[music]
In part three of our
Where Are They Now series,
we've taken a look at some of the biggest
characters within cycling.
They won some of the sports biggest races,
but you may or may not have heard of them.
We thought we'd catch up
and see what they're up to now.
Marzio Bruseghin was nicknamed "Asino,"
or donkey in English.
He got the nickname due to his tireless
and inexhaustible work for his teammates
when he was racing.
He also have quite a big passion for donkeys.
Fans that often appear at the side of the road
with donkey toys
dressed in the pink jersey
of the Giro d'Italia.
Now, Marzio took three pro wins
during his career.
He also finished on the podium
of the 2008 Giro d'Italia.
These days, Marzio owns a biological winery
in Piadera in the heart
of the Prosecco region.
This is getting interesting now.
He produces 80,000 bottles
of Prosecco a year
and has 30 donkeys which help him
to cultivate the wine.
Sounds like he's gotten
retirement sorted, I think.
His Prosecco is called Amets,
which is the Basque word for dream.
I can tell you what I'll be dreaming about,
a trip to visit our friend Marzio.
That could be a good GCN episode.
What do you think?
Dario Pieri, or the Bull of Scandicci
as he was known in his hometown
had a great sense of humor,
but also a massive appetite
and a huge passion for food.
Sounds like someone I know.
His teammates often joke his sponsor names
appeared much bigger
on his jersey than on theirs.
In his last year when he was racing
in 2006 for LPR,
his weight was set to balloon
into the three digits.
His career spanned over 10 years.
Started in 1997 with Scrigno-Gaerne,
where he began his progression
into the Flanders Classics.
With his high gravity
and enormous strength,
he did quite well finishing second
in Flanders in 2000.
Also, who can't remember Dario
in his Saeco jersey with no helmet
at Paris-Roubaix in 2003,
taking second behind his friend and rival
Peter van Petegem,
or winning E3 Harelbeke in 2002.
Nowadays, Dario is said to have no contact
with his ex-teammates
or anyone within cycling.
He lives in Siena,
the finishing town of Strade Bianche
and has a clay pigeon shooting range
thanks to his love of hunting.
He is said to enjoy wild boar
and pasta and live life to its fullest.
Congratulations, Dario.
Sounds like you've got retirement sauce there.
The media used to write Alfons De Wolf
is an angel on the bike.
He had his biggest successes,
actually though,
in his first year as professional
where he won five stages
at the 1979 Vuelta a España.
However, Alfons was a bit unusual
for a Flemish rider in that his biggest wins
came in Italy, in Spain,
when in Milan San Remo
and the tour of Lombardi
and also six stages in total
of the Vuelta a España.
Now, Alfons also on a stage
in the 1984 Tour de France,
also took two editions of Omloop Het Volk.
You probably wonder
why I'm now just in beat shorts.
Well, that's because Alfons
never quite lived up
to his first successes as his premiere
as a professional.
He was touted as the next Eddy Merckx.
He blames not living up
to those expectations.
On a holiday he took to Guadeloupe
when he stepped on a sea urchin
on the beach, and apparently
a worm settled in his body,
and he never quite got the same form again.
I'll watch those sea urchins, I guess.
Not in Ireland, thankfully.
Upon retirement,
Fons ended up selling car parts for 10 years,
but never really quite enjoyed it.
He also worked as a sports director
for [?] Fritz,
but never really quite took to that either.
Next up,
he took on a funeral parlor
with his wife and ended up running it.
He blamed the media on the reasons
why he never quite lived up
to his expectations.
They always put him up
to be the next Eddy Merckx.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, him and Eddy are still friends,
and to this day show a glass of wine together
when they meet around the world.
Winning the Tour of Flanders in 2004
crowned an impressive 16-year career
for Steffen Wesemann,
which included podium finishes,
a Pirate Bay, and also Amstel Gold no less.
However, he also won the Peace Race,
a record five times.
Good going, Steffen.
During his career,
he emigrated to Switzerland
where he now lives with his family.
After finishing racing, he and his wife
started a company called Speed Import,
which specializes in advanced carbon parts
and lightweight wheels.
He also operated as a rider agent
together with Tony Rominger.
The former racer was known
for his taste in Swiss watches,
and also expensive cars.
These days he's much more at home
driving trucks and he was also pursuing
a bus driver's license.
Furthermore, Stefan loves to go shooting
with his two English hunting dogs.
Let's hope his aim
is as good as his pedaling ability.
Mind out, Steffen.
He took my hair off.
Hey Dan, about that Ferrari,
it's all right if I put that on expenses
just for a video I'm doing at the moment.
It's not possible?
Okay.
No worries.
No, that's fine.
Yes, no worries.
Couldn't get the Ferrari,
just imagine that one.
Alex Zülle was a two-time winner
of the Vuelta a España,
but he only started cycling at the age of 18
due to a skiing accident,
and used cycling
as his rehabilitation process.
He signed in 1991
with Manuel Saiz of the ONCE Team,
but was very close to not gaining a contract
for the very good reason
that he had an earring.
Now, Zülle won an impressive amount
of individual TTs throughout his career,
40 wins in the TTs,
but this number was only bested
by the amount of crashes he suffered from.
Unfortunately, Alex had rather bad eyesight,
which is the reason behind
his high number of crashes.
This earned him the nickname
of "Roof breaker," or "Mr. Magoo."
Raised in the '90s Alex always came up
against the great Miguel Indurain
in the Grand Tours.
He came second behind him
in the Tour de France,
but he did win the Vuelta a España
in the absence of Indurain.
Perhaps his biggest victory
was at the World TT Championships in Lugano
where he took home the rainbow jersey
as world champion.
There is also the question of whether
he won the 1999 Tour de France.
Armstrong was the victor on the day,
but has been subsequently
stripped of the title.
Alex was also involving controversy himself
in relation to the Festina affair.
As a result of this,
he spent a night in jail
where he complains that
he was stripped naked,
searched and finger-shoved up
his rear derailleur.
He was also complained that
he wasn't allowed to use his glasses at prison
and never received his glasses back
when he left the jail.
Sport has always been
a driving force in Alex's life.
When he stopped racing,
he became a rider agent with Tony Rominger,
his old rival at the Tour de Suisse.
This agency was called IMG
and served a lot of professional riders.
After this, he became the managing director
of his local gym
in his hometown in Switzerland.
He's said to give
the best spinning classes in town.
I don't know if he could have helped me
on my dumbbell exercises.
He still rides his bike,
although he's said to stop
when it begins to hurt,
and often travels back to Spain
with his old friend Óscar Pereiro,
another ex-professional rider.
Now, who here remembers
that apocalyptic edition of Milan–
San Remo when the race
was covered in snow
and riders had to stop mid-race,
get in buses and get to another point
on the route just so they could
complete the course.
Well, at the end of this race,
a German rider came out
on top of these brutal conditions,
and it was Gerald Ciolek.
Not sure if you remember him.
Well, Milan–San Remo
was the biggest win of his career.
He also showed great promise
as a youngster winning
the under-23 World Championships.
Gerald also rode
for some of the biggest teams within cycling.
Rode for Milram, QuickStep, MTN-Qhubeka,
T-Mobile.
Also, famous Team Columbia.
Upon retiring it was quite hard actually
to track him down and figure out
what he was up to.
I got in touch with our new presenter,
Bernhard Eisel, who, of course,
has his number in his phone
and just gave him a call.
Wwe figured out what Gerald was up to.
I'm not sure if you can guess,
here's a little clue for you,
just do a little transformation one second.
Turns out Gerald is fully into his skiing,
and I mean really into it.
He's doing this free skiing stuff downhill,
jumps off mountains, you name it.
Sounds pretty impressive to me.
I don't know anything about skiing,
but fair play to Gerald who's also planning
to be a ski instructor,
although, unfortunately,
it's been cancelled this year
due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Further to this,
he's working in a cafe one day a week,
just simply for love of coffee,
loves brewing coffee,
and he loves brewing his coffees in this cafe.
That's not all,
he's also a sports director,
and was planning to be sports director
for Team Dauner this year,
a German Continental team.
Unfortunately,
this has also been postponed
due to the pandemic.
It sounds like Gerald has got life
after racing pretty well sauced.
We wish you all the best,
hope everything gets back off the ground
when this awful situation is over.
If you're looking for people for skiing,
helping give some lessons,
you know his approach to lessons,
I'm here, here if you need me.
German rider, Linus Gerdemann,
was on top of his game
when he said the early jersey
at the Tour de France.
He was riding for T-Mobile.
Gerdemann was a quality rider
and he got a number of big GC wins
throughout his career.
However, in 2012 his contract wasn't renewed
whilst he was riding for RadioShack.
He was left hanging
without any other viable options.
He mounted a comeback in 2014
returning with MTN–Qhubeka.
However, it was during this year
out from the sport,
which he spent most of his time
on the island of New Yorker,
and he really began to feel at home
on the island.
He also started to have one eye
on what he would do when he stopped racing.
Upon retiring from cycling,
Gerdemann sets up a restaurant,
an Asian restaurant, to be precise.
You can guess where it's based,
Mallorca.
It was that a year outside
when he was in Mallorca
that really inspired him.
It was the town of Deià,
a cosmopolitan town on Mallorca's coast,
where he set this restaurant up.
It's called Nama Restaurant,
Asian-inspired cuisine.
He sets it up with his partner,
and it became a thriving success.
They were quickly accepted
into the local community.
To this day, the restaurant
is still going strong.
Quite an unlikely transition really
from cyclists to restaurateur,
but I can think of worst places to retire,
if you ask me.
Spanish rider, Oscar Pereiro,
became the unlikely winner
of the 2006 Tour de France.
When [?] one breakaway attempt,
he made, way for it,
30 minutes on one stage
on the rest of his rivals.
Some advantage that.
However, the lead was eventually callback
by Floyd Landis who took the win in Paris.
I'm sure you know the story,
Floyd was later disqualified
for a doping offense
and the win was handed to Pereiro.
Cycling, eh?
Now, this wasn't the win
that the defined Pereiro's career.
He took wins in Tour de Romandie
and Tour de Suisse
and also hit that coveted top 10 spot
in the Tour de France a number of times.
After cycling, Oscar wasn't finished with sport.
He made the move into football,
signed him Segunda División team Coruxo FC.
He made two appearances,
but he did score twice,
which is a lot better than I'd have managed.
Going from one sport to the other
is no mean feat, so fair play, Oscar.
These days, he can be found working
for the Vuelta a España
as an ambassador role,
and can be found in the start village
of every stage.
Sounds like a great retirement, if you ask me.
Thanks for watching, everyone.
I found it really interesting
to find out about these riders
and see what they've got up to
when their careers have ended.
Some really eccentric stories out there.
Let me know in the comment section below
if you had finished
an illustrious career on the road,
what would you have done next.
The [?] will find out about this one.
I better get going now
because Dario the bull is off to me again,
he's coming.
Don't forget to check out the GCN app.
I might put a photo of Dario the bull up.
He's coming. I got to go.
Thanks, everyone.
I'll see you.
Not now, Dario.
No, jeepers, he's coming.