He represented Slovakia at the Olympics, now riding in top form he will lead it at the European Championship. On the Tour of Slovakia, Lukáš Kubiš ably competed even with the pros who had already started the Tour de France in the most difficult stages, and he currently reigns in the ranking of Slovaks in the world ranking, where he even surpassed Sagan and Svrček. The story of the leader of Banská Bystrica Dukla thus shows that it is possible even without going abroad.
Still only 23 years old, he has had one of the most successful races in his career. On our national stage, he also defeated the national champion Štoček, won the jersey of the best Slovak and could enjoy the absolute dominance of the star Quick-Step, which won all stages and the overall ranking in Slovakia.
“It didn’t surprise me. Even before the race, I thought that they came with an almost stronger line-up than the one they were in at the Vuelta, but that’s how it looked,” Kubiš begins exclusively for TVNOVINY.sk, who in the shadow of the success of the Belgian line-up himself was perhaps showing the form of life.
Highlights of the season
“The preparation for Okolo Slovakia and the weekend European championship, which is my highlight of the season, was really thorough. First, I honestly trained the basic volume and intensities here for a month, then I raced on two smaller stages in Bulgaria, and for the last week we were just fine-tuning the details at home,” he describes how the weeks before the race looked and then highlights the thorough study of the finish of the second stage in Poprad, where it came in a good seventh place in the sprint.
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However, Kubiš caught the attention of the fans especially in the royal third stage to Martin, where he climbed Beliansky hill in an elite group with many World Tour competitors. When he reached the finish line, he subsequently missed the final attack of the strong four including the leader Cavagno, but behind them Lukáš sprinted to a great fifth place, when he was the fastest of the rest of the strongest group.
“I rank this result among the best in my career. If we change performance into small amounts, then on Belianske kopce I went life numbers,” the Dukla competitor praises his form before the European Championships, which he will enter with interesting ambitions.
“We will see. It will certainly depend on luck on the given day, as it is a one-off race, but we did our best in preparation and the form is excellent. I dream of a result in the Top 20,” boldly reveals the competitor, who is building a successful career, unconventionally, exclusively in Slovakia.
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The beginnings
In his youth, Lukáš Kubiš tried various sports, including football or cross-country skiing. However, when he was sixteen years old, he followed the example of his eldest brother Andrej, who took up cycling.
“I started at the burners here in Detvianská Huta, where we have a great environment for that. Later I wanted to ride the Slovak Cup, so I went to the Železiarne Podbrezová club. This is where my coach at the time, Peter Medveď, gave me my first road bike, which although it first sat in the garage for a year and I didn’t even look at it, but finally I switched and today, paradoxically, it is the road that feeds me,” laughs Lukáš, who, however, did not resent the terrain.
“I’ve always enjoyed the burners more and until now I’m used to jumping off-road if the racing program allows it. On the road, you have to train for hours, zigzag between cars and watch the numbers. In the field, it’s such a peace for the soul, and at the same time it can be used nicely for technique, strength and intensity training.”
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There is also a Slovak route
Despite his very late arrival on the road, Lukáš managed to immediately rank among our best juniors, when he showed his strength and performance especially in time trials, but as you can see, he rode and the first solid results came in the races as well.
In recent years, promising Slovak juniors have often tried it abroad, as we have seen in the cases of Matúš Štoček, who defeated Sagan at the national championships, or Martin Svrček, who now rides for Quick-Step. Lukáš, however, took the home route.
“In juniors, I was approximately the third to fourth best in Slovakia. Young guys before me, such as Matúš Štoček and Adam Foltán, chose the most interesting places abroad, but Dukla made the most sense for me financially and athletically. In the end it paid off for me, I got great space and care here. I was able to develop well in the home environment,” recalls Kubiš.
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Productive quarantine
After the transition to men, already in the jersey of our best cycling team Dukla Banská Bystrica, Lukáš’s performance growth continued. In 2019, he still drove with respect and in the role of an assistant, but when the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the season in 2020, he came out of quarantine after half a year as a replacement.
“It was a special time for everyone. All of a sudden, all the races were canceled and it was not at all clear when things would start again. But I believed and continued to train myself. For a while, people even laughed at me when I couldn’t even walk between the districts and I was training sprints behind the motorbike as if I was going to fly to some international race in a moment. But everything started in the summer, and suddenly I was ahead of many people, I was well prepared and I really had excellent results.”
And indeed. After the restart of racing in the summer, the then still only 20-year-old native of Detvianská Huta began to assert himself regularly at foreign UCI events and at the national championships he even challenged World Tour pros Juraj Sagan and Erik Baška to a fight for the Slovak title. He did not march, but won bronze among men and a commanding solo victory in the U23 category.
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He entered the new season as the intrepid leader of Dukla and he certainly did not disappoint. He regularly collected results in races of the first and second category, including fourth place in the sprint finish of the Okolo Slovakia stage or a great fifth place in a stage at the Tour de l’Avenir, a difficult ten-day race that is a kind of Tour de France for the U23 category.
In total, he collected a great 222 UCI points and even won a nomination for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, where he represented Slovakia among the world’s elite in races and time trials. As he himself admits, it was the fulfillment of one of his lifelong dreams, which he was able to tick off at a very young age, only five years after he started cycling.
Lukáš Kubiš at the Olympics in Tokyo Source: Profimedia.sk
He ended the season with a commanding overall victory at the Chantal Biya Grand Prix in Cameroon, in one of his many and often fan-criticised outings. Lukáš, however, cannot allow these exotic missions.
“It pays off in every way. First of all, we can bring a lot of UCI points from there, which will then help Slovakia win places for the biggest events, including the World Championships or the Olympics. Secondly, the organizers invite us there, which means that Dukla’s travel and accommodation do not cost a cent,” he clearly refers to the critics.
After the rain, the sun always comes out
In the 2022 season, further performance progress was expected from the consistent Kubiš, but it ultimately did not happen, at least not in terms of results. After the first half of the season, which saw form rise nicely towards the important August and September, came a series of problems that ultimately buried an important year.
“I got covid before Avenir, I went straight out of bed to the hardest race of the season and the results looked like that. In addition, it blew me away on the Tour of Slovakia, where my legs didn’t even turn forward but rather backwards. The icing on the cake then came when I traveled to the World Cup in Australia. During the flight there, I started to develop an infection, and finally I had to go straight to Australia for surgery,” explains the competitor Dukly.
However, as he himself says, the sun always comes after the rain. In the 2023 season, he found his good legs again, was able to win several UCI races, collect over 250 UCI points and overtake all other Slovaks in the world rankings, including Petr Sagan. His excellent form, confirmed by great results in Bulgaria and at Okolo Slovakia, thus justifies his high ambitions before the European championship.
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What about the future?
The result at the European championship will help, but the consistent season of Lukáš Kubiš, underlined by his performance on the Belianske hill, must have impressed many scouts in professional teams. So the question is whether we will see him in the military colors of Dukla in the next season.
“We will make a decision only when there is a specific offer on the table, otherwise there is no point in speculating. However, my career goal is to get to the World Tour. Just as footballers dream of playing in the Champions League, I believe that I will go there one day. I won’t stop believing in it until I get there or finish cycling,” Lukáš does not hide his ambitions and also adds a message for all juniors who do not manage to get abroad.
“Even if abroad does not work out, I believe that there is a way through Slovakia as well. From my example, you can see that it is possible to move here as well and that Dukla enabled me to improve. Above all, whether here or abroad, it is true that you just have to work hard, believe in yourself and not give up,” concludes the winner of the jersey for the best Slovak at Okolo Slovakia 2023.
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2023-09-22 07:02:55
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