Nowadays, the junior world champion is the hottest property in town. Every team is fighting to secure their signature, to ensure that said rider turns pro with them. It wasn’t like that in 2017 though. “After dominating the junior season, I won the junior world championships in Bergen, Norway, and if it wasn’t for a puncture I probably would have won the time trial as well,” Julius Johansen remembers. “If you’re going to be a junior world champion today, for sure all the WorldTour teams would want to sign you, but that wasn’t the case back then – no teams wanted me.”
If it that seems remarkable – let alone unfair and unjustified – then what is even more perplexing (at least to the 2025 version of cycling) is that after waiting four years to finally get into the WorldTour, Johansen was left out in the cold yet again just two seasons later, fighting for recognition and visibility. “After being released by Intermarché [in 2023] I 100% thought my WorldTour career was over,” he says.
But the tall and stocky Dane, now 25, has found his way back to cycling’s top table, incredibly landing a spot at the sport’s most successful team, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, via the most unlikely of routes: a stint riding as a third-tier Continental rider in Portugal. “I was both super lucky and unbelievably happy that all the hard work paid off. It just goes to show that you should always keep fighting.” This is the comeback story of Julius Johansen, now a teammate of Tadej Pogačar, only a year after nobody wanted to sign him.
Promise to frustration
It’s not to belittle the achievements of U18 riders, but it is accepted that often the best are those who’ve physically matured and developed earlier. Johansen was a case in point. “As a junior I was just stronger than the others and I could win almost every race,” he reflects. “I wasn’t a sprinter, but I was so strong that I could ride most people off my wheel.” Twelve wins in 19 days of road racing in 2017 back up his claims.
That record, however, didn’t have the big teams circling. He instead joined ColoQuick, a Danish third division team, and though he won a couple of noteworthy U23 races like the Olympia’s Tour, he was no longer dominating. “To suddenly go from winning everything as a junior to not winning a lot was hard,” he says. He finally got the pro contract he’d been craving in 2020, signing for the second division team Uno-X for two seasons, but the Covid pandemic affected him. “I really struggled mentally with Corona, and found motivating myself difficult, because I’ve always needed racing to get me going.” But he had done enough to impress Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux, who signed him on a two-year WorldTour contract beginning in 2022.
Johansen was part of the Danish team that became team pursuit world champions in 2020. He did not, however, make the Olympic selection in 2021. Photo: Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com.
“I was super happy – it’s the goal of every cyclist to be in the WorldTour,” he says. Over the following two seasons, he rode and completed the Vuelta a España twice, and established himself in Gerben Thijssen’s leadout train. “I feel like I delivered exactly what was expected from me in my role at Intermarché,” he says. But the team did not think the same way. “Maybe from the beginning they had bigger expectations from me, I don’t know, but they didn’t want me.”
In September 2023, Johansen was informed that he would have to wait for a new contract, with renewal being dependent on the arrival of an additional sponsor. “The hardest part, and what I still struggle with mentally now, is that I didn’t get an explanation as to why they didn’t give me a new contract,” he says. Regular selection, including to his second successive Vuelta, gave him a false sense of security. “I was thinking that they wouldn’t put me in the Vuelta if they didn’t want me next year. If not, they’d give me a shit race program,” he says.
When the World Championships rolled around, he still didn’t have a team secured for 2024. “You need to have your contract signed by the end of September these days,” he says, “but the team were telling me they were really happy with me but they needed to close the deal with the sponsor first. It wasn’t until December, when I didn’t go with them to their pre-season camp, that I realised it was never going to happen. I should have seen what direction everything was pointing in much earlier. I was young and stupid, it’s the best way I can describe it. I was sure they wanted to sign me, and I didn’t expect anything more than a minimal salary, but if the budget’s out, it’s out.”
Johansen was on the proverbial scrapheap. Discarded goods with very few takers. It didn’t help that he had changed agents twice in 2023, both for different reasons. He was left to fend for himself. “I wanted to continue to be a cyclist and I could live for one year with money I’d saved up from being in the WorldTour, but every team was full,” he says. In early March, he made contact with Portuguese third-tier team Sabgal-Anicolor. “They had a big UCI race calendar, much better than most other Conti teams, and because I live close to Malaga I could do the Portuguese calendar too. I was happy to get back racing and give it a shot.” He did well, the highlights being a couple of wins and two second places in the time trials at the Volta a Portugal – “a really crazy national race with a super strong peloton” – but it was a stroke of luck which turned everything in Johansen’s favour.
Johansen led the points classification for a couple of stages at last year's Tour of Britain. Photo: Will Palmer/SWPix.com
There are a multitude of reasons why Tadej Pogačar had the Triple Crown 2024 season that he did, but among the most important was the arrival of Javier Sola as his coach. As fortune would have it, Johansen would also be coached by the Spaniard last year. “Sabgal had a deal with Javier Sola, Pogi’s trainer, and midway through the season he started coaching me – I was super lucky,” Johansen says. From there, one thing led to another. “He had my data and I wanted to do everything to show him that I definitely still had enough power to be in the WorldTour, and it was a mistake that I was no longer there.” In the meantime, Johansen still didn’t have an agent. “I was contacting teams myself, via WhatsApp, Instagram, email. If I didn’t know the manager of a team, I’d get their number off a rider or sports director who I knew. I was even messaging teams in Asia who had good UCI programs.”
He needn’t have worried. In September, Sola invited Johansen to do some testing with UAE. It was a golden shot at a return to the WorldTour. “I did some really good tests and that started to really interest UAE,” he says. “I’ve known Matxin [Fernández, UAE’s sports manager] for a long time and we live quite close together, and he said they could do with a rider like me, someone to pull on the front.” At the beginning of November, he got a call from Fernández. “Luckily – so lucky for me – UAE had space for one more rider, and they said they wanted me.” How did he feel? “It was a surprise for everyone, including myself. They said I have one year to show myself, to prove that I still belong in the WorldTour.”
Johansen can’t say that he’s not been given an opportunity to do that: “Before the Giro started, I was the rider on the team with the most race days. That shows they are happy with every race that I’m doing and I think I can be happy with how it’s gone so far, even if I don’t have any personal results.” What’s riding for Pogačar like? “I don’t know – I’ve been teammates with everyone but Pogi!”
There’ll be no Tour de France for Johnasen and it’s unlikely that he’ll be at the Vuelta, too, but having bounced back from being in exile, the former junior world champion is determined to make that chapter a mere footnote in his cycling journey. “Other riders have done the same, but not many,” he says. “My message to everyone is to keep fighting, not to lose the motivation, and keep talking to people. I don’t know what would have happened if I didn’t have Javier as my trainer – I know for sure I wouldn’t be standing here today as a UAE rider. You also have to be lucky, but remember that anything is possible.”
Cover image: Getty Images
