'It's a viable option' - Alexander Salby on his move from pro level to racing in China
Danish sprinter took 11 UCI wins in 2025 in a year that saw him re-find cycling joy in the least expected place
“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.”
Alexander Salby is one of a growing number of riders who have previously ridden at ProTeam or WorldTour level to travel east to continue their racing career in China.
The Danish sprinter spent two years with Belgian team Bingoal WB in 2023 and 2024, during which time he won a stage of the ZLM Tour and Tropicale Amissa Bongo in Gabon. He was informed at the end of the 2024 season that we wouldn’t be kept on by the team as it merged with the Philippe Wagner Team (and has now folded).
It’s a difficult situation for any professional rider and Salby was low on options to continue his career.
“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.
With Bingoal WB, Salby had raced the 2024 edition of the Tour of Qinghai Lake, one of China’s longest running UCI races. It was there that the seeds were sown for his move to Chinese continental team Li Ning Star..
“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. Through him, we set up some meetings with the sports director 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.”
It was an unexpected lifeline for Salby. After two challenging years at the Belgian ProTeam, he was still ambitious to achieve something in the sport and would like to return to the top levels in the future.
“I wasn’t really ready to stop cycling…I felt I needed to show that I still had something left in me,” he says.
Read more: The WorldTour heads to China - Cycling’s next superpower?
“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. 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.”
Of the 15 men’s continental teams in China, Li Ning Star is among the biggest and most successful. Salby wasn’t the only pro from the 2024 season who joined last winter. Swiss breakaway artist Simon Pellaud also transferred over from Tudor and Romanian Cristian Raileanu and Kiwis Josh Kench and Luke Mudgway are other ex-pros with the team, alongside riders from Australia and Belarus.
Salby was impressed by the level of investment that the team has behind it and knew from racing Qinghai Lake the level of professionalism within the team.
“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.”
Racing thousands of kilometres away from home has of course also had its challenges, with the distance from his girlfriend and communication challenges something both have found particularly hard. However, Salby says that racing in China has helped re-kindle his passion for the sport. The opportunity to travel to new and exciting places also enhanced his season.
“It’s been tough also travelling so much and hard on people also having a big time difference. I think probably the time difference has been the biggest issue. My girlfriend started a full-time job and when I was racing in Asia, when I get up she’s sleeping, I do the race, when I’m finished with the race she’s at work. And before she gets off work I almost go to sleep unless I stay up an extra hour or two for a call.”
“I think one of the most important things for me was to re-find the joy of cycling, because the last two years in the team on Bingoal I kind of suffered mentally. Personally I didn’t belong there and I think they didn’t really treat the riders there well either. So what I needed to do was find myself and re-find that joy I had from cycling before. So that was one of the most important things.”
