sporting ambitions. For Luca Schwarzbauer, things turned out differently - perhaps also because two of his defining character traits came together: firstly, his ability to reflect on things intellectually, to analyse and to be extremely critical of himself. Just as he had somehow felt too strong and too heavy before, he quickly realised that he was now far too thin. "It couldn't go on like this," he summarised at the time.

And his ambition, which had previously driven him into an eating disorder, pulled him out of the mess. "He still had a score to settle," is how long-time companion Schaupp describes it. Schwarzbauer wanted to prove that he was one of the world's best bikers.

But it was a long battle that required patience. And he was smart enough to realise that he had to be at peace with himself first and foremost. He was okay when the scales showed more than 80 kilos again. Now his competition weight in top form is 76 kilos, a whopping 13 kilos more than when he was starving. "I'm happy with my body now," he says, although he's neither a skinny mountain goat like Tom Pidcock nor a muscle man like Nino Schurter. He has learnt to accept himself as he is.

And he also sits unusually on his bike, whose frame is actually too small for him, which he compensates for with a lot of setback, with the saddle pushed far back. He is also one of the very few riders in the peloton without a retractable seat post who can plunge off the almost vertical drops on the World Championship course in Scotland. Anything is possible - if you want it to be.

Companion on the way to the top of the world

Over the years, Schwarzbauer, who still lives with his parents in Nürtingen, has created the right environment for himself. A kind of personal oasis of well-being with people he trusts: these include physiotherapist Lisa Wagner, his South African trainer Barry Austin, who previously brought Pauline Ferrand-Prévot back on the road to success and whom the biker calls his "guru". Plus Martijn Redegeld, who dictated Jonas Vingegaard's menu for his Tour de France victory as nutritionist for the Jumbo-Visma road team.

He feels at home in Team Canyon, where he moved for the 2022 season after almost a full life as a racer with the German racing team Lexware, alongside top French riders Loana Lecomte and Thomas Griot. The German bike manufacturer's racing team is managed by French couple Sébastien François and Claudia Baudry, who are sometimes called mum and dad by their riders.

Schwarzbauer does not want people around him who believe they have "eaten wisdom with spoons", as he says. Instead, he wants people who question themselves, just like he does. The conditions are now right for the rising star of the bike scene.

But it doesn't start well with this Cycling World Championships 2023 in Scotland. "It was a big disappointment," said Schwarzbauer after the opening round of the short track race, in which he had started as one of the favourites after winning three World Cups in the past two years. When Sam Gaze stormed away on the last steep climb to win the World Championships, the German couldn't follow with the best will in the world. And in the final bend, the Briton Tom Pidcock roared so cockily from behind that he even brought Schwarzbauer down. He lay on the ground, Pidcock grabbed bronze.

At the finish line, the fallen rider confronted the Olympic champion about his risky riding style and the collision, but found little sympathy. His criticism of his professional colleague reverberated throughout the major British media. "I was the big loser of the race," emphasised the fallen rider, who made headlines even without winning a medal.

Missed chance of a medal

Two days later, halfway through the race over the Olympic distance, it became clear that the first cross-country medal for the men of the Bund Deutscher Radfahrer since Manuel Fumic's silver medal at the World Championships ten years ago was not going to happen. Schwarzbauer simply could not keep up with the hellish pace set at the start of the race by ten-time world champion Nino Schurter in particular. In the final, Tom Pidcock stepped up the pace again and also left the former champion from Switzerland standing.

Pidcock, of all people, has now won his first rainbow jersey after winning Olympic gold in 2021. "I would have liked anyone else to be world champion," says Schwarzbauer. But also recognises: "Pidcock is a mountain biker through and through." Explosive, persistent, technically strong. There was no match for the professional cyclist from Team Ineos Grenadiers on this day.

"I am satisfied. Ninth among the world's best, who were all in top form here," says the best German cross-country specialist after taking a selfie with his team behind the finish line and appearing in the mixed zone with the journalists to take stock of the World Championships. He struggled, lost some time when he got his handlebars caught on a tree. But he believes that he has hardly ever ridden a stronger race. The others were simply better.

Schwarzbauer was the best Schwarzbauer possible. He learnt not to orientate himself on others. Not in terms of weight, not in terms of physique, not in terms of sitting position, not in terms of results. He now knows what is good for him and what is not. Schwarzbauer has arrived. In himself and in the world elite alike. National coach Schaupp believes that Schwarzbauer could soon win a World Cup race at the Olympic distance in cross country. The last German World Cup winner in this discipline was Mike Kluge. That was in 1993.

Luca Schwarzbauer

Born on 26 October 1996, the bike pro feels most at home where he grew up: at the foot of the Swabian Alb. He lives in his parents' house in Nürtingen. As a junior, Schwarzbauer won silver at the European Championships and bronze at the World Championships. His greatest successes in the elite class: German marathon and short track champion; three World Cup victories in short track, first in Nove Mesto 2022.