"I would never have imagined that I would be racing on an Asian team": Danish ex-pro fights for professional comeback in China

Alexander Salby will definitely have a smile on his face this off-season, no matter at which team he lands for 2026. The 27-year-old cyclist from Aarhus racked up 9 professional victories this season, massively extending his previous palmares that featured only two triumphs before the season. And despite all that, you may have not even heard of the Danish sprinter.

Salby had taken a long path through Danish continental scene to finally land his first professsional contract in 2023 with Bingoal WB. And even though he managed to sprint to a top-10 result on several occasions, including one stage win at both the Gabonese Tropical Amissa Bongo (2.1) in 2023 and the Dutch ZLM Tour (then 2.1), the Dane wasn't offered a new contract at the end of last season.

With the options to make living as a cyclist fairly limited on the 'Old continent', if Salby intended to continue to perform at his highest level, he then had to look elsewhere.

"It wasn’t easy to find a pro contract in Europe. Everything that isn’t a pro contract in Europe, it’s hard to find decent money where you can actually make a living," Salby tells Global Peloton while back in Denmark for the off-season.

And that was the moment when an unexpected lifeline emerged. "We did Qinghai Lake and that’s where I was introduced to the team. I met some of the riders there, had a good chat with them and one of the riders reached out to me later in the season and asked if I was still available and interested in coming to China."

He continues: "Through him, we set up some meetings with the sports director [Zhe Sun, ed.] and they were really interested and offered an alternative way of continuing my career, instead of possibly looking at either going back studying or finding a full-time job.”

That team was Li Ning Star. Of the 15 UCI-registered Chinese continental teams, Li Ning Star is recognized as one of, if not the, strongest. It's a team where XDS Astana's Haoyu Su took his first steps. And for 2025, a strong team gathered around Salby with ex-professionals Simon Pellaud, Luke Mudgway, Josh Kench, and high-quality continental-level riders Cristian Raileanu, Aliaksei Shnyrko and Raman Tsishkou.

"If you asked me two or three years ago, I would never have imagined that I would be racing on an Asian team, especially a Chinese team. It was almost unthinkable," Salby confided.

The urge to keep cycling and to prove his worth prevailed. "I wasn’t really ready to stop cycling…I felt I needed to show that I still had something left in me,” he says.

"I’m not young anymore, so I also have expenses that need to be covered. If you want to do it properly, you have to put in a lot of time and effort to be on your best level. I think it was a good option. Especially as a sprinter, I saw options for winning a lot of races on this scene and I think it was a viable option to also get a chance to go back as a pro."

With the same breath Salby also admits that this career path is not the one he'd like to follow for the rest of his active days. The ambition is still to return to the professional level:

"I don’t think if you race there the rest of your career that it’s easy to come back, but a season or two, I think it’s a viable option if you take some good results there.”

Those who have followed the Asian cycling scene will have seen the Li Ning Star sprint train often dominate the bunch arrivals with Salby crossing the line with an advantage of multiple bike lengths at times.

"From what I heard from the international riders that were already there, the team had big ambitions and good sponsors. I really do not regret anything. They treat us really well, we have a good programme, we have some good sponsors, good bikes. In almost any way possible, we ride as a pro team."

These ambitions Salby mentions are further underlined by some of the transfers that Li Ning Star have either announced already, or were rumoured for 2026. While the arrival of Australian sprinter Cameron Scott (previously Bahrain - Victorious) is confirmed, the big bombshell that is the signing of Argentinian climber Eduardo Sepúlveda with over a decade of professional experience has only just been hinted by Daniel Benson.

Does Salby still fit in the 2026 puzzle? We will have to find out. But the sources indicate that unless a big team makes a move for Salby, the Dane could stay with Li Ning for another year and be a part of what is shaping up to be the strongest team on Asian scene in 2026.