Daily Cycling Facts 27.10.12

Santiago Botero

Santiago Botero

Born in Medellín, Colombia on this day in 1972, Santiago Botero turned professional for Kelme in 1996 and won his first professional race - Stage 2 at the GP International MR Corten-Mitsubishi - two years later. He stayed with Kelme for seven seasons, winning Stage 5 and third place overall at Paris-Nice in 1999; Stage 14,  the overall King of the Mountains and seventh place in the General Classification at his first Tour de France in 2000; Stages 7 and 21 at the Vuelta a Espana in 2001; Stage 3 at the Critérium du Dauphiné, Stages 9 and 15 plus third place in the King of the Mountains and fourth place in the General Classification at the Tour de France, Stage 16 at the Vuelta and first place in the World Individual Time Trial Championship in 2002.

In 2003 Botero switched to Telekom, a move that proved not to his liking - he didn't finish the Tour that year after achieving no better stage finish than 10th and finishing far lower on most of the others; his Tour results didn't improve much the following year when the team became T-Mobile with eighth place his best stage finish and 75th place overall, though he finished Stage 1 at the Vuelta in second place before abandoning days later. However, 2005 - and a new contract with Phonak - seemed to bring a return to form when he won the Tour de Romandie, Stage 3 and 6 and second place in the Points competition and General Classification at the Critérium du Dauphiné and a second place stage finish at the Tour de France. 2006 looked set to bring more success and he came second at the Volta a Catalunya, but then with only days to go before the Tour began he was sacked by the team after being implicated in Operacion Puerto. In October that year he was cleared of wrongdoing, then returned in 2007 with the Colombian UNE Orbitel team saying that his ambition for the year was to become National ITT Champion and win the Vuelta a Colombia; he did both and won the ITT at the PanAmerican Games. In 2008, he rode for Rock Racing and won the Redlands Classic before taking seventh place in the Road Race at the Olympics, then in 2009 he won the National ITT Championship for a second time and in 2010 won the ITT and the Road Race at the South American Games.


Cees Priem, born Overzande, Netherlands on this day in 1950, won around 70 races during his fifteen years as a professional rider. Among those victories were the Olympia's Tour in 1971, the National Road Race Championship in 1974 and the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1975 - he also won stages at a number of events, including Stage 1a at the Tour de France in 1975, Stage 14 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1976, Stage 10 at the Vuelta in 1977 and Stage 10 at the Tour in 1980. In retirement, Priem became manager of one of the most famous teams in the history of professional cycling, TVM; under his management the team was home to riders such as Greg Lemond, Robert Millar, Jeroen Blijlevens and Jesper Skibby.

Ko Willems

Adri van Houwelingen, born in Heesselt, Netherlands on this day in 1953, won Stage 16a at the Vuelta a Espana in 1979, Stage 18 at the Tour de France in 1982, the General Classification at the Ronde van Nederland in 1983 and Stage 2 at Tirreno-Adriatico in 1985.

Jacobus "Ko" Willems, who was born in Amsterdam on this day in 1900, worked with and then out-sprinted Jan Maas to win a gold medal in the 50km on the track at the 1928 Olympics.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jorge Guerra (Chile, 1913); Aleksandr Kuchinsky (Belarus, 1979); Raymond Thomas (Jamaica, 1968); Sayuri Osuga (Japan, 1980); Jan Hettema (South Africa, 1933); Lothar Spiegelberg (Germany, 1939).