the australia-slovenia connection
ljubljana gusto santic's tomaž poljanec on jai hindley, dylan hopkins, and an unlikely link between two continents
Tomaž Poljanec is the general manager of UCI Continental Team Ljubljana Gusto Santic, which is overseen by KD Rog, the parent organization of Pogi Team, BTC Ljubljana Scott, and UAE Team ADQ. In his career, he’s watched over the likes of Tadej Pogačar, who rode with the team, but also, notably, Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley. LGS and Poljanec, it turns out, have an interesting connection with Australia. In anticipation of Hindley’s start in the 2022 Vuelta a España, I sat down with Poljanec during KD Rog’s Maraton Franja, one of Europe’s biggest grand fondos, to get the inside scoop.
Kate Wagner:
So I heard that there was this Australian connection between Slovenian cycling and Australia. What is it, and how did that come about?
Tomaž Poljanec:
I worked for an Australian team actually. Well, the team [Attaque Team Gusto] itself was not registered in Australia. It was a Taiwanese team. But the owner of the team, the head boss, was Australian and the majority of the riders were Australians as well. The sponsor was Gusto bikes. This was in 2016. I was a sport director, and that was the first time I connected with Australian cycling.
Kate Wagner:
What was it like?
Tomaž Poljanec:
That first year was really strange for me. I actually like the Australian way of thinking, the Australian lifestyle. They're much more relaxed than Europeans. But the team’s knowledge of cycling was, how to say...the guys knew in theory, everything. But practically they were acting more as individuals [than as a team]. They actually didn't know the European way of racing.
It was most important to talk with the guys about the tactics, about the racing. And they wanted to know everything, how it's done in Europe. As a sports director, they were hard workers, the training was not a problem. The only problem was how to race. They understood everything in a couple of months — they were sucking down information. And then, with these guys like Timothy Guy or Ben Hill, we really got to connect, not like sport director and riders, but also as really good friends. In 2017, [Attaque Team Gusto] stopped existing and Gusto joined us here in Ljubljana with KD Rog to become one of the sponsors of the men's continental team in Ljubljana, now Ljubljana Gusto Santic.
Back in 2017, I invited Ben Hill and Timothy Guy to ride with KD Rog. Timothy invested some money from his own foundation, Head Correct, that works in mental healthcare. Timothy is the biggest connection between Australian and Slovenian cycling and in the beginning, we had an idea to establish some kind of Australian-Ljubljana cycling team or something like that. But there was not enough interest from sponsors and also, to start the team from zero — it's almost impossible if you don't have a big sponsor. The best solution in this case was remaking KD Rog, with all the infrastructure, with all the knowledge, everything was there, they just needed one more sponsor so that the team could reach a little bit better level and offer riders better conditions for training and racing. But back in 2016, in this Attaque Team Gusto was Jai Hindley as well.
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