Julius was born in Slovenske Darmoty, in the South of Slovakia, into a sport family. His mother was a former gymnast and his father played football for a local club, and later started coaching. Julius had a lot of physical activity in his childhood, but nothing caught his attention more than road cycling. He rode his simple one-gear bike called Ukrajina all around the area, but mostly in the hills nearby. He used to watch the Tour de France with his father on the television every summer. He wanted to know what it is like to attend races and watch from the crowds that gather around the stages. His father, seeing his passion, signed him up for a small one day amateur race, and Julius, still a high school student, won it. That caught the attention of the manager of the Slovak team Lokomotiva Zvolen, who asked him to join their youth academy. Julius agreed. It took some time before Julius became a reg...
Read moreJulius was born in Slovenske Darmoty, in the South of Slovakia, into a sport family. His mother was a former gymnast and his father played football for a local club, and later started coaching. Julius had a lot of physical activity in his childhood, but nothing caught his attention more than road cycling. He rode his simple one-gear bike called Ukrajina all around the area, but mostly in the hills nearby. He used to watch the Tour de France with his father on the television every summer. He wanted to know what it is like to attend races and watch from the crowds that gather around the stages. His father, seeing his passion, signed him up for a small one day amateur race, and Julius, still a high school student, won it. That caught the attention of the manager of the Slovak team Lokomotiva Zvolen, who asked him to join their youth academy. Julius agreed. It took some time before Julius became a regular member of the top team, but when he finally got there, everybody knew they had a world class hiller in their presence. And Julius proved it, as his very first result in OCM was a win in a World Tour race in Norway (Stavanger – Hauge, div B). He was successful two more times there, where he got two 3rd places, but most of his career he focused on two goals: Edmonton Red Deer Tour and VCK Classic. Unfortunately, some bad luck (including windy weather that Julius did not like very much), bad tactical decisions on the part of the team manager, and lack of real hill helpers in Lokomotiva at that time prevented him from fulfilling his ultimate dreams. His best results were two 3rd places in Edmonton, and one 2nd place in VCK Classic, which hurt him the most. Two seasons later another opportunity arose, but he had to make the toughest decision in his life: He was 34, beyond his best years, and there was a young hill superstar in the team. Should he support him or for the last time try to win it? But unselfishly, as he has been all his career, (he has been a hill helper for Drahomir Slovak even though he has got better offers from other teams), he decided to help Roland Cervenak. This decision paid off big time, because Lokomotiva got the beautiful winged trophy. With that Julius knew he did what he could for the team, and it was time to retire. But he remains in Zvolen with the team as a trainer because he saw that a whole generation of hillers is emerging, and they will need his advice.
Slovakia