Lars Bak becomes Assistant Sports Director at NTT Pro Cycling
Dec 06 2019 09:55 pm CET
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Lars Bak has announced the end of his professional career at the end of the 2019 season, but he will take right away a position within NTT Pro Cycling.
The 39-year-old put an end on his career after his 18th season in the professional peloton. Throughout his career, the rider took the title of the Danish national championships, one stage in the Giro d'Italia and in his last season he finished in the seventh place of Paris-Tour and complete his 20th grand tour at the Tour de France.
Bak will become the position as Assistant Sports Director of the team previously known as Dimension Data and will join the pre-season training camp in Spain. "I’m really happy that everything fell into place for me to take on this new challenge in my life but I now have to quickly switch my mindset from being a rider to that of being a sports director," he said.
"Of course it’s a big change and everything is going to be new for me, so I will be looking to listen and learn as much as possible from the excellent group of experienced guys already in the group. I’m effectively a trainee all over again as this is all new! Of course, I’ve been in the game for many years and you always presume to know exactly what a director is doing but there’s a lot to learn including all of the planning both on the race itself as well as in the background."
Lars Michaelsen, the new Head Sports Director of NTT Pro Cycling, welcomed the news. "Over the years Lars has collected tons of experience within pro cycling as a rider," he mentioned. "Now his challenge will be in executing the job from 'the other side' with that same ambition ie. what’s best for the team?
"I have both raced with and against him, when he was an amateur as well as when we were both pro riders (2002-2007) and I’ve also had very close interaction with him over a two year period where I was his sports director (2008 and 2009). I was also there to encourage him from the team car via the radio when he won the Danish National TT Championship in 2008. But crucially, what I strongly remember from those years was a Lars Bak who was always constructive about how to tackle the next day’s race, seen from the team’s perspective; and that is the essence of what the job of a DS is all about."
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