Lennard Kämna Bandwaggon thread

[Bavarianrider]

Name: Lennard Kämna
Born: 9. September 1996
Height: 1.81m
Weight: 65kg
Nationality: German
Type of rider: Allrounder, Time Trialist, Climber

Major results

2014
1st Jersey rainbow chrono.svg Time trial, UCI Junior Road World Championships
1st UEC Champion Jersey.svg Time trial, UEC European Junior Road Championships
1st MaillotAlemania.PNG Time trial, National Junior Road Championships
1st MaillotAlemania.PNG National Junior Hillclimb Championships
2nd Overall Trofeo Karlsberg

1st Stage 2b (ITT)

2015
1st MaillotAlemania.PNG Time trial, National Under-23 Road Championships
1st Stage 4 Giro della Valle d'Aosta Mont Blanc
UCI Road World Under-23 Championships

3rd Bronze medal blank.svg Time trial
10th Road race

6th Overall Course de la Paix Under-23
9th Giro del Belvedere
2016
1st EuropeanChampionJersey(2016).png Time trial, UEC European Under-23 Road Championships
4th Time trial, UCI Road World Under-23 Championships
6th Overall Circuit des Ardennes

1st Jersey white.svg Young rider classification

2017
UCI Road World Championships

1st Gold medal blank.svg Team time trial
2nd Silver medal blank.svg Under-23 road race

5th Overall Tour des Fjords

Grand Tour general classification results timeline
Grand Tour 2017 2018 2019
A pink jersey Giro d'Italia — — —
A yellow jersey Tour de France — — 40
A red jersey Vuelta a España DNF —


After a stellar amateur career Kämna was widely regarded as Germany's biggest cycling talent since Jan Ullrich. In is first season as a pro in 2017, Kämna was able to live up to this hype at the very oung age of 20/21 years. He had some very promising results, including Top 10 finishes in both the Vuelta as well as the the Roamndie TT. He also was a part of Sunwebs world champion TTT squad.
However, in 2018 Kämna fell into a huge crisis, being drained both physically and mentally, Losing more or less the whole year. After that year many people already thre in the towel and were writting off Kämna.
However, this years Tour de Suisse saw a sectacular comeback by Kämna. Apparently out of nowwhere Kämna finally showed what talent he has by establishing himself as a Top 10 climber of the Tour the Suisse.
Things only got better once the Tour started. During the first week Kämna acted as the perfect domestique, being Sunwebs strongest rider who regularly set up Matthwes for the punchy finishes of the first week. Once the high mountains started Kämna was able to play his own cards. He went on the attack several times and showed his potential in several groups in the Pyrenees and Alps. The highlight obvioulsy being the stage when he finished 4th and the one to Prat d'Albis when hewas even able to hang with Buchmann and Bernal on the final climb for quite some time after a long breakaway.
On the very last day Kämna was able to hang with the best climbers of the Tour for a very long time, proofing that he could already challenge for a Top15 GC spot if he went for it.
So in this Tour Kämna not only confirmed his talent but he also showed that he has great potential as a climber and has excellent recovery skills.
At this point of time, the SKY seems to be the limit for Kämna. There's no reason to doubt that he can be a serious GC contender in the near future.
So you better join the bandwagon now!
Lennard Kämna, Tourgott 2.0!

 

[Sestriere]

Totally abord the bandwagon! A great couple of weeks for him after I already feared a Herklotz-2.0 story. Maybe he could've done even better in some of the breaks had he not used so much energy early in the stages by riding solo or in small groups when there were still riders battling to get across.
I assume Deutschland Tour is next, what could be a good schedule for the later season?

 

[Bavarianrider]

Re:

Totally abord the bandwagon! A great couple of weeks for him after I already feared a Herklotz-2.0 story. Maybe he could've done even better in some of the breaks had he not used so much energy early in the stages by riding solo or in small groups when there were still riders battling to get across.
I assume Deutschland Tour is next, what could be a good schedule for the later season?

I think it's important not to burn im right now after last years struggle. So I think it would be best to do the Deutschland Tour and then entirely focuse on the World Championships. He shouldn' do much more then these two highlights in my opinion.

 

[Salvarani]

Future looks promising.

 

[Mayomaniac]

He said that he prefers cold and rainy weather, so the Giro could be an option for 2020, but if Dumoulin stays with the team he'll probably want to have him on his gc team.
With his TT background he's more of a Klöden than a Buchmann, his recovery seems to be really good and harder mountain stages seem to suit his diesel engine really well.

 

[fauniera]

Isn't Buchmann Tourgott 2.0 and Kämna 3.0?

 

[Bavarianrider]

Indeed, from a weather perspective the Giro suits him more than the Tour. However, from a sponsor's perepective teh Giro simply isn't attractive as hardly anyone takes notice of it in Germany. It's all about the Tour, so I expect him to go to the Tour next year. (If he actually stays with Sunweb, of course)

 

[Bavarianrider]

Isn't Buchmann Tourgott 2.0 and Kämna 3.0?

Not at all. Buchmann is a totally different type of rider. And doesn't have nowhere near the talent to deserve that title.
Like almost all great riders Kämna (and Ullrich) showed potential from a very early age on. Buchmann on the other hand came out of nowhere and nobody would have guessed that he could be a Tour Top 5 rider one day when he was 22.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I think Buchmann taking away some attention and pressure from him will help him just like when everyone was hyping and 18 year old Herklotz as the next Ullrich, even his coaches and Kämna was able to grow without having that much of a hype.
Buchmann is really unusual for a German gc rider, a pure climber. Kämna on the other hand is the classic TT specialist who is rather light and has a great power to weight ratio, more of a classic Klöden or even Ulle type of rider.
Tbf, Buchmann was the best German climber while still being an u23 rider when he won the climbing NC and finished top 10 on the gc in l'Avenir.

 

[tobydawq]

The highlight obvioulsy being the stage to Albi when he finished 4th and was even able to hang with Buchmann and Bernal on the final climb for quite some time after a long breakaway.

Aren't you mixing up quite a few things here (maybe on purpose to represent all his stand-out performances as one)?

The stage to Albi was the cross-wind stage, where he did make the front.

The stage where he was 4th was the stage to Valloire where Quintana won.

And the stage where he rode with Bernal and Buchmann was stage 15 to Prat d'Albis where he finished sixth.

 

[Bavarianrider]

The highlight obvioulsy being the stage to Albi when he finished 4th and was even able to hang with Buchmann and Bernal on the final climb for quite some time after a long breakaway.

Aren't you mixing up quite a few things here (maybe on purpose to represent all his stand-out performances as one)?

The stage to Albi was the cross-wind stage, where he did make the front.

The stage where he was 4th was the stage to Valloire where Quintana won.

And the stage where he rode with Bernal and Buchmann was stage 15 to Prat d'Albis.

Indeed, I messed up the names a bit thanks

 

[Red Rick]

Only Sunweb rider who impressed me this Tour

 

[Bavarianrider]

Re:

Only Sunweb rider who impressed me this Tour

Only Sunweb rider who showed anything this Tour. Really an abmisal performance by that team.

 

[h1ll]

He isn't rider like Buchmann. I think Bora will try to sign him to their German squad. He really impressed me at the Tour and also in TdS looked good. But Sunweb is also German team and with Dumoulin leaving, they will be surely interested about him.

 

[geisterhome]

Really impressive ride, he lost a lot of time on several early stages, probably cos of his role of a domestique for the sprints? Seeing his performance on the mountain stages, especially the last one, I agree he could have finished in the top 15 if he if went for it. Maybe even most impressive was how strong he still rode at the end of the tour after being in all those attacks and working for the sprints

I believe comparing him to Buchmann he is more of a turbo-diesel than a diesel who can't attack at all, also he is the better natural time-trialist, Buchmann is a "diesel engine" climber who managed to become ok at time trail. Hence Kämna could turn into a rider who doesn't even need much of attacking in the mountains cos he could gain an advantage in the one or two flat time trials each GT.

That he needed that year off due to mostly mental fatigue is maybe a bit worrisome, does he really have the mental toughness?

On a side note, how many potential german GT riders post Ullrich have not worked out due to one reason or the other? Kessler, Jacksche, Sinkewitz, Fothen, Schumacher, Martin, Gerdemann, Schumacher, Nerz all of them showing some promise but not nearly reached what could have been their full potential in GTs.

 

[geisterhome]

Really impressive ride, he lost a lot of time on several early stages, probably cos of his role of a domestique for the sprints? Seeing his performance on the mountain stages, especially the last one, I agree he could have finished in the top 15 if he if went for it. Maybe even most impressive was how strong he still rode at the end of the tour after being in all those attacks and working for the sprints

I believe comparing him to Buchmann, Kämna is more of a turbo-diesel than a diesel, who can't attack at all, also he is the better natural time-trialist. Buchmann is a true "diesel engine" climber who managed to become ok at time trailing. Hence Kämna could turn into a rider who doesn't even need much of attacking in the mountains cos he could gain an advantage in the one or two flat time trials each GT.

That he needed that year off due to mostly mental fatigue is maybe a bit worrisome, does he really have the mental toughness?

On a side note, how many potential german GT riders post Ullrich have not worked out due to one reason or the other? Kessler, Jacksche, Sinkewitz, Fothen, Schumacher, Martin, Gerdemann, Schumacher, Nerz all of them showing some promise but not nearly reaching what could have been their full potential in GTs.

 

[geisterhome]

I think his days as a domestique for Buchmann could be numbered. Been getting stronger each day during the Dauphine so far (maybe had a hard block of training right before the start?), topping it with a massively impressive finish out of an escape group today. If Buchmann should be out/out of shape for the Tour after his crash today, he could lead Bora into the Tour de France, a Top 10 finish in the GC not seeming out of reach at all.

 

[BlueRoads]

I really like Kämna. He seems like a sprightly young man and he really does have potential for more. However, I'd rather not think of his own GC chances for now. I'm sure Buchmann will go to the Tour and Kämna will be his helper. If not, he could try stage hunting. But going for GC in this quality field (yes, it's still a quality field, even if they are falling like flies, remember, lots of them are hornets) would not make sense, in my opinion. He does not seem to have the consistency, yet. (What was the race that I wanted him to impress in and where he pretty much failed to do that?)

 

[geisterhome]

I really like Kämna. He seems like a sprightly young man and he really does have potential for more. However, I'd rather not think of his own GC chances for now. I'm sure Buchmann will go to the Tour and Kämna will be his helper. If not, he could try stage hunting. But going for GC in this quality field (yes, it's still a quality field, even if they are falling like flies, remember, lots of them are hornets) would not make sense, in my opinion. He does not seem to have the consistency, yet. (What was the race that I wanted him to impress in and where he pretty much failed to do that?)

Yea he might still be prone to a bad day at some point, on the other hand, he was at his strongest at the very end of last years Tour and that after doing a lot of work as a domestique on the flat and being in several escape groups in the high mountains. Small sample size, but from that, he seems to have the ability to recover very quickly, exactly what you want from a GC rider. Also at his age, he might have taken a big leap forward from last year. The performance today would be a first indication for that, we shall see.

Just checking Strava, he was 1:14min faster on that last 2nd cat. climb than the group of favorites.

 

[Bonimenier]

Just checking Strava, he was 1:14min faster on that last 2nd cat. climb than the group of favorites.

That doesn't really tell a lot. They weren't really trying to set any type of pace in peloton.

 

[geisterhome]

That doesn't really tell a lot. They weren't really trying to set any type of pace in peloton.

Yea true. No massive watts either. Just wondering why there weren't some more attacks if the tempo wasnt high. Or were there? I mean we got almost no footage from that group. Just saw a modest attack from MAL.

 

[BlueRoads]

Yea true. No massive watts either. Just wondering why there weren't some more attacks if the tempo wasnt high. Or were there? I mean we got almost no footage from that group. Just saw a modest attack from MAL.

I think for the main guys the more important day is today. The whole race is very tough for everyone. With TJV having everything under control yesterday again the chance of going deep for nothing was probably too high. The day, with the descent, the falls and the will to keep up with the break all the time because of Kämna, must have been hard enough as it was, so they saved the rest of their energy for today.
Also I think this year especially everybody likes to win, but the win or the podium is not that important. They want to see where they stand, test their legs, get racing into their legs. They probably know by now. Now it's mostly doing the rest of the ks, not crashing anymore, not getting sick.

Does Roglic start today? Hope he feels well, but if he's not there, things could actually get interesting.

 

[Faserr]

Very good ride again yesterday after the hard day in the escape group Saturday.
He is not with the best on steep hills, but he is pacing himself really good. On low gradients he seems to to be one of the best riders at the moment.
He is also getting better from day to day in long tours. Normally Bora will make him slowly stronger the next years. He certainly does have all the abilities, even a very good time trial.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Why isn't this called 'The Lennard Kamna Is The New Andreas Kloden Thread'?

 

[geisterhome]

Very good ride again yesterday after the hard day in the escape group Saturday.
He is not with the best on steep hills, but he is pacing himself really good. On low gradients he seems to to be one of the best riders at the moment.
He is also getting better from day to day in long tours. Normally Bora will make him slowly stronger the next years. He certainly does have all the abilities, even a very good time trial.

I found the last stage was even more impressive than his victory. I think he could be a co-captain at Bora for the Tour right now. He has top ten potential, and I would see him closer to 5th place than 10th.