PSK Whirlpool - Author

Team and history

The cycling club PSK Cyklo Hradec Kralove was founded in November1993. Some of the riders and the club management got support from the Sport Centre of the Ministry of Interior. The name of PSK has been derived from: Police Sports Club. The name of the team has changed several times according to the sponsors - P&P Polyma, Polyma- Reta, Hyundai, Unit Expert, Remerx, Whirlpool, Whirlpool-Author.

More than hundred riders gone through the team in the course of 16-year-old history, which won here on the Bohemian scene but also on the International scene. Rene Andrle started on the World championship in Italy already in our first season. From this time our team regulary takes part in European’s and World’s championships both on the road and cyclo-cross and course.

1995 - Zdenek Mlynar became the Junior World Champion in cyclo-cross. Rene Andrle became Czech Champion on the road.

1996 - Zdenek Mlynar - 3rd place at the World Championships in cyclo-cross (cat.U23), Rene Andrle - 5th place at the World Championships on the road (cat.U23)

1997 - Petr Benčík- 6th place at the European Championships on the road, Zdenek Mlynar won the Czech National Championship in cyclo-cross (cat.U23) occupying the third best position in general. At the World Championships Z. Mlynar occupied the ninth position(cat.U23)

1999 - First season in the professional peloton as a Trade Team in the category III.

2000 - The third position in the scored rating of division III of trade teams and collected the highest number of wins (11) in the category. Our riders got two wins in the World Cup in track racing (Tesar – point race, Moscow, Sosenka – individual pursuit race) and both titles of the Champion of the Czech Republic in road racing. (Kejval a Sosenka)+ 2 titles on the track (individual and team pursuit race)

2001 - The team occupied the ninth position of the UCI rating in its division and got several valuable wins - namely the title of the Champion of the Czech Republic in the team time trial, the overall victory in the stage race Okolo Slovenska, Vysocina Tour, Brno-Velka Bites-Brno and several other stage wins or medal positions in individual races. Behunek became the Junior Champion of the Czech Republic in the individual time trial and the holder of the award of the best junior sportsman of the year 2001, won the title of the Junior Champion of Europe in individual track pursuit cycling and the same title in the team pursuit race together with Zdenek Ždimal.

František Raboň

2002 - František Raboň won the title of the Champion of the Czech Republic in the time trial(cat. U23) and the bronze medal in the collective start race. The team consisting of Vrana, Rabon, Behůnek and Ždimal won the third position in the team time trial. Martin Mares occupied 13th position in the prestigious race Thuringen Rundfahr and in the stage race Linz-Passau-Ceske Budejovice he was the fourth best rider in the overall classification and got the second position in the stage 3. Moreover, our team riders won another three races.

2004 - František Raboň became Champion of Europe in the road race (cat. U23). We won both titles of the Champion of the Czech Republic in road racing (time trial, road race)in the category U23 and silver medal in the road race cat. Elite. Riška became the Champion of the Slovak Republic

2006 - We won two titles “Czech Champion“ in the road race (Kozubek cat. Elite, Zitta cat. U23). Riska won 2 bronze medals in the Slovak Championships (in the road race and in the time trial) and a Greek Tentsos took twice position in Greece (time trial, road race).

2007 - Team was registrated as a Continental Team we won two titles of the Czech champions for the 2nd time in a row. (Cat. Elite Bucháček and cat. U23(Danačík) We added the title of the Czech champion in the time trial. (cat. Elite Kozubek ) and the 2nd place in the time trial (Andrle). Our two riders finished in the 5th and 10th places in the general classification of the stage race “Quinghai Lake Tour“ in China. As the team we finished in the 2nd place generally. We won individual stages in the following races- Tour de Normandie, Tour de Loir-et Cher and Linz-Passau-C.Budějovice. Our riders got 2nd place in the general classification of the race Tour of Slovakia.

2008 - Our first year among UCI Professional Continental Teams. (professional teams registrated by the International Cycling Federation- UCI ). After four years under the name PSK WHIRPOOL the team has changed its name into PSK WHIRPOOL-AUTHOR which includes the name of another of our main sponsors. The team has 16 riders, mainly from the Czech Republic and Germany (excellent sprinter Andre Schulze). We won the title of the Champion of the Czech Republic in the road race (Bencik) and Petr Bencik participated in the Olympic Games in Beijing. Our team riders won 4 UCI races.

2009 - We will stay among UCI Professional Continental Teams with the same name - PSK WHIRLPOOLAUTHOR. We are going to concentrate on the World Cup races, the Czech National Championships, the World Championships in categories Elite and U23 and European Championships U23.