Jambaljamts Sainbayar is making history
Burgos BH rider becomes the first Mongolian to take part in a WorldTour race at the Volta Catalunya this week
Ullaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia and its largest city. Set in the Tuul River valley, the city is a coming together of a nomadic Buddhist tradition and the influence of 20th century Soviet rule.
Ullaanbaatar is home to 1.6 million people and is the birthplace of Burgos BH’s new Mongolian signing, Jambaljamts Sainbayar.
Long-standing readers of Global Peloton will be familiar with Sainbayar. While riding for the Malaysian Terengganu team from 2021 to 2023 he was a leading figure on the Asian racing scene.
By signing for the Burgos BH at the start of this season, Sainbayar became Mongolia’s first ever professional cyclist. This week, at the Volta Catalunya, the 27-year-old has broken through another barrier, making more history for Mongolia.
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As Sainbayar set off on stage one of the Volta Catalunya in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, he became the first Mongolian ever to ride a WorldTour race.
Getting to this level has been the dream for Sainbayar since he was a teenager.
“I started cycling when I was 15 in a sports high school. Cycling has always been my heart,” Sainbayar told the Olympics website in an interview a couple of months ago.
“Exactly ten years ago [aged 17 - ed], I gave an interview to a sports newspaper in Mongolia. The title was: ‘Sainbayar Jambaljamts: to become a pro cyclist in the future is the main goal for him.’ And then that exactly happened ten years later.”
Sainbayar has settled straight into WorldTour life, infiltrating a breakaway in the mountains on stage two which lasted to the bottom of the final climb.
He’s a tough and versatile rider. Strong on the climbs and fast in a group sprint - most riders who are successful on the Asia Tour are set in this mould. His durability comes from years of training in the bitter Mongolian conditions.
“When I was a junior I trained outside during the winter when it was like -20, -25 [celsius]. I put on two pants, two jackets and some baggy clothes,” he said.
“Where I lived, in Ulaanbaatar, it’s like 1500 metres above sea level. Most of the year it’s windy. For solo training it’s always a challenge, it’s never easy. I grew up riding in echelons.”
Training in that climate takes commitment, but that’s exactly what Sainbayar had by the tonne from an early age. He used any spare time he had to hone his craft on the bike.
“Since I was a junior I spent a lot of time on the bike. After school I used to go straight away to training and after training I used to practise on a mountain bike doing some skills.”
Mongolia is a nation with almost no history in the professional sport of cycling, but that is changing, the sport is growing.
There has never been a UCI road race in the country outside of the national championships. Before Sainbayar, very few Mongolian riders made it very far outside of their homeland to race. Jamsran Ulzii-Orshikh was one: he competed events such as the Ster Elektrotoer in a brief foray to Europe in the early 2000s.
The UCI Continental Ferei Mongolia Development Team was re-launched in 2022, featuring 16 Mongolian riders. Since then, it has given Mongolians, and several others from other East Asian nations, opportunities to race in UCI races in Turkey, Iran, China and elsewhere. It’s a vital pathway for cycling development in Mongolia.
The team first existed in 2019 for two seasons as a Ukrainian squad with a few Mongolians present. This is where Sainbayar got his first break. He won a stage of the Tour of Fuzhou 2.1 race that year and finished 8th overall.
His career looked to be curtailed in 2020, as the COVID pandemic meant he only competed in the national championships and the national level Tour of Phuket - winning the latter.
He was picked up by Terengganu halfway through 2021, immediately rewarding his new employers with wins at the Kahramanmaras GP in Turkey and the overall at the Tour of Thailand. Two more strong seasons with the Malaysian squad earned him his contract at Burgos BH.
As with many lesser-developed cycling nations, one event stands above all in terms of significance. It’s not the Tour de France, but another event taking place in France this summer.
“From two years ago, my federation in Mongolia started to focus on getting an Olympic spot. Finally we stand 35th on the board [UCI Nations ranking]. We got one Olympic spot and then I qualified for it,” Sainbayar said.
The Olympics in Paris this summer is the race that Sainbayar will base is 2024 season around. He will become the first Mongolian ever to compete in the Olympic road race.
Sainbayar is far from being a contender in Paris. Instead he’s likely to attempt to be a feature in the race’s main breakaway, just as he did at the 2021 World Championships on a similar course in Leuven.
This week, Sainbayar may not race for a top result this week in Catalunya, but he is doing something more important than that. He is breaking through another milestone, giving young Mongolians a new goal to aim for, higher shoulders to stand on.
You can read a much more detailed article on the story of Jambaljamts Sainbayar from our friends at Peloton Mag.
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