“To be honest…” Michel Hessmann pauses, searching for the right words. “In the end it was a really good time. I would never change it.” The 24-year-old is speaking about his 21-month absence from cycling for testing positive for the banned diuretic chlorthalidone in an out-of-competition test in June 2023 while riding for Visma-Lease a Bike. He denied knowledge of taking a prohibited substance and claimed that a contaminated over-the-counter painkillers could have led to the positive test, something the German anti-doping authorities agreed with. “Obviously it was shit and I was incredibly angry a lot of times. I was also incredibly disappointed and anxious and whatever else – not calm at all, even though I was learning to be calm – but it changed my outlook on so many things. It changed my whole life.”

Hessmann is speaking to me at Movistar’s 2026 team launch in Valencia, Spain. The German joined the Spanish team last January and returned to racing in March. His Spanish is improving, and his previously short brown hair has evolved into a head full of curly hair. He looks different, and he acts differently to what I’d imagined. I’d expected resistance from Hessmann to my questioning. Usually – and for entirely understandable reasons – still active sportspeople who return from doping bans are reluctant to discuss their time away from sport, preferring to put it behind them and move on. Hessmann definitely wants to look to the future rather than dwell on the past, but I gather a willingness to open up and discuss his period in exile. It changed him, and he’s proud of that. Unfortunately, due to Movistar’s team bus waiting for him, we’re only allowed 10 minutes to talk. Nonetheless, what little he does say is illuminating.

“Now I am a completely different person with a completely different environment than I was [and had] before, and I like it more,” he says. “I am doing cycling now as an active choice,” he goes on. “Not just because it was always there and the obvious way to go. It’s not everything anymore. I am very happy with my life and I can imagine myself as a person away from cycling.” 

This article was published by Rouleur in January 2025. To read the full article click here.