Jan Christen: UAE Team Emirates youngster sets sights on Monuments and Tour de France

The last few seasons have seen pro cycling witness an undeniable sea change in how races have been won, and, to an extent, the winners’ ages. The old guard and traditionalists have been forced out by a wave of multi-discipline, ambitious and extremely talented young riders shaking up the peloton's status quo like never before.

These ambitious youngsters are unsurprisingly seen as hot property in the WorldTour, with the likes of Remco Evenepoel, Tadej Pogačar and Josh Tarling demonstrating that it pays dividends for teams to play the long game and invest in youth. It has led to several talented prospects being tied down to long-term deals stretching until 2026, 2027, and, in Jan Christen's case, 2028.

Christen has been tipped to reach the top echelons of the sport in the coming years, with UAE Team Emirates clearly confident in his potential, agreeing on a four-and-a-half-year deal with the Swiss rider this summer. Only Juan Ayuso has been granted a deal with equal longevity by the team.

Born in the Swiss village of Gippingen, Christen has experienced a rapid rise in just two years. After departing his local club for Tadej Pogačar’s development team in 2022, with multiple national titles already under his belt, he then claimed junior titles at the cyclo-cross worlds and European road championships before spending the first half of this season with Hagens Berman Axeon.

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A WorldTour debut swiftly arrived at the Tour de Romandie before an impressive breakaway victory on the penultimate stage of the Giro Next Gen.

Now settled into life at UAE Team Emirates after joining in August, GCN spoke to Christen ahead of last month's Veneto Classic, discussing how he got to this point and how far he believes he can go.

Cycling is a family affair for Christen

Pinning down where Christen’s journey to the WorldTour ranks began might seem straightforward for a rider only born in 2004, just one week before his compatriot Fabian Cancellara won his first Tour de France stage.

However, the summer of 1960 may be a better place to start. The Swiss rider’s grandfather Hans Schleuniger was one of 81 riders to complete the 47th edition of the Tour de France that July. Schleuniger, who passed away in 2021, may have finished 80th out of the 81 racers that made it to Paris, but he sowed the seed for the next two generations of his family.

“My grandfather was a cyclist and my parents were cyclists,” Christen said, with his father Josef who raced for Team Ericsson-Villager in the late 90s while his older brother, Fabio, currently rides for Q36.5 Pro Cycling. The 21-year-old won a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir this season, a coveted race for the next generation.

The brothers pushed each other to improve while growing up, whether that be in training, races, or even other sports: “When I was young I did some other sports successfully like triathlon, football, and athletics but then I had to make the decision and it was cycling,” Christen added.

From the track and trails to the tarmac

Cycling proved to be the right route for the rider born 5km from the German border. Riding for his local Veloclub Gippingen as a teenager, he dabbled across different disciplines, leading to him becoming junior national champion in four different disciplines in 2021: cyclo-cross, mountain biking, track, and time trialling on the road.

It's not uncommon for a rider to flip-flop from one discipline to another during their early years, but spreading his time across four is quite the feat. Christen, like many of this new generation of riders, puts it down to doing more of what he enjoys and in turn, remaining motivated because of it: “I like to change bikes and train differently than others. I just enjoy riding every type of bike and also racing [on them].”

A year later and his exploits had gone further than the landlocked borders of Switzerland, with a junior World Championships title in cyclocross and a European road race title added to his small but impressive palmarès. These victories kickstarted his leap from the junior ranks straight to the WorldTour.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Christen won the junior men's title at the 2022 Cyclo-cross World Championships

Christen had spent 2022 riding as a junior for the youth team founded by his now teammate and two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar. Pogi Team UAE Generali are sponsored by the WorldTour team and act as a quasi-development squad for the top-ranked men’s squad.

“I was riding as a junior for the Pogi team and there were already talks about joining UAE in the future, there was no contract but we talked about it, and for me, it was clear if I got the opportunity to go and join the team, I would,” Christen admitted.

It was a matter of when, not if, the youngster would join the ranks of UAE Team Emirates, even if there was one more stepping stone along the way. The 2023 campaign began with six months at another development team, and arguably one of the sport’s best in nurturing young talent, as Christen was placed in the care of Axel Merckx’s Hagens Berman Axeon team.

The American-based Continental team have an impressive track record, with the likes of George Bennett, Jasper Philipsen, João Almeida, and Tao Geoghegan Hart just some of the names to have passed through the team’s stable on their way to success at the sport’s highest level.

Though for all the wisdom and experience Merckx’s team provided Christen, it was always going to be a short-term stay:

“I talked to UAE about some development teams and for me, if I was to go to a development team, I wanted to go to them [Hagens Berman Axeon] and they arranged it.

“I really enjoyed it, for me it was the right decision,” added Christen while also hinting that the plan was to move over to UAE Team Emirates in the summer all along.

‘I want to win the Tour de France’

Now racing on the WorldTour alongside a plethora of household names at UAE Team Emirates, it's fair to say that Christen is, temporarily at least, a small fish in a big pond. Perhaps his surprise at GCN wanting to chat with him, with a team soigneur having to swing open the bus curtain to prove it to him, makes you think that there’s still some impostor syndrome inside Christen’s mind.

Well, you would be wrong. A leap up to the WorldTour has brought its differences, such as the duration of races and his role in the team, but this is by no means the finish line for the Swiss youngster.

“Racing is different, racing is longer. I have my job in the team to control the race, especially in the beginning, and then to help my teammates win the race," he said.

“When I started in the under-23s, most of the time I was the leader or I rode for the victory. So it's a bit different but I’m looking forward to next year. At the moment I still enjoy [the domestique duties] but at one point my goal is to win races and next year I want to win races.”

Confident he’ll receive those opportunities from the team, Christen gives off a cool and composed attitude for a rider so early into his professional career. There’s no arrogance, just confidence. A trait arguably shared by his once idol, now teammate, Tadej Pogačar.

Initially starstruck by the Slovenian talisman, Christen has soon come to take his presence in his stride: “In the beginning [riding with Tadej] was special, now for me he is like a friend and a teammate. [It’s] already like normal.”

Pogačar and Alberto Contador rank as the Swiss’ two inspirations growing up and their role as GC contenders is something else that he wishes to emulate.

“It is the goal but you never quite know how your body will develop. I have a bit of everything, time trialling I really like, going for the general classification, but also some Classics like Strade Bianche, I really like and would like to win,” explained Christen on what type of rider he sees himself developing into.

Nudged on which other races he’d like to see on his palmarès, Christen didn’t mince his words: “There are all the Monuments I want to win in the future and it depends on how I grow and develop but for sure, also to win the Tour de France.”

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There’s no bigger claim for a rider to make in cycling than to earmark the Tour as a target, not least at just 19 years old.

Alongside a lengthy contract, running to the end of 2028, it could be fair to say that Christen risks displaying all the hallmarks of a rider who becomes a victim of their own success, unable to deal with the pressure heaped on them from a young age. Yet pressure seems to create fuel rather than fear for the youngster.

Asked if his contract, one of the longest in the WorldTour, weighs heavy on his shoulders, Christen was adamant in his response.: “No, zero [pressure]. The big pressure is coming from myself, I want to win and to perform. The team have given me time so for me it's not stressful.”

With a skillset akin to a Swiss army knife and ambitions loftier than most, Jan Christen could well be the next young talent to announce himself to the cycling world in 2024. He’ll just have to deal with those veteran 25 year olds first.