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Community Question: Do you remember your first bicycle? We'd love to hear about it!
Cancellara speaks English, French, German, Italian and Spanish from what I know.
That was not what I meant when I started this thread, though. It's obvious some riders will know plenty of languages because they change teams many times during their career. I was rather interested to know if there are any European riders speaking some rare languages. So far Weening in Frisian and Paul Martens in Low German were mentioned (I don't think Low German is that rare, but still a minority language). Thanks for those replies.
I also asked about Afrikaans because I have some interest in this language since I'm learning Dutch.
That was not what I meant when I started this thread, though. It's obvious some riders will know plenty of languages because they change teams many times during their career. I was rather interested to know if there are any European riders speaking some rare languages. So far Weening in Frisian and Paul Martens in Low German were mentioned (I don't think Low German is that rare, but still a minority language). Thanks for those replies.
I also asked about Afrikaans because I have some interest in this language since I'm learning Dutch.
This may surprise some of you, but I've been told that Richard Virenque actually can speak French (à l'insu de son plein gré).
PS 1 : Oscar Soliz most likely speaks quechua (he is from Potosi)
PS 2 : Hinault most likely speaks Breton (I don't, although I still understand simple expressions and occasionally use a few breton words)
PS 3 : ex-world traveler and cyclist Marcel Wust (mentioned earlier) is German, not Swiss.
PS 4. Romansch being spoken by so few people (about 70 000), only cyclists from around Davos-St Moritz would be "candidates". There was (is) a pro from there, can't think of his name right now.
(à l'insu de son plein gré).PS 1 : Oscar Soliz most likely speaks quechua (he is from Potosi)
PS 2 : Hinault most likely speaks Breton (I don't, although I still understand simple expressions and occasionally use a few breton words)
PS 3 : ex-world traveler and cyclist Marcel Wust (mentioned earlier) is German, not Swiss.
PS 4. Romansch being spoken by so few people (about 70 000), only cyclists from around Davos-St Moritz would be "candidates". There was (is) a pro from there, can't think of his name right now.
- Sep 8, 2009
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As for Welsh - Owain Doull is the first fluent Welsh speaker to win an Olympic Gold medal in any sport. He went to a Welsh speaking school. The Welsh language TV channel S4C made a documentary about his Olympic story. Here's an extract:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRZNd6IYh9M&t=10s
Thomas and Rowe don't speak Welsh, but Dave Brailsford does. Here's a clip of him making a cameo appearance in the Welsh language soap opera Pobol Y Cwm:
https://twitter.com/RhysCaerdydd/status/690638819490689025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRZNd6IYh9M&t=10s
Thomas and Rowe don't speak Welsh, but Dave Brailsford does. Here's a clip of him making a cameo appearance in the Welsh language soap opera Pobol Y Cwm:
https://twitter.com/RhysCaerdydd/status/690638819490689025
- Aug 18, 2010
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Re:
Dan Martin gives it a go when he is interviewed by local media during the Tour of Catalonia. He's not exactly fluent it should be said and there's a fair bit of Castilian mixed in. The local media seems to appreciate the effort though.Guybrush said:
Robert Millar was schooled at Shawlands Academy in Glasgow (Scotland's "International School") so when he was younger I'd expect him to have schoolyard knowledge of several different languages.
Probably made it much easier to pick up languages later as a pro in mainland Europe too.
Probably made it much easier to pick up languages later as a pro in mainland Europe too.
I'll dig this up because there's not much to discuss about nowadays.
www.procyclingstats.com
This cyclist has caught my eye because he has a similar surname to Michael Ballack, which, as I had read, is the name of Sorbian origin (even though Ballack himself doesn't speak Sorbian). I was able to find that Pollack had been born in Räckelwitz and in this municipality majority of people could speak Sorbian in 2001.
Does anyone know if he considers himself a Sorb or has any knowledge of Sorbian language?
Olaf Pollack
Olaf Pollack (born 1973-09-20) is a road racing cyclist from Germany and was active between 1996 and 2009. His best results are 1st place in GC Niedersachsen-Rundfahrt, 6x stage Niedersachsen-Rundfahrt and 4x stage Course de la Paix.
www.procyclingstats.com
This cyclist has caught my eye because he has a similar surname to Michael Ballack, which, as I had read, is the name of Sorbian origin (even though Ballack himself doesn't speak Sorbian). I was able to find that Pollack had been born in Räckelwitz and in this municipality majority of people could speak Sorbian in 2001.
Does anyone know if he considers himself a Sorb or has any knowledge of Sorbian language?
Wegelius speaks English, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish
Froome English, Italian, bit of Afrikaans, bit of Swahili, French
Cancellara grew up in Bern and speaks Schweizer-Deutsch, I dont think he had any chance to learn and speak Romansch
- May 5, 2010
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Okay, so... there are languages he doesn't speak! (Okay, he probably doesn't Danish either. Except for the few words he might have picked up during his CSC/Saxo days.)
- May 5, 2010
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- May 5, 2010
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So... apparently Mikkel Honoré speaks/understands the Bergamasque dialect, at least well enough that he's willing to answer fan questions in that languge. Or... maybe it's just DQ declaring him willing to do so.
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Those aren't exactly minority languages.
But why did he (apparently) give up on German?
- Apr 10, 2019
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I don't think anyone outside the Bergamo area understands that dialect.
On the Women's side you have Maria Canis, 2 time winner of the La Grand Boucle Féminine (also 3 seconds places) and the 1988 Giro Rosa (she also had a XC skiing background), one of Jeannie Longo's biggest rivals. She was born in La Villa in Alta Badia and is a a native Ladin speaker, that is pretty unique.
- Oct 14, 2017
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He was having Sutterlin teaching him, so my guess is currently he doesn't have a teammate who speaks it to teach it to him? That would be my guess as to why.
The other three (Spanish, English and Russian) he grew up speaking. Most people from Costa Rica speak Spanish and English and his mother is Russian which is how/why he learned Russian.
- Mar 11, 2010
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