There is so much speculation about the rider in pro cycling might be The Greatest of All Time. There are heroic attempts to compare athletes from across the decades, with different specializations, and, yes, gender. With bike racing’s rich history, the search for the GOAT makes it is easy to overlook riders with spectacular palmares. A new YouTube video celebrates the impressive career of Germany’s Tony Martin. Martin, a friendly type who nonetheless earned the nickname of “Panzerwagen,” “armoured car, or tank” which suggests there was some irresistible force behind that smiling face and powerful legs.
The video opens with a cheerful Martin looking directly at the camera and expressing his pleasure that people have tuned into the video. He hopes that the viewer will enjoy watching it as much as he did in making it. It was a way for him to relive his 14 year career and it is an opportunity to share some beautiful moments.
Born in 1985 in Cottbus, a city in the then still existing East Germany, he and his family left for the West before the Wall fell in in 1989 but he later returned to Erfurt to attend a specialist sports high school there. His first athletic efforts were at football but when it seemed that would not lead anywhere, he switched to cycling.
In his first race, a three stage scouting race in Frankfurt, he borrowed his mother’s bike and her kit and did well. Convinced that his son had talent his father became his coach. Tony Martin has had strong family support–from his father, mother, and eventually, wife. This is a recurring element in the story. One can only love the tale of “The Idiot Loop,” a 30 km circuit that Martin and his father trained on endlessly. Unspoken is the dedication that brought him to world class level.
The video is very much focused on Martin’s history as a time triallist. Fascinated by the discipline, he moved up in the ranks. In 2009 and 2010 he came third at the UCI Worlds and had great seasons. No one-trick pony, in 2009 he won the Mountains Classification at Paris-Nice and came second overall at the Tour de Suisse. But there was a rider who posed a real challenge to him and that was Fabian Cancellara, who would go on to win the UCI World Championships Time Trial four times, a record only matched by Martin himself later.
Cancellara makes an appearance in the video, as do one-time teammates Marcel Kittel and Tom Dumoulin. There is always the recognition that you may be at the top of the world for now but somebody else will eventually come along to take that place. Cancellara is thoughtful about this, admitting that nobody wants to lose but he recognized that Tony Martin deserved the win in 2011 at the Worlds in Copenhagen. Martin himself sees that win as the true culmination of his career. It where all the work and the pain were rewarded.
Martin went on to win again in Valkenburg in 2012 but it was a hard-fought race. Climbing the Cauberg with only a four second advantage over Taylor Phinney, Martin put the hammer down in the last flat kilometer. It took him less than a minute and he showed the effort at the end. Whereas his win in Florence in 2013 unfolded perfectly, with a 46 second gap over silver medallist Bradley Wiggins.
Not everything goes as planned. Attempts to change his position on the tt bike were counterproductive and the golden run seemed over. Nonetheless he continued to win races, including stages at the Tour de France and the Vuelta in 2013 and 2014. On Stage 6 of the 2013 Vuelta, Martin went off on his own in the first kilometer of the 175 km stage. While he expected others to join him in the breakaway nobody did and he managed to stay away until the final heartbreak of being caught in the last 20 m.
In 2016 everything realigned for Martin as he returned to gold medal winning ways in Doha, not only in the individual time trial but also as the locomotive driving the Quickstep team time trial. Marcel Kittel was a teammate on that race and says that everyone else was taking 30 second pulls while Martin did a full minute each time. Anyway watching, and the video shows it nicely, shows an amazing race through the empty desert. One also recalls that Martin, getting his gold medal and rainbow jersey, was surrounded by a horde of photographers and basically no spectators whatever.
While Martin certainly made his name in “the race of truth,” the video only gives glancing recognition to his work as a team player. The “Panzerwagen” nickname came from his ability to push through the peloton, a valuable ability treasured by team leaders going for the general classification. He seemed fearless and for someone with such a sunny disposition he could be very aggressive. So much so that he was expelled from the 2019 Tour de France with Luke Rowe after both had engaged in some argy-bargy. That was the same year he joined Team Jumbo-Visma as a road captain and super domestique following two disappointing years at Katusha-Alpecin.
It was with Jumbo-Visma at the Tour in 2021 that Martin was in the headlines on Stage 1. He was the first rider in the Jumbo train to crash when he hit the infamous “Allez Opi-Omi” cardboard sign waved by a spectator. On Stage 11 he crashed again and withdrew from the race. His final event was contributing to the winning German mixed relay team time trial at the UCI Worlds in Flanders.
As his team contributions are a bit minimalized in the video, so too are the injuries he suffered as a pro racer. These were considerable over his career and in the end the reason he decide to retire from the sport. Not surprising if you think that in his time he had had concussions at least twice, a badly broken wrist, as well as having to leave the Tour de France while wearing the Yellow Jersey due to a broken collarbone.
Four years into retirement, he seems to be enjoying life fully. He has discovered gravel riding and still looks brutally fast on a bike. He has joined up with Marcel Kittel, along with a businessman, to start a children’s bicycle company, li:on bikes. They saw a gap between the quality and innovation of bikes for adults and what was offered for children.
In his time, Martin won 67 races. These included four individual World Time Trial championships as well as four team time trial ones. He won seven Grand Tour stages and nine stage races. He was German National Time Trial Champion no less than ten times. “Panzerwagen” is a fine video about a really nice guy who was a monster on a bike. Recommended!
“Panzerwagen: Meine Reise zum Weltmeister”
German, with English subtitles
40 minutes, released November 13, 2025
Directed by Leon Seierlein
YouTube link: here.
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