Raphael Schweda (born 17 April 1976 in

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, ...

) is a former German cyclist.

Early life and amateur career

Schweda's mother is a teacher and his father is an electrical engineer. He has a sister (Juliane), who is 2 years younger. He grew up in Groß Lindow, a village close to Frankfurt (Oder), Brandenburg. Early in his childhood he developed his interests in sports, music and science. He played piano for more than ten years and participated in highly respected music competitions, proving to be one of the best piano musician in his age group. Although he started out as a highly successful swimmer, he was asked to leave the team due to his refusal as to enroll at the sports grammar school. Taking his grandfather as his role model he started at a local cycling club. He proved to be even more successful as a cyclist. However, his early career ended abruptly after he was expected to join the local sport grammar school again, which was the only way to continue his training. He stopped all sport activities altogether for almost two years. Only the reunification offered an opportunity to freely pursue his sport activities again. In the first year as he restarted, he was already 4th in German Road Championship in his age group. Since then he held a permanent spot in the "National – Team" for several years.

Palmares

;1996 :1st Stage 4

Bayern Rundfahrt The International Bayern Rundfahrt ( en, Tour of Bavaria) was a stage race cycling race held each year in Bavaria, Germany, between 1980 and 2015. The race was held as an amateur race between 1980 and 1988, and from 2005 to 2015, the race was orga ...

;1998 :1st

National Championship Road U23 in Gera National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

:1st Eschborn-Frankfurt City Loop Worldcup U23 :3rd U23 European Road Race Championships ;1999 :1st Stage 5

Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

:2nd

Omloop der Kempen Omloop der Kempen is an elite men's and women's professional road bicycle racing event held annually in Veldhoven, Netherlands. Since 1995, the men's event is UCI 1.2 rated and is part of the UCI Europe Tour The UCI Continental Circuits are a se ...

:2nd

HEW Cyclassics The Hamburg Cyclassics (currently known as the Bemer Cyclassics for sponsorship purposes) is an annual one-day professional and amateur cycling race in and around Hamburg, Germany. Although the route varies, its distance is always around 250 ...

;2000 :1st

Rund um die Nürnberger Altstadt Rund um die Nürnberger Altstadt ( en, Tour of Old Town Nuremberg) is an elite men's and women's professional road bicycle racing event held each September in the old town In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Alth ...

;2001 :3rd Overall

Tour of Sweden The Tour of Sweden (or Postgirot Open) was an annual professional road bicycle racing stage race held in Sweden from 1982 to 2002. It replaced the former Six Days Race 6 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 6 or six may also refer to: * AD 6, t ...

Career after the sport

In 2003, he left sports after the Race Paris Tours. In 2004 he started as a Team-Manager of the Team

Wiesenhof–Felt Team Wiesenhof was a professional continental cycling team based in Germany that participated in UCI Continental Circuits races and when selected as a wildcard to UCI ProTour events. The team was managed by Raphael Schweda with assistance from dir ...

(former Team Winfix–Arnolds Sicherheit). In 2007, the doping difficulties peaked in Germany and the main sponsor

Wiesenhof The PHW Group is a German family business in the meat industry that operates internationally. Its core business is meat processing of poultry. It is the largest company of the poultry industry in Germany and the fourth-largest in Europe. The PHW ...

retired. During this period the Team won 2 World Championships in the U 23 Class with

Gerald Ciolek Gerald Michael Ciolek (born 19 September 1986) is a German former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2005 and 2016. He currently works as a directeur sportif for UCI Continental team . Career Ciolek started racing ...

and

Peter Velits Peter Velits (born 21 February 1985 in Bratislava) is a Slovakian former professional road racing cyclist. His career highlights included third place overall and a stage win at the 2010 Vuelta a España, the 2007 World Under-23 Road Race Champion ...

. After his managing the team, Raphael earned a diploma in Business Management at the Fernuni Hagen (Germany). During this period his interest moved to the startup Business. He worked 2 years for Lukasz Gadowski, the founder of

Spreadshirt Spread Group (legally sprd.net AG) is the umbrella brand of five internationally active e-commerce platforms with headquarters in Leipzig, Germany and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, United States. It operates production sites in Legnica, Poland, ...

. In 2006, he and his wife Sandra Schweda (née Piplow) founded the Indoor Kletterwald in the . In 2014 he, Hendrik Gruetzmacher and Ole Eckermann founded the Henara GmbH. Hendrik developed the LIMS System Labmin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schweda, Raphael 1976 births Living people German male cyclists Sportspeople from Rostock People from Bezirk Frankfurt Cyclists from Brandenburg