Berlin is a city that has undergone more regeneration than most. It retains and acknowledges its historical past, but transcends it, propelled by resilience and energized by change.
Although its history is omnipresent, modern Berlin seemed young and dynamic to me. Even the most dilapidated neighborhoods and landmarks that some might call ‘sad’ have a sense of purpose about them, and it’s never more evident than in the graffitied remnants of the wall.
Even on an alarmingly cold weekend that welcomed the first snowfalls of winter and cast a gray veil over the sprawling metropolis, Berlin felt very much alive. This makes the city the perfect home station for the UCI Track Champions League, a never-before-seen display of an ever-evolving sport.
I went to the Berlin round of the Track Champions League with a particular passage of literature in mind, one that I discovered a few years ago in a collection of essays by Joseph Roth, the writer and journalist Austrian who lived in Berlin in his early twenties.
Roth’s trials are formalized to observe people. In his ‘What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-33’, he describes a homeless trumpeter on the Kurfürstendamm, a man’s inexplicable purchase of “the last of Berlin’s panopticums” (wax figures), teenage girls wandering the birch alleys in Schiller Park, humanity’s weak supporting role amidst the “living organism” of a futuristic railroad junction…
In January 1925, Roth got a taste of the 12th Berlin Six Days races, navigating the huge crowd to sit among hyper-enthusiastic families and sports fans in the old stadium, food , drinks and even pets in tow.
I don’t know Roth’s material or background well enough to comment more broadly on his interest in sports or athletics, so whether his thoughts on track racing are unique to the discipline or endemic to an unsportsmanlike character, it’s is hard to say. But I think you’ll agree, he was more interested in the atmosphere than the race in front of him.
As I write, avid cyclists have already covered more than eight hundred miles, without getting anywhere. They don’t even want to go anywhere! They go around and around the same track, which is two hundred yards long and a million boring yards.… If I stayed here, my face would look like the bullhorn through which the crowd in this madhouse is from time to time time fed into pieces. of information. Amazing, really, that they still look human. They should sound like megaphones, screams, brutal desires, beer ecstasies, bicycles, blind desires, decadent barbarism… They still look human, even after six days racing, or watching the races. On the sixth day God created man, so that man would run for six days. It was worth it.”
Excerpt from ‘The Twelfth Berlin Six-Day Races’ (1925) by Joseph Roth in ‘What I Saw’
The Track Champions League is not a six-day event, far from it. Now in its second year, the new UCI track series has been designed with the primary goal of attracting new fans to the sport with its shortened format. This is certainly evident from the GCN/Eurosport/Discovery TV coverage, but it’s a different story in the venue itself.
Like Roth’s experience just under a century ago, the Velodrom Berlin – apparently, and understandably, nicknamed ‘the UFO’ for its appearance like a huge disk driven into the earth – was full of atmosphere on Saturday evening, one that is carefully curated by the event organizers, a big part of TCL’s appeal. I can only assume that much of this intent stems from the historical connection between track racing and decadent, festive, beer ecstasy.
After a hasty, snowy walk from my hotel, I arrived at the velodrome shortly before the first bettors were allowed in and caught a glimpse of the sparkling electricity that was already palpable from the infield. Riders buzzed around my head as they warmed up on the steep track, their shoulders shaking with each pump of their piston legs; the entire spectrum of athletic preparation was in evidence as some laughed and sneered at their friends, rivals and compatriots, while others kept a silent, steel-eyed vigil inside their bowling ball helmets.
The arrival of the night’s crowd increased both volume and intensity as families, cycling clubs and enthusiasts took their places, the smell of beer and currywurst pushing away the curious scent of gingerbread which I surely noticed at the entrance.
This crowd was no match for Roth’s: the conscientious housewife unwrapping a piece of tangy cheese, the policemen hanging from the pillars side by side with pickpockets, the “acoustic tragedy” of a staggering, rambling drunkard, a young girl crying after bedtime. Ours wasn’t as big as Roth’s either – “faces, faces, faces. The rows like shelves, head is pressed against head, like the spines of books in a large library” – but what it lacked in numbers it made up for in its energy, being one with each other, the space and the riders who won their unwavering support.
By seven o’clock, the music had reached its maximum volume and the lights swung around the venue, increasing the excitement under the Velodrom’s low ceiling as the last runners finished their warm-ups.
Then the lights went dark and the countdown began.
This is where Roth let his mind and gaze wander from the runners to the crowds, or the drowsy drivers and idling taxi drivers outside. But this is where we diverge.
As the race began and swirled around us for three grueling hours, my thoughts turned to the city beyond the otherworldly walls of the velodrome. And the more I thought about the determination of Berlin’s continued regeneration, the more it writhed with the stories that unfolded on the track.
“Regeneration” involves some kind of failure or damage, and like many of our favorite sporting comeback stories, it was certainly brought to the fore on Saturday night.
I can’t leave out 2021 endurance champion Katie Archibald who had a spectacular night, winning both events after her early knockout in last week’s elimination, not to mention what she’s been through this been with the untimely death of his partner, but the standout story in the Focused vibe this weekend revolved around young Canadian Dylan Bibic.
A serious accident during the Scratch race – the event in which he took a surprise and historic victory in his first elite world championships last month – left Bibic limping and noticeably wincing as he returned to the field, even later in the evening when the pack reunited for the elimination race, the Canadian having swapped his radiant rainbow jumpsuit for his national colors.
I watched from a few feet away as the 19-year-old slowly made his way towards the barrier that separated the runners from the media to join the back of the queue. He still looked very uncomfortable as he mumbled something darkly to the aid holding his bike, then perched on the top tube for a few seconds until the group was directed onto the track.
And then he won.
Bibic rode invisibly for the duration of the race – a perfect game plan for “the devil” – until the final laps when he soared to victory over Britain’s William Perrett, with the new leader of the endurance league Mathias Guillemette, also son of Canada, in third, which means he took over the turquoise leader’s jersey.
When Bibic finally got off the track, after one of the quietest party laps of the night, he crept slowly to the winner’s interview booth and perched again, his shoulders hunched over. sagging and a thousand-yard stare piercing holes in the air. before him.
Relief trickled from his mouth as he swallowed oxygen, looking much older than his tender 19 years. Then a camera and microphone snapped him out of his solitary reverie and he delivered a straightforward, no-frills assessment of a good night’s work.
The accident was behind him. Bibic had learned, rallied, built on his misfortune and defied the odds to make a statement on the boards.
And on Saturday 26, he and his 71 running mates will do it again.