Following yesterday’s news that the talented Danish climber Rasmus Guldhammer has decided to quit top level cycling due to homesickness and loneliness, it has been confirmed that he will stay in the sport. He will race in 2011 for the Danish Concordia Insurance Himmerland team, thus keeping the door open for a later return to top level cycling.
“After a year abroad, I have decided to return home to Danish cycling,” he told Feltet.dk. “2010 has been very hard, but also an instructive year for me. I have not set myself some goals for 2011…I will see what happens.”
His brother Thomas Guldhammer and friends race with the squad, and he will be reunited with the manager Jan Steensen, with whom he worked as a junior several years ago. As a result, he believes the setup it will be a perfect fit for him. It will also help him to counteract the problem he experienced this season.
“I missed my family and my friends,” he explained to DR Sports yesterday. “It was perhaps too early to become professional. Both because I was not ready mentally, but also because I missed life at home a lot.”
Guldhammer has mentioned the national and world under 23 championships as possible targets next season.
The 21 year old is recognised as one of the top young talents in the sport, having had an very successful amateur career. He won the Under-23 Liege-Bastogne-Liege and placed second in the Tour of Flanders in 2009, and was a superb fourth in the Tour of Denmark.
Fortunately, there appears to be a way back to the top level if he decides he is ready for it again. “Should Rasmus change his mind, there will be a place on my team,” HTC Columbia director Brian Holm told Feltet.dk. “I do really like him and he is a good person. He is without question one of the greatest talents, but he has just not got the head to be a professional yet.
“I advised Rasmus to stay at home in Denmark, but he wanted to move to Italy. That was perhaps not the right choice, because when you finish a stage race and return to your room in Italy, the house is empty, there is nobody to talk to, there is no food in the fridge. It is something of an upheaval for a young person.”
Guldhammer’s case shows the importance for young riders of doing things carefully. Talent is very important, of course, but so too the psychological aspect when people are so young. The right location and the right environment is crucial; thankfully, the way seems clear for him to take a year or two to reassess, and then return to one of the top teams in the sport.