Daily Cycling Facts 11.05.12

Paolo Savoldelli
(image credit: Tony Rocha
CC BY 2.0)

The Giro d'Italia started on this date in 2002, the last year that riders were not required to wear helmets (the UCI changed the rules following the death of Andrei Kivilev at Paris-Nice in 2003). The race had an especially international flavour with a prologue in the Netherlands, Stage 2 in Germany and Belgium, Stage 3 in Belgium and Luxembourg and Stage 4 in Luxembourg and France before the riders travelled south to Italy. The winner was Paolo Savoldelli, a climber with a (rare among climbers) talent for descending fast - a combination that would also win him the Giro in 2005.

Bruno Neves, 05.09.1981 - 11.05.2008
(image credit: Oxiclista)

Portuguese sprinter Bruno Neves died on this day in 2008 at the Classica de Amarante following a horrific crash. It was initially thought that the injuries he sustained in the crash had killed him, but an autopsy revealed that he'd been suffered a heart attack which then caused the crash. He died on the way to hospital, aged 26.

Paulo Ferreira, born in Vialonga, Portugal on this day in 1962, won Stage 5 at the Tour de France in 1984. He was the second Portuguese rider to achieve a stage win in the history of the race (the first was Joaquim Agostinho with Stages 5 and 14 in 1969.)

Jason Queally, born in Great Haywood, Staffordshire on this day in 1970, enjoyed a successful track career after coming close to death in an accident at Edinburgh's Meadowbank Track when a 45cm piece of wood broke off the track when he crashed and passed through his armpit into his chest. He made a full recovery and won a gold medal for the 1km Time Trial at the 2000 Olympics, then set a new European Human-Powered Speed Record at 103.55kph a year later.

Other births: Kanji Kubomura (Japan, 1943); Thomas Mühlbacher (Austria, 1974); Glen Mitchell (Great Britain, 1958); James Joseph (Guyana, 1957); Serhiy Ushakov (USSR, 1968); Vito Da Ros (Italy, 1957); Zhao Haijuan (China, 1971); Liu Hong (China, 1969); Jean Bernard Djambou (Cameroon, 1947); Lubor Tesař (Czechoslovakia, 1971); Stanisław Gazda (Poland, 1938); Marcel-Ernest Bidault (France, 1938).