Jan Christen's older brother reacts to a breakthrough victory at Vuelta a Murcia: "I knew I had it in me to win since last year"

Today's Vuelta a Murcia saw another display of collective strength of UAE Team Emirates, XDS Astana and Decathlon AG2R whose fireworks made for an exciting race. However in the end, it was neither of these three teams to celebrate in Murcia as Q36.5 Pro Cycling's Fabio Christen stormed towards a victory with a powerful sprint.

"My team did a great job towards the last climb. I really struggled to follow the rest," he reflected on Eurosport. "It was a difficult situation after that, because I was outnumbered. So I had to be smart. I saw my moment and luckily I was able to hold on until the line. I knew I had to go from far. In the last meters I thought I wasn’t going to make it anymore, because my legs were really hurting."

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And so Christen achieved his first victory as a pro. Make no mistake, the older brother of UAE supertalent Jan Christen has been knocking on the doors of this success for a while now. Just last year, Fabio finished in the top-10 eleven times!

"I've been waiting for this for a long time, this means a lot to me," he says. "I knew I had it in me to win, last year already. I was so close so many times. But my approach worked, finally. I'm very happy that I took a step this winter and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season."

Christen's victory marks a fifth individual victory for Q36.5 Pro Cycling in 2025. Still in mid-February, it is the same amount of victories the Swiss team gathered across whole previous season. Seemingly, the star signing of Tom Pidcock, who racked up three of these triumphs at AlUla Tour, launched the team lead by Doug Ryder to new heights and we're yet to see where are their limits now that they've finally found their much desired leader.

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