Written by Don Hamstre of Schiavi di Don
The legendary, awesome, fabulous One on One with the Don took our humble reporter to Poland this time, where he would be interviewing Wojciu of Kremer. This Polish manager has in the past been good for a lot of controversy, a lot of big wins and thus been an indispensable part of the OCM Community. Enough reason to look forward to a very nice interview. Enjoy!
Hi Wojciu, first I would like to thank you for allowing me the chance to do this interview. I’ll start with the usual question. Why did you start playing OCM?
OCM mixes two of my big hobbies - cycling and online gaming. After Polish climber Sylvester Szmyd won an amazing stage in Dauphine Libere 2009 on Mount Ventoux I decided I must find great cycling game. I started with Pro Cycling Manager, but playing versus AI became boring after a while, then I found OCM. I just realized I am here more than 6 years.
Hehe, time flies when you're having fun right. With all these years of activity, this will probably not be an easy question to answer, but what do you see as your personal highlights?
Yes, a lot of things changed in my life during this time, I finished university, changed a job and a girlfriend few times, but lets focus on OCM highlights. If I have to choose the most important achievement of my team I will go for winning Germany Tour. Even though I said many words on this tour, it is still the most prestigious tour in OCM. It is even more fun to win in Germany considering german and polish history.
With all these successes, obviously a lot of awesome riders came along as well. Could you name three or four of your favourites?
That's the easy question. My favourite rider is Thodoros Drimalas, who is now trainer in my team. He won Cymru Taith 3 times, came 2nd in Germany Tour, but won the YC there and was 2nd in Essex too. Another favourite is Borys Bednarski, who has nice story behind him. He was a lead-out for great Jens Waesbergen, but changed team and became World Champion. My third favourite rider is Lech Wieckowski, my current captain. I like that he comes from my youth academy and I hope he will retire in my team. Maybe he will fulfill my dream of winning Essex tour.
Stories of riders like Bednarski are always nice, and also show that a different manager approach can make a big difference to the career of a rider. In this case, you made a very successful decision with buying Bednarski and using him for the WC, but have there also been occasions where you think you've messed up slightly?
No, I am perfect. Just kidding. Of course I messed up few times. I should have not sold Lesniak to peddelen or Turowski to Team Majones. Like many others I did a lot of mistakes at the beginning. I triggered top form of my riders in wrong time many times. I do not remember many such situations, cause I focus more on my successes than fails ;)
In that case, my next question shouldn't be difficult to answer. What do you consider as the best decisions you ever made during your managing career?
Not doing deals with slico, but seriously, the best decision was to sell my average riders + spriting captain Jan-Olof | | Holm and building hilly team around Drimalas. With the money left I could buy a climbing team too and it brought me from the balancing between Zyte and Top Division to the top 20 teams and even to the top 5 later. Let’s see how far I can go with only Polish riders now.
Nice that you mentioned your new all-Polish project, because it is something I'm very interested in. What made you decide to go all-Polish?
It's a project I wanted to do for almost 3 years. Finally I have enough courage to try it. I love my country, it's really beautiful, we have both sea and mountains. Also recent achievements of polish riders in real life, like Majka's 3rd place in Vuelta and Kwiatkowski's WC had an influence on my decision. I am also impressed how Il Grillo did with his all dutch team, so I wanted to try it. It's a nice challange.
It certainly is a challenge, and you'll need some nice young Polish talents to be able to do well. Who are the guys you see as your teams 'Future Greats'?
I hope they will appear in my youth academy. Dominik Turowski has very good potential as a hiller and I hope he can be next Drimalas in my team. However I had same hopes with Maks Jastrzebski, but he just can’t fulfill his potential. Also I already have Lech Wieckowski and Orest Czechowski, who score points for me in top division and they have few seasons ahead of them. I think I just need more team-mates. I am going to look for them in other teams.
And now for something completely different. In the past you have been in the midst of a lot of heated discussions. Sometimes people turned on you, but have you ever felt like it got too personal, or do you actually really like discussions like these?
Well, I have never felt people turn on me, more likely I turned on them. I think I am the only person who tells, what I think. It's the problem of modern Europe and America. You can burn USA flag in the NY, demonstrate against UK in the center of London, but you cannot tell that someone is stupid, when he cannot write and read. It's not like I think I am the smartest guy on the earth. I think I am totally everyday, average, regular, normal guy, who is fed up how political correctness is blinding Europe and America. I do not like the way you do the season awards so I do not take part in it. I know I used to care too much about certain things, but I hope I can keep calm now.
I am of a slightly different opinion (certainly about the Awards), but I think the various number opinions that used to be given in the OCM community made the forum a place which I enjoyed to visit, read, and give my own opinion on. I do think that the current community is lacking a good discussion or two, and has become a bit too serious about their own teams rather than the forum, but never mind me being nostalgic. Do you have people from the past (or present) who have been an inspiration to you?
I hope I can be inspiration for others, haha. Maybe WV de Dommel inspired me to build a team around Drimalas. I am still nostalgic about races with Drima, Ghida and Vancil. The golden age of hillers. Now things change so dynamic that I do not even recognize top riders.
Talking about Golden Ages, it seems to be a bit of a Golden Age for Polish
| | OCM, with Droz and Jastrezebski winning a lot, and a lot of very decent Polish teams. Do you talk a lot with ther Polish Managers, or in other words, is the Polish OCM community a close one?
Yep, I agree that we have good riders now. Polish rider won last Germany Tour and World Championship. We are 2nd in world tour now I think. Polish community is not a close one. We have only 5-6 active managers on forum. I hardly ever receive a pm from new polish teams. I sometimes talk with other top polish managers. Funny thing I talk the most with Legia. Legia is football club in Warsaw and I support their fierce rival Polonia Warsaw. I even had their logo for a while.
Ah, you've mentioned your logo's, they have been a bit controversial sometimes, and pretty funny at other (or the same) times. I always like the meaning behind logo's jersey's and team names. A bit of a long intro to my question, but I'm afraid the question isn't that short either. In the past, you've already told the story behind your team name, and it is probably one of the funniest things I've ever encountered on OCM. Some of my younger readers might not know it though, and I wouldn't like them to miss it. So would you like to tell it again?
I will copy paste my post from forum then: I was drunk when I made this team. Kremer is surname of my ex-girlfriend. Cool story bro! It's funny how sometimes bad decisions make great stories.
Well, I've had great fun during this interview, but I'm afraid we're nearing the end. Have you got anything that you would like to share with my readers, like a tip, a funny remark, or something else?
No. Life's too short for reading tips.
Finally, the usual 'pick the one you like best out of the two'. Training or Transfer?
Traning! It's much better to build something from zero.
Classics or Tours?
Tours. Soon every race will be a classic, they are worth nothing right now.
Germany Tour or Vuelta?
Germany Tour, because of the sign up mechanics.
Forum or Chat?
Chat. It used to be great place when I joined it.
The Awards or Trophies/Jerseys?
Jerseys. I really like to collect Jerseys and look at my palmares.
Staff or Equipment?
Staff. The best investments are in the right people
Longosiwa or Campelo?
Who are they? I do not know them,
Real life or No Life?
Both! Being no life in FIFA gets me real life trip to London for free. Both are great emotions :)
Time to say goodbye now, but not before I've once again thanked you for letting me do the interview. It was a nice experience and I'm sure our readers have enjoyed it!
Would you too like to be interviewed by The Don? Tough luck! Because The Don picks his victims at random, so you can’t do anything about it.
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