Overcoming

Bjarne Riis won the Tour de France in 1996. Now, as a team manager, he is determined to repeat this feat. In the Tour de France of 2004, his new CSC cycling team proves very successful. With cycling heroes like Ivan Basso and Carlos Sastre on board, the CSC team guarantees some spectacular racing moments. Disappointments follow victories, but Bjarne Riis and his tenacious riders persevere. opens up the rather impenetrable culture of a community that races at daggers drawn. Filmmaker Tómas Gislason had the unique opportunity to film the formation of the CSC squad and its first Tour de France from close up, witnessing the emotions, dilemmas and ties developing within a team on the road to the top. Gislason uses split screens, text over image, music, and energetic editing and camera work. In this way, he visualises the unfathomable desire to race, the uncertainties the team must overcome and the courage to pick up the bicycle again after a terrible crash. The result is an epic and revealing portrait of cycling.