Saturday 4 August 2012
Daily Cycling Facts 04.08.12
Luc Leblanc
When Luc Leblanc was eleven, a drunk driver ploughed into him and his brother Gilles as the rode their bikes near Limoge, where Luc had been born on this day in 1966. Gilles was so badly injured that he died a short while later, Luc spent the next six months in hospital and ended up with a weak leg that was noticeably shorter than the other.
Prior to the "accident," Leblanc's childhood ambition had been to become a priest. However, after a physiotherapist recommend cycling as a way to rebuild strength in his damaged leg, he was spotted by no less a figure than Raymond Poulidor who urged him to consider taking up more serious training with a view to becoming a professional rider. He began to do well in the early 1980s, culminating in a Stage 2 victory at the 1986 Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and earning a contract with the Toshiba-Look team for 1987 - and that year, he won the silver medal at the National Road Race Championship. A year later he won the GP Ouest France and came third overall at the Tour Méditerranéen.
Leblanc rode his first Tour de France in 1990 and finished two stages in the top ten, then in 1991 he finished Stages 12 and 17 in third place and came fifth overall. During Stage 12, he had joined a breakaway with Pascal Richard (Helvetia-La Suisse) and Charly Mottet (RMO). Mottet won the stage with Richard recording the same time, Leblanc was 2" behind them - but he was 6'55" ahead of previous race leader Greg Lemond, which put him into the yellow jersey (he presented it to Poulidor as a sign of gratitude) with an advantage of 2'35". Sadly, it couldn't last - the very next stage, Miguel Indurain beat him by 12'35" and led for the remainder of the race.
There were high hopes that Leblanc would get into the top three at the Tour in 1992 after he won the National Championship, but his leg - which had never fully recovered - started giving him problems. On top of that, he had a spell of bad luck with the bike and told team mates he was seriously considering retiring, then abandoned during Stage 14 en route to Alpe d'Huez. Fortunately, he was talked out of giving the sport up and, after medical attention and more physiotherapy, his leg began to improve and he was able to finish Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia in third place. By 1994 he was even better than ever: he won the King of the Mountains at the Vuelta a Espana, then achieved his first Grand Tour stage win with victory on Stage 11 at the Tour - another five top ten finishes put him into fourth place overall, and later in the year he became Road Race Champion of the World.
The World Championship brought lucrative offers from a variety of teams. He settled for the French Le Groupemont, but disaster struck when the team's sponsors withdrew a week before the Tour and left them unable to take part. He then went to the Italian team Polti, but new problems with his leg resulted in an unsuccessful season and more surgery; once again he made a good recovery and in 1996 he won Stage 7, came sixth overall and fifth in the King of the Mountains at the Tour. It would be his last really good year - he won the Giro del Trentino and finished Stage 5 at the Giro d'Italia in second place in 1997 but failed to break into the top 20 at the Tour, then abandoned after Stage 13. In 1998 he finished stage 10 in 11th place, then abandoned after Stage 16.
Polti sacked Leblanc in 1999: his leg was causing problems again and the team decided that he was no longer competitive. An Italian court decided that this constituted unfair dismissal and ruled that Polti would have to pay him up until the date the contract was originally due to expire; by 2007 the money had still not been paid and Leblanc had to sue the UCI and Italian and French federations in order to get it. He admitted during Richard Virenque's trial in 2000 to using EPO when training for the Tour and the Vuelta.
Yvonne Reynders, born in Schaarbeek, Brussels on this day in 1937, won a total of three Track World Championships (Pursuit 1961, 1964, 1965), four World Road Championships (1959, 1963, 1965, 1966), three National Track Championships and seventeen criteriums as well as taking numerous silver and bronze medals during her career. She is frequently listed as the second most successful female cyclist of the 1960s after Beryl Burton.
José Vicente García, born in San Sebastián, Spain on this day in 1972, joined Banesto in 1994 as a trainee. He was still with them when the team became iBanesto in 2001, Illes Balears-Banesto in 2004, Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne in 2005 and Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears and year later, then Caisse d'Epargne a year after that. He finally announced his retirement in 2011, by which time it had become Movistar - eighteen seasons with the same team. He won a stage at the Vuelta a Espana in 1997 and another in 2002 as well as one at the Tour de France in 2000.
Gilbert Bauvin, born in Lunéville, France on this day in 1927, led the Tour de France for one stage and came eighth overall in 1951; won Stages 10 and 12, led for two days and came tenth overall at the Tour in 1954; won Stages 1 and 2 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1955; won Stage 10b and came seventh overall at the Vuelta, then finished in second place behind Roger Walkowiak at the Tour in 1956; won Stage 11 at the Vuelta and Stage 5 at the Tour in 1957 and won Stage 3 and led the race for one day at the Tour in 1958
Born in Cardiff, Wales on this day in 1913, Reg Braddick's interest in cycling began with a job as a butcher's delivery boy, riding around on a heavy utility bike. He represented his country - Wales, not Great Britain - at the British Empire Games (the predecessor to the Commonwealth Games) in 1938 but won no medals and won the National Road Race Championship in 1944. Braddick opened a bike shop in Cardiff, and it's still trading today (51°29'17.55"N 3° 9'19.19"W), now run by his son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter, who also maintains the company website - he started the Cardiff Ajax CC in the rooms above the shop in 1945. Among many other riders to have been members over the years are Sally Hodge, who became the very first Women's Points Race World Champion in 1988, and Nicole Cooke - ten-time British Road Race Champion, 2008 World Road Race Champion and twice winner of the Tour de France Féminin.
Edwig van Hooydonck, who was born in Ekeren, Belgium on this day in 1966, marked himself out as a future Classics great when he won the Under-23 Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1986 and the Brabantse Pijl a year later. He also rode well in stage races, winning the Vuelta a Andalucia and Stage 4 at the Tour Méditerranéen in 1988, stages at the Étoile de Bessèges, Tour of Ireland and the Vuelta a Espana (his only Grand Tour stage win) in 1990 and at the Tours de Romandie and Luxembourg in 1993, but the Classics remained his speciality: he won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1989, the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1990, the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Brabantse Pijl and Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1991 and the Brabantse Pijl for a third time in 1993 and a record fourth in 1995. He retired that year, saying that doping was now so prevalent in cycling that he was unable to remain competitive unless he too cheated - something he refused to do.
Ricardo Serrano, born in Valladolid on this day in 1978, won a stage, the Points competition and the General Classification at the Vuelta a la Rioja in 2006, finished Stage 16 at the 2007 Giro d'Italia in third place and won Stage 1 at the Tour de Romandie in 2009. Later that year he was suspended from competition and his Fuji-Servetto team pending an investigation into abnormal blood values revealed by his biological passport. The suspicious values were believed to have dated from the previous year when he rode for the Tinkoff Credit Systems team.
Thomas Stevens, who was born in Berkhamsted, Great Britain in 1854 and emigrated to the USA in 1871, completed the first ever transcontinental ride across the country on this day in 1884. He had begun the journey in San Francisco on the 22nd of April, equipped with his trusty penny-farthing, a spare shirt, several pairs of socks, a revolver and a raincoat that also served as a tent.
Other cyclists born on this day: David Chauner (USA, 1948); Ángel Edo (Spain, 1970); Nina Søbye (Norway, 1956); Jonas Romanovas (Lithuania, 1957); Rony Martias (Guadeloupe, 1980); John Millman (Canada, 1930); Gianluca Capitano (Italy, 1971); Marco Serpellini (Italy, 1972); Rolf Furrer (Switzerland, 1966); Neville Hunte (Guyana, 1948); Yunus Nüzhet Unat (Turkey, 1913); Mamdooh Al-Doseri (Bahrain, 1971).
When Luc Leblanc was eleven, a drunk driver ploughed into him and his brother Gilles as the rode their bikes near Limoge, where Luc had been born on this day in 1966. Gilles was so badly injured that he died a short while later, Luc spent the next six months in hospital and ended up with a weak leg that was noticeably shorter than the other.
Prior to the "accident," Leblanc's childhood ambition had been to become a priest. However, after a physiotherapist recommend cycling as a way to rebuild strength in his damaged leg, he was spotted by no less a figure than Raymond Poulidor who urged him to consider taking up more serious training with a view to becoming a professional rider. He began to do well in the early 1980s, culminating in a Stage 2 victory at the 1986 Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and earning a contract with the Toshiba-Look team for 1987 - and that year, he won the silver medal at the National Road Race Championship. A year later he won the GP Ouest France and came third overall at the Tour Méditerranéen.Leblanc rode his first Tour de France in 1990 and finished two stages in the top ten, then in 1991 he finished Stages 12 and 17 in third place and came fifth overall. During Stage 12, he had joined a breakaway with Pascal Richard (Helvetia-La Suisse) and Charly Mottet (RMO). Mottet won the stage with Richard recording the same time, Leblanc was 2" behind them - but he was 6'55" ahead of previous race leader Greg Lemond, which put him into the yellow jersey (he presented it to Poulidor as a sign of gratitude) with an advantage of 2'35". Sadly, it couldn't last - the very next stage, Miguel Indurain beat him by 12'35" and led for the remainder of the race.
There were high hopes that Leblanc would get into the top three at the Tour in 1992 after he won the National Championship, but his leg - which had never fully recovered - started giving him problems. On top of that, he had a spell of bad luck with the bike and told team mates he was seriously considering retiring, then abandoned during Stage 14 en route to Alpe d'Huez. Fortunately, he was talked out of giving the sport up and, after medical attention and more physiotherapy, his leg began to improve and he was able to finish Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia in third place. By 1994 he was even better than ever: he won the King of the Mountains at the Vuelta a Espana, then achieved his first Grand Tour stage win with victory on Stage 11 at the Tour - another five top ten finishes put him into fourth place overall, and later in the year he became Road Race Champion of the World.
The World Championship brought lucrative offers from a variety of teams. He settled for the French Le Groupemont, but disaster struck when the team's sponsors withdrew a week before the Tour and left them unable to take part. He then went to the Italian team Polti, but new problems with his leg resulted in an unsuccessful season and more surgery; once again he made a good recovery and in 1996 he won Stage 7, came sixth overall and fifth in the King of the Mountains at the Tour. It would be his last really good year - he won the Giro del Trentino and finished Stage 5 at the Giro d'Italia in second place in 1997 but failed to break into the top 20 at the Tour, then abandoned after Stage 13. In 1998 he finished stage 10 in 11th place, then abandoned after Stage 16.
Polti sacked Leblanc in 1999: his leg was causing problems again and the team decided that he was no longer competitive. An Italian court decided that this constituted unfair dismissal and ruled that Polti would have to pay him up until the date the contract was originally due to expire; by 2007 the money had still not been paid and Leblanc had to sue the UCI and Italian and French federations in order to get it. He admitted during Richard Virenque's trial in 2000 to using EPO when training for the Tour and the Vuelta.
José Vicente García, born in San Sebastián, Spain on this day in 1972, joined Banesto in 1994 as a trainee. He was still with them when the team became iBanesto in 2001, Illes Balears-Banesto in 2004, Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne in 2005 and Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears and year later, then Caisse d'Epargne a year after that. He finally announced his retirement in 2011, by which time it had become Movistar - eighteen seasons with the same team. He won a stage at the Vuelta a Espana in 1997 and another in 2002 as well as one at the Tour de France in 2000.
Gilbert Bauvin, born in Lunéville, France on this day in 1927, led the Tour de France for one stage and came eighth overall in 1951; won Stages 10 and 12, led for two days and came tenth overall at the Tour in 1954; won Stages 1 and 2 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1955; won Stage 10b and came seventh overall at the Vuelta, then finished in second place behind Roger Walkowiak at the Tour in 1956; won Stage 11 at the Vuelta and Stage 5 at the Tour in 1957 and won Stage 3 and led the race for one day at the Tour in 1958
Born in Cardiff, Wales on this day in 1913, Reg Braddick's interest in cycling began with a job as a butcher's delivery boy, riding around on a heavy utility bike. He represented his country - Wales, not Great Britain - at the British Empire Games (the predecessor to the Commonwealth Games) in 1938 but won no medals and won the National Road Race Championship in 1944. Braddick opened a bike shop in Cardiff, and it's still trading today (51°29'17.55"N 3° 9'19.19"W), now run by his son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter, who also maintains the company website - he started the Cardiff Ajax CC in the rooms above the shop in 1945. Among many other riders to have been members over the years are Sally Hodge, who became the very first Women's Points Race World Champion in 1988, and Nicole Cooke - ten-time British Road Race Champion, 2008 World Road Race Champion and twice winner of the Tour de France Féminin.
Ricardo Serrano, born in Valladolid on this day in 1978, won a stage, the Points competition and the General Classification at the Vuelta a la Rioja in 2006, finished Stage 16 at the 2007 Giro d'Italia in third place and won Stage 1 at the Tour de Romandie in 2009. Later that year he was suspended from competition and his Fuji-Servetto team pending an investigation into abnormal blood values revealed by his biological passport. The suspicious values were believed to have dated from the previous year when he rode for the Tinkoff Credit Systems team.
Thomas Stevens, who was born in Berkhamsted, Great Britain in 1854 and emigrated to the USA in 1871, completed the first ever transcontinental ride across the country on this day in 1884. He had begun the journey in San Francisco on the 22nd of April, equipped with his trusty penny-farthing, a spare shirt, several pairs of socks, a revolver and a raincoat that also served as a tent.
Other cyclists born on this day: David Chauner (USA, 1948); Ángel Edo (Spain, 1970); Nina Søbye (Norway, 1956); Jonas Romanovas (Lithuania, 1957); Rony Martias (Guadeloupe, 1980); John Millman (Canada, 1930); Gianluca Capitano (Italy, 1971); Marco Serpellini (Italy, 1972); Rolf Furrer (Switzerland, 1966); Neville Hunte (Guyana, 1948); Yunus Nüzhet Unat (Turkey, 1913); Mamdooh Al-Doseri (Bahrain, 1971).
Friday 3 August 2012
Daily Cycling Facts 03.08.12
Giorgia Bronzini
Giorgia Bronzini, born in Piacenza on this day in 1983, won the World Championship Road Race in 2010 and 2011. Bronzini's website says that she discovered and fell in love with cycling at a young age and soon found that she could beat the boys; this gave her confidence and encouraged her to start training seriously, then to begin racing on the track - where she began winning races immediately. Her first major wins came in 2001: the first was the Junior Points Race at the Nationals, the second was the same event at the World Championships in the USA.
Bronzini's track career remains successful to the present day - she has won a number of important races, finished top three in many National, Europeanand World Championships and became World Points Race Champion at Elite level in 2009; but, following her third place on Stage 7a at the Giro Donne in 2003, she began to concentrate on road racing from 2004 onwards. That year, she won three stages at the Eko Tour Dookola Polski and Stage 6 at the Holland Ladies' Tour; a year later she won the Giro del Lago Maggiore, the Giro del Friuli Donne, Stages 1 and 3 at the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige-Südtirol, Stages 3, 6 and 9 at the Giro Donne and Stages 3 and 5 at the Giro della Toscana. Many more stages went her way in the subsequent years, including an incredible consecutive four victories at the Trophée d'Or Féminin in 2008 and Stages 1, 2, 4, 8 and 9 at the Gran Caracol de Pista a year later.
None of her previous wins comes close to the 2010 Worlds triumph, when she beat the phenomenally powerful and supremely talented Marianne Vos into second place - but for many fans, it was the 2011 Championships that rates as the highlight of her career to date. Vos, enjoying a spectacular year that brought her a total of 46 victories (Eddy Merckx himelf managed only ten more than that in 1973), seemed certain to take back the title she'd last held in 2006 and few fans expected her to experience any real difficulty in doing so. Yet once again Bronzini was able to get the better of her, staying with her all the way to the line and then finding just enough power to stay a hair's-breadth ahead when it mattered. The look of dismay of Vos' face said it all, but only minutes later on the podium it was clear that she accepted she'd been beaten fair and square by one of the greatest champions in cycling history.
Óscar Pereiro
Born in Mos, Galicia on this day in 1977, Óscar Pereiro became Under-23 Cyclo Cross Champion of Spain in 1997 and won silver at Elite level the next year, then began to concentrate on road racing. He got off to a very good start, winning second place in the Youth category at the 2000 Volta a Portugal and second overall at the 2001 GP Matisinhos, then an impressive eleventh overall at the Giro d'Italia - his first Grand Tour - a year later. In 2004 he came sixth in the Prologue and tenth overall at the Tour de France.
These look very much like the race results of a rider who is going to become very great indeed - most riders will not even finish their first Grand Tour, never mind come eleventh, and once they've experienced the Giro and the Vuelta they usually go back to step one at their first Tour and find it's much, much harder than anything they've experienced before. Only a tiny number do better than Pereiro did - the superhumans, like Hinault who won the Tour the first time he took part.
Yet in the next couple of years, it began to become obvious that within sight of the very top level if the sport was as close as Pereiro was going to get. He was tenth at the Tour again in 2005, then second in 2006 - until winner Floyd Landis was disqualified for doping, at which point Pereiro became default victor. He tried to win on his own merit in 2007, but finished in tenth for a third time, with a disadvantage of 14'25" to winner Alberto Contador. His chances were ended by a crash and broken arm the following year, by which time he'd been relegated to support rider for Alejandro Valverde and was in 15th place overall; when he abandoned after Stage 7 the following year he was in 46th place.
Pereiro joined Astana for the 2010 season, but retired early in the year. He has since devoted his life to football, his childhood dream, and made two professional appearances with Coruxo FC that year.
Pereiro was accused of doping by French newspaper Le Monde in January 2007 after it discovered he had tested positive for Salbutamol which, though not believed to have any performance-enhancing effects in healthy athletes, was nevertheless banned by WADA except in cases where an athlete was able to provide medical proof that they needed it, as is commonly the case with asthmatics (it has since been downgraded - an athlete will not be required to provide an explanation provided detected levels of the drug do not exceed 1,000 µg/L in the urine or blood plasma). It was claimed that the UCI had given the rider permission to use the drug retroactively, after he had tested positive, and it began to look as though a scandal might be brewing when French anti-doping officials went against the UCI and demanded Pereiro provide a legitimate reason to use the drug within one week. Exactly seven days after Le Monde's claims, the French dropped the investigation, stating that Pereiro had provided them with satisfactory evidence.
Cesare Benedetti
Born in Rovareto, Italy on this day in 1987, Cesare Benedetti had an amateur career good enough to snare him a place as a trainee with Liquigas halfway through 2009; he ended his asoociation with them at the end of that season when ProContinental team NetApp offered him a full professional contract, and he won the Belgian Plombières road race and third place on Stage 4 at the 2011 Tour of Britain for them.
In 2012, NetApp - and Benedetti - made their Grand Tour debut after receiving a wildcard invitation to the Giro d'Italia. Team management believed that riders might have the ability to challenge for tenth place on or two stages; Benedetti finished Stage 6 in fifth place.
Kamakazi (the spelling is intentional), born in Brisbane on this day in 1981 and given the name Jamie Hildebrandt a short while later, represented Australia in the Men's BMX Race at the 2008 Olympics. He has officially and legally changed his name and now works as a boilermaker, still competing in BMX competitions.
Cameron Wurf, born in Sandy Bay, Tasmania on this day in 1983, won the Chrono Champenois in France and the Individual Time Trial at the Oceania Games in 2007, came fifth overall at the Tour of Turkey in 2011 and second overall at the Tour of Quinghai Lake in 2012. Before coming to cycling he was a champion rower, representing Australia at the 2004 Olympics.
Giuseppe Muraglia, born in Adria, Italy on this day in 1979, won the Clásica de Almería in 2007. After the race he tested positive for Human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone that causes an increase in the body's production of testosterone and which is commonly taken in conjunction with steroids; he was sacked by his Acqua&Sapone team and banned from competition for two years.
Lucas Brunelle
Born in Boston on this day in 1971 and raised in Martha's Vineyard, Lucas Brunelle began riding BMX at the age of 15 and road racing two years later, soon proving himself sufficiently talented to earn a place at the US Olympic Training Center, where he was coached by Chris Carmichael - and, not long after getting there, was almost thrown out again after a fight with another rider.
That early history was the first signs of a confrontational style that would lead to numerous arguments with riders and race organisers in the future. He had no respect for rules or tradition, maintaining a "win at all costs" attitude that saw him ride on roadside pavements and force his way through groups of blocking cyclists during races, risking their safety as well as his own. It worked, however, and he won good results for his team; but after a few years he began to find legal racing boring and found work as a bike courier, which gave him a way into the shadowy world of alleycat races - unlawful, sometimes downright illegal unofficial races on urban roads. His aggressive style made him a legend in the eyes of some and a liability in the eyes of a roughly-equal number of others and his refusal to stay out of the "door zone" - the space along parked cars into which drivers who can't be bothered to check behind them sometimes open their doors into the path of cyclists - has led to it becoming known among Boston's underground bike groups as "the Lucas Zone." He enjoyed more success in alleycats than in legal racing, but has become known primarily for the documentary films he makes about them (he concentrates his films now that he has a multi-million dollar IT company, saying that people rely on him to provide employment). The trailer to his most famous, Line of Sight, can be seen below.
Lucas became involved in Critical Mass and for that reason is often considered a cycling advocate, though many advocacy groups condemn him for glorifying dangerous riding and bringing cycling into disrepute. However, despite his "Fuck bike advocacy" comments during an interview with Bicycling magazine, he is, in his own way, a bike advocate - but rather than believing that motorised traffic should be aware of and leave room for cyclists, he believes that the bike is the king of the road and that motorised traffic get out of the way. It is a point of view that many cyclists enjoy hearing and some share, even though few will admit as much.
Other cyclists born on this day: Rik Moorman (Netherlands, 1961); Arturo García (Mexico, 1969); Yanjingiin Baatar (Mongolia, 1940); Juan Pablo Forero (Colombia, 1983); Poul Sørensen (Denmark, 1906, died 1951); Ronny Van Sweevelt (Belgium, 1962); Loris Campana (Italy, 1926); Olinto Silva (Venezuela, 1960); Jean Cugnot (France, 1899); Ian Chandler (Australia, 1951); Jemal Rogora (Ethiopia, 1959); Henk Baars (Netherlands, 1960); Tsutomu Sakamoto (Japan, 1962); Fernand Canteloube (France, 1900, died 1976).
Bronzini's track career remains successful to the present day - she has won a number of important races, finished top three in many National, Europeanand World Championships and became World Points Race Champion at Elite level in 2009; but, following her third place on Stage 7a at the Giro Donne in 2003, she began to concentrate on road racing from 2004 onwards. That year, she won three stages at the Eko Tour Dookola Polski and Stage 6 at the Holland Ladies' Tour; a year later she won the Giro del Lago Maggiore, the Giro del Friuli Donne, Stages 1 and 3 at the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige-Südtirol, Stages 3, 6 and 9 at the Giro Donne and Stages 3 and 5 at the Giro della Toscana. Many more stages went her way in the subsequent years, including an incredible consecutive four victories at the Trophée d'Or Féminin in 2008 and Stages 1, 2, 4, 8 and 9 at the Gran Caracol de Pista a year later.
 |
| Vos, Bronzini and third place Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, 2011 World Championships |
Óscar Pereiro
 |
| Pereiro in 2007 |
These look very much like the race results of a rider who is going to become very great indeed - most riders will not even finish their first Grand Tour, never mind come eleventh, and once they've experienced the Giro and the Vuelta they usually go back to step one at their first Tour and find it's much, much harder than anything they've experienced before. Only a tiny number do better than Pereiro did - the superhumans, like Hinault who won the Tour the first time he took part.
Yet in the next couple of years, it began to become obvious that within sight of the very top level if the sport was as close as Pereiro was going to get. He was tenth at the Tour again in 2005, then second in 2006 - until winner Floyd Landis was disqualified for doping, at which point Pereiro became default victor. He tried to win on his own merit in 2007, but finished in tenth for a third time, with a disadvantage of 14'25" to winner Alberto Contador. His chances were ended by a crash and broken arm the following year, by which time he'd been relegated to support rider for Alejandro Valverde and was in 15th place overall; when he abandoned after Stage 7 the following year he was in 46th place.
Pereiro joined Astana for the 2010 season, but retired early in the year. He has since devoted his life to football, his childhood dream, and made two professional appearances with Coruxo FC that year.
Pereiro was accused of doping by French newspaper Le Monde in January 2007 after it discovered he had tested positive for Salbutamol which, though not believed to have any performance-enhancing effects in healthy athletes, was nevertheless banned by WADA except in cases where an athlete was able to provide medical proof that they needed it, as is commonly the case with asthmatics (it has since been downgraded - an athlete will not be required to provide an explanation provided detected levels of the drug do not exceed 1,000 µg/L in the urine or blood plasma). It was claimed that the UCI had given the rider permission to use the drug retroactively, after he had tested positive, and it began to look as though a scandal might be brewing when French anti-doping officials went against the UCI and demanded Pereiro provide a legitimate reason to use the drug within one week. Exactly seven days after Le Monde's claims, the French dropped the investigation, stating that Pereiro had provided them with satisfactory evidence.
 |
| Benedetti in 2011 |
Born in Rovareto, Italy on this day in 1987, Cesare Benedetti had an amateur career good enough to snare him a place as a trainee with Liquigas halfway through 2009; he ended his asoociation with them at the end of that season when ProContinental team NetApp offered him a full professional contract, and he won the Belgian Plombières road race and third place on Stage 4 at the 2011 Tour of Britain for them.
In 2012, NetApp - and Benedetti - made their Grand Tour debut after receiving a wildcard invitation to the Giro d'Italia. Team management believed that riders might have the ability to challenge for tenth place on or two stages; Benedetti finished Stage 6 in fifth place.
Kamakazi (the spelling is intentional), born in Brisbane on this day in 1981 and given the name Jamie Hildebrandt a short while later, represented Australia in the Men's BMX Race at the 2008 Olympics. He has officially and legally changed his name and now works as a boilermaker, still competing in BMX competitions.
Cameron Wurf, born in Sandy Bay, Tasmania on this day in 1983, won the Chrono Champenois in France and the Individual Time Trial at the Oceania Games in 2007, came fifth overall at the Tour of Turkey in 2011 and second overall at the Tour of Quinghai Lake in 2012. Before coming to cycling he was a champion rower, representing Australia at the 2004 Olympics.
Giuseppe Muraglia, born in Adria, Italy on this day in 1979, won the Clásica de Almería in 2007. After the race he tested positive for Human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone that causes an increase in the body's production of testosterone and which is commonly taken in conjunction with steroids; he was sacked by his Acqua&Sapone team and banned from competition for two years.
Lucas Brunelle
 |
| Lucas Brunelle |
That early history was the first signs of a confrontational style that would lead to numerous arguments with riders and race organisers in the future. He had no respect for rules or tradition, maintaining a "win at all costs" attitude that saw him ride on roadside pavements and force his way through groups of blocking cyclists during races, risking their safety as well as his own. It worked, however, and he won good results for his team; but after a few years he began to find legal racing boring and found work as a bike courier, which gave him a way into the shadowy world of alleycat races - unlawful, sometimes downright illegal unofficial races on urban roads. His aggressive style made him a legend in the eyes of some and a liability in the eyes of a roughly-equal number of others and his refusal to stay out of the "door zone" - the space along parked cars into which drivers who can't be bothered to check behind them sometimes open their doors into the path of cyclists - has led to it becoming known among Boston's underground bike groups as "the Lucas Zone." He enjoyed more success in alleycats than in legal racing, but has become known primarily for the documentary films he makes about them (he concentrates his films now that he has a multi-million dollar IT company, saying that people rely on him to provide employment). The trailer to his most famous, Line of Sight, can be seen below.
Lucas became involved in Critical Mass and for that reason is often considered a cycling advocate, though many advocacy groups condemn him for glorifying dangerous riding and bringing cycling into disrepute. However, despite his "Fuck bike advocacy" comments during an interview with Bicycling magazine, he is, in his own way, a bike advocate - but rather than believing that motorised traffic should be aware of and leave room for cyclists, he believes that the bike is the king of the road and that motorised traffic get out of the way. It is a point of view that many cyclists enjoy hearing and some share, even though few will admit as much.
Other cyclists born on this day: Rik Moorman (Netherlands, 1961); Arturo García (Mexico, 1969); Yanjingiin Baatar (Mongolia, 1940); Juan Pablo Forero (Colombia, 1983); Poul Sørensen (Denmark, 1906, died 1951); Ronny Van Sweevelt (Belgium, 1962); Loris Campana (Italy, 1926); Olinto Silva (Venezuela, 1960); Jean Cugnot (France, 1899); Ian Chandler (Australia, 1951); Jemal Rogora (Ethiopia, 1959); Henk Baars (Netherlands, 1960); Tsutomu Sakamoto (Japan, 1962); Fernand Canteloube (France, 1900, died 1976).
Thursday 2 August 2012
Olympics Time Trials Photos
 |
| Every British fan - and a fair few from elsewhere, such is the Olympic spirit and her popularity - wanted to see Emma Pooley take a gold medal, but those who have followed her career knew that she was absolutely right when she said the parcours was not right for her: she's a tiny, lightweight climber able to do well in a hilly TT, while this one was flat. Nevertheless, 6th (+1'02.88") was a very respectable result. Fellow Brit Lizzie Armitstead was 10th (+1'51.42"). |
 |
| Olga Zabelinskaya was tenth from the 24 riders to leave the start ramp, but set a superb time of 37'57.45" to lead the event in its early stages. It would be beaten - but by only two riders, earning the 32-year-old Russian a second bronze medal to add to the one she won in the Road Race. "This is the greatest achievement of my career," she said. |
 |
| South Africa's Ashleigh Moolman was fourth down the ramp and recorded the slowest time, 4'48.75". The fact that she had to ride at a blisteringly fast pace to do so is indication of the extremely high levels of performance and competition found at the upper levels of women's cycling - easily equal to men's cycling. |
 |
| Tatiana Antoshina (Russia) was the sixth rider to go and recorded the 12th best time, 2'37.67" behind the winner. |
 |
| Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands), National TT Champion in 2007, took 8th place with a time 1'18.26" slower than the winner. |
 |
| Marianne Vos had a most uncharacteristic off-day, coming 16th overall and 3'05" behind overall winner Armstrong. Her immediate reaction after the race was a vow never to ride a time trial ever again, which immediately resulted in countless fans telling that these occasional indications that she is in fact human after all, rather than a cycling cyborg sent from the future to show us all how a race should be ridden, are one of the things that make us all love her so much. And anyway, Vos had already stood on 40 podiums so far this year - so who cares about this one race, in a discipline she freely confesses is far from her speciality? |
 |
| American 38-year-old defending champion Kristin Armstrong's gold medal-winning time of 37'34.82" is a superb reminder that female athletes remain competitive in endurance sports for longer than their male counterparts - and that, therefore, being 35+ is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a woman not to take up cycling at any level (Armstrong was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in 2001, too). Her performance was without doubt the highlight of the race and, many will argue, surpassed that of men's winner Bradley Wiggins: 1.51" ahead at the first time check, she just kept on getting faster and faster - by the second check she was 4.89" ahead and she ended up beating Cyclopunk favourite Judith Arndt by 15.47". She was accompanied on the podium by her son Lucas William, who will be two in September. |
 |
| The USA's Amber Neben was the 7th from last to go and also finished in 7th place, recording a time 1'10.35" slower than Armstrong. |
 |
| Shara Gillow (Australia) was 14th to go and finished in 13th place, 2'50.21" behind Armstrong. |
 |
| Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland), defending champion and, in the opinion of many, the greatest male time trial rider of all time, was something of an unknown quantity in this race. At his best, Cancellara is one of the most impressive sights cycling has to offer, but it's no secret that the quadruple fracture to the collarbone at the Ronde van Vlaanderen earlier this year and a nasty crash in the Road Race on Sunday have not left him with the greatest form of his career. Yet still he rode a tough race and came seventh, 2'14.17" slower than Bradley Wiggins, before collapsing in obvious agony after crossing the finish line. |
 |
| Tony Martin (Germany) is current World TT Champion, but like Cancellara has struggled to regain his usual form after an accident earlier this year (he was hit by a car whilst on a training ride and sustained numerous injuries). His silver medal and time just 42" slower than Wiggins is proof of just how good he is. |
 |
| The man himself: Bradley Wiggins. Only a week and a half since his historic Tour de France victory, Wiggo came, saw and conquered with a recorded time of 50'39.54" - another boost for cycling in Britain, where it's now more popular than in France if the crowds that gathered to see him are anything to go on. "[He] was unbeatable today," Tony Martin said after the race. 6.8 million people in Britain watched Wiggo win on TV compared to the "mere" 5.5 million who watched Team GB in the football: cycling is our new national sport. |
 |
| Assan Basayev (Kazakhstan) was 7th off the ramp and finished 7th from last with a time 6'01.23" slower than Wiggins. It was notable that all riders, regardless of the nation they represent, were treated to enormous cheers around the entire parcours; Britain is in love with cycling, not just Wiggo. |
 |
| The enormously popular Fumiyuki Beppu was the only Japanese rider in the TT and one of only two in the Road Race - and, of course, one of the very few to have made a name for himself in cycling's European heartlands. He recorded the 24th fastest time, 5'01.10" slower than Wiggins. |
All photos are copyright of Chris Davies Photography and used here with permission. For Davies' extremely generous reuse terms and more photos from the Women's TT click here, for the men click here.
Daily Cycling Facts 02.08.12
 |
| Daniele Nardello |
Manx cyclist Peter Buckley was born on this day in 1944 and won a gold medal for the Road Race at the 1966 Commonwealth Games, then three years later finished the Milk Race (Tour of Britain) in third place overall. That same year, just ten days after his 25th birthday, he was killed in a training ride accident. A new trophy was commissioned in his memory and is presented annually to the winner of the British Junior Road Race Series.
Ángel Arroyo, who was born in El Barraco, Spain on this day in 1956, won Stage 18 and came sixth overall at the 1981 Vuelta a Espana and Stage 15b the following year. In 1983 he won Stage 15 and came second overall at the Tour de France, then won Stage 19 and came sixth overall at the Tour in 1984. He had been a favourite to win the Vuelta in 1982, but was penalised 10' after Stage 17 when he tested postive for Methylphenidate, a psychostimulant drug better known as Ritalin, which ended his chances.
Julien Lootens
 |
| Julien Lootens, Samson |
In 1904 he came tenth at Paris-Roubaix (he'd been 20th in 1903) and 20th at the Tour. Lootens was a wealthy man, choosing to ride under a pseudonym so that the other riders wouldn't know his real identity and either conspire against him out of jealously or feel that he wasn't "one of the gang." In 1921, at the age of 45, he finished Paris-Brest-Paris in 24th place - in those days, the single-stage race was 1,200km long.
Other cyclists born on this day: María Dolores Molina (Guatemala, 1966); Chester Nelsen, Jr. (USA, 1922); Sixten Wackström (Finland, 1960); Roberto Tomassini (San Marino, 1962); Axel Peschel (East Germany, 1942); Jhon Quiceno (Colombia, 1954); Jan Vokoun (Bohemia, now Czech Republic, 1887); Oleh Pankov (USSR, now Ukraine, 1967); Jaap Oudkerk (Netherlands, 1937); Per Sandahl Jørgensen (Denmark, 1953); Gerrit Möhlmann (Netherlands, 1950); Edgar Buchwalder (Switzerland, 1916, died 2009); Roland van de Rijse (Belgium, 1942).
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Daily Cycling Facts 01.08.12
Bernard Sainz
Bernard Sainz, born in Rennes on either this day in 1943 or the first of September (sources vary), began his cycling career when he won a bike in a race on rollers in 1958. Inspired by this success, he joined the UC Créteil, a club based in the Parisian suburbs, where he met, befriended and trained with Pierre Trentin - who would go on to win two gold medals at the 1968 Olympics. In 1964, when he was 21, Sainz won bronze at the National Universities Championships; then his racing career was brought to an early end by a crash during a motorpaced race at Grenoble.
At the age of 13, Sainz had been taken to see a homeopath after proper medicine proved unable to cure his sinusitis; he says that homeopathy worked and he became fascinated with it. He also claims that, when his cycling career ended, he attended a national homeopathy centre school in Paris and qualified with distinction, but there appears to be little or no evidence that this in fact happened. It appears that when he first began to act as a sports doctor, he used homeopathic treatments alone; whilst homeopathic treatments have no real medical benefits, the extreme dilution used in their preparation leaves no molecules of the active ingredient - they have, therefore, no harmful effect either. Nevertheless, any therapy that makes the promises associated with homeopathy will be of obvious interest in the world of sports and especially in a sport such as cycling, where until recently managers and riders placed as much trust in soigneurs who were little more than witchdoctors as they did in real doctors (in fact, some of the "complimentary therapies" favoured by some riders and their teams, suggests that nothing has changed), and Sainz had the gift of the gab and an apparent qualification to back it up: when he returned to cycling in 1972, working as a manager for the Mercier team (new general manager Louis Caput had little difficulty in persuading owner Edmond Mercier that Sainz would be a valuable tradition - Mercier had already been taken in and was himself receiving treatment from Sainz), he secured his reputation by successfully "curing" an intially sceptical Raymond Poulidor of an ailment that had caused him to announce his retirement. In fact, Poulidor's treatment consisted of little more than pseudo-scientific examinations of his irises and feet and an abnormally long heart rate measurement, more akin to a sort of mesmerism than medicine, but it worked: Poulidor fell for it hook, line and sinker, began training and started winning races again. Whether this was down to mind over matter or a fortuitous natural recovery (there are those who will claim it as proof that Sainz's techniques were more than mumbo-jumbo, of course) is both unknown and irrelevant, because it secured his reputation as a miracle worker.
Before too long, people began talking about Dr. Sainz. Sainz was no idiot - he realised that if he used the title himself, he would be opening himself up to legal prosecution. However, realising the obvious advantages in being believed to be a doctor, he made very certain that he never corrected the mistake; L'Equipe and other journals fell into the trap, never thinking to question his credentials. He further secured his reputation a short while later when Cyrille Guimard credited him with having relieved a recurrent knee problem (dating back to a collision with a car whilst on a training ride in 1969) from forcing him to abandon the 1972 Tour de France until two stages before the end. Doctors warned that Guimard, continuing despite the pain for so long that he reportedly had to be physically lifted off his bike at the end of each day, had very possibly done serious lasting damage. Few people listened, believing Sainz to be a more skillful physician than them, but it was at this time that the first rumours suggesting that the remarkable "doctor" might be providing riders with something a little more powerful than phials of water and sugar pills. Sainz declared the rumours absurd, comparing them to sightings of the Loch Ness Monster.
Like the stories of a prehistoric beast living in the Scottish lake, the rumours refused to go away. However, it wasn't until 1986 that Sainz was first arrested as part of an investigation into a doping ring, when he faced accusations that he had supplied amphetamine at a six-day race in Paris; he was cleared of all charges. It wasn't really until 1988, when a previously undistinguished three-year-old racehorse named Soft Machine won an important race after being "prepared" by him, that the authorities really began to take an interest in him. Horse racing at the time was, if anything, even more rife with doping than cycling in the same period; but it never suffered from the same omerta that prevented even those cyclists who wanted to end doping from speaking up and allegations that he'd adminstered illegal drugs to the animal appeared immediately. The horse was subjected to accept that homeopathy has no physical effect and that whatever psychosomatic benefits Poulidor and Guimard derived from his therapy would not have been experienced by an animal incapable of understanding what the process was supposed to achieve, then we must also accept that either Sainz was remarkably fortunate in once again carrying out his treatments before a natural improvement in form or that he did in fact dope the horse, and that the product(s) he used went undetected by the limited techniques available at the time. Sainz says that when he first came to horse racing he was amazed at the long recovery periods afforded to the animals - whereas a cyclist might be expected to ride 200km or more every day for three weeks, sometimes without rest days, the standard in the horse racing world was that a horse rested for eighteen days after each race. He insists that it was his introduction of a more intensive technique combined with the instructions he provided to the jockeys and horses that made the difference, and he may be telling the truth - it's not unknown for an individual to enter a new area, armed with knowledge picked up from another area, and then completely transform it. It is notable, meanwhile, that EPO first emerged in cycling at this time, having been brought into the sport by Dr. Francesco Conconi (who unlike Sainz really is a doctor and a very good - if crooked - one at that), and that there was no test for it until 2000. Could it be, therefore, that this was the knowledge he brought with him, that he had seen the dramatic improvements it made to a cyclist's performance and decided to experiment with administering it to his equine charges? Is he, in fact, the Conconi of horse racing? Whatever really happened, he earned a new nickname - Dr. Mabuse, after the villainous doctor and hypnotist who made his first appearance in a novel by Norbert Jacques and was later made famous by the film director Fritz Lang; he would became better-known by that name than his real one.
Sainz was arrested again in 1999, this time facing charges of practising medicine illegally and remaining in custody for two months; once again nothing stuck and he escaped charges. Then in 2002 he was stopped by police after speeding; when officers discovered that he also had no insurance they began to take a greater interest, and then an even greater one when the discovered what appeared to be a large amount of drugs in the car. In fact, the "drugs" were homeopathic remedies, but by now he had become sufficiently notorious and linked with doping for an investigation to take place. When police learned that he had been on his way home from a visit to Domo-Farm Frites' Frank Vandenbroucke, they raided the rider's home and found EPO, clenbuterol and morphine - Vandenbroucke initially claim that they were intended for his dog. Police then connected Sainz to Philippe Gaumont, who had tested positive for amphetamine during the 1999 investigation (when he and Vandenbroucke both rode for Cofidis) and on numerous other occasions (and who admitted in 2004 that he'd used doping products if various kinds, including EPO, throughout his career), then to another 31 cyclists and 24 footballers. Both riders defended Sainz: Gaumont stated that he had never given them anything other than homeopathic treatments, Vandenbroucke said the same and claimed that he had been highly impressed by the results. However, before long Vandenbroucke began to change his tune - at first, he said that he had been naive to believe in the methods Sainz used and was seduced by photographs of him with greats uch as Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault (these photos seem to have vanished, but would be interesting to see), then he told reporters that he now had doubts that the medicines with which he had been supplied (costing 7,000 francs for some "homeopathic drops" and another 50,000f in fees for the first six months of 1999 alone) had in fact been harmless homeopathic products. Finally, he had become simply too notorious for cycling to maintain its links to him, and with the sport waking up at long last to the fact that it had to combat doping or face oblivion, Sainz was cast adrift. On the 11th of April in 2008, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for illegally practising as a doctor and supplying banned performance-enhancing drugs to athletes. The first eighteen months were to spent in prison, the remainder on probation.
Sainz still insists that the "medicine" and treatments he administered to horses and human athletes was entirely homeopathic, but he now admits that since qualifications in neither homeopathy nor acupuncture are recognised in France he broke the law by practising as and allowing others to believe that he was a doctor. He neither produced any evidence of medical training during his trial nor claimed to be in a position to do so.
Ottavio Bottecchia
Born on this day in 1894, Ottavio Bottecchia took Italy's first ever victory in the Tour de France when he won in 1925 - and a second, in 1925. He was found lying unconscious on the 3rd of June next to a road near Peonis, not far from his home, by local farmers who took him to a nearby inn. His injuries convinced them that a priest should be summoned to deliver the last rites, then he was taken in a farm cart to a hospital in Gemona where doctors found that he had several broken bones and a fractured skull. His bike - discovered a short way from his body - was completely untouched; neither were there skidmarks on the road to suggest he'd been hit by a vehicle. He never regained consciousness and when he died on the 14th of June in 1927, suspicions arose that he had been murdered.
A police investigation concluded that he had fainted due to the hot sun and crashed, but his body had been found in the morning before it got hot and as an experienced cyclist and veteran of five Grand Tours, he would have been accustomed to riding in hot weather. Meanwhile, the priest hinted that Bottecchia had been murdered by Fascists: a dangerous thing to say since Mussolini was in power, but could that be why the police had closed the case so rapidly and with such an unlikely verdict?
Why would the Fascists want to kill him anyway? Bottecchia, the son of a poor family, had attended school for only a year before finding work as a bricklayer and was almost completely illiterate until his training partner Alfonso Piccin taught him to read using the Gazzetto dello Sport and anti-Fascist pamphlets published by Mussolini's opponents. In 1924, when he was leading the Tour de France, he had refused to wear the yellow jersey during Stage 9, which passed very close to the Italian border, yet he insisted on wearing it all the way home on the train after he'd won. Several times, his bike had been sabotaged before races begun, which was believed by many - and, apparently, by Bottecchia himself - to have been carried out by Fascists. Was he, therefore, trying to blend into the peloton that he couldn't be as easily singled out for attack as he would have been in the maillot jaune? Known to have liberal political views, could the pamphlets have given him an understanding of the dangers of Fascism and made him actively opposed to it? Were the Fascists concerned that he might use his celebrity to denounce them? Many years later, an Italian man dying of his wounds after being stabbed in New York claimed that he had carried out the "hit" and named one Berto Olinas as the man who, he said, had recruited him; but despite investigation nobody of that name was ever found.
Bottecchia, many have argued, would not have been seen as much of a foe by Mussolini - after all, his career was fading and, in those days before Europe-wide news coverage, they say he would have been relatively unknown in Italy compared to France. But was this the case? It had only been two years since his second Tour victory when the tifosi flooded over the border into France in such large numbers that extra police had to be drafted in to keep them under control: news traveled slower in those days, but it still traveled - and those same tifosi, with their legendary passion for cycling, would most certainly have known who he was and listened to what he had to say. Secondly, he was very well known indeed in France (despite his French being limited to the phrase "No bananas, lots of coffee thank you!"); Fascism was a Europe-wide movement, and its supporters would have been every bit as concerned about a man capable of stirring up anti-Fascist sentiment there as in Italy - and he had a history trying to educate others about the dangers of the movement, too, which earned him the reputation of a moraliser because at that time few people yet understood just how dangerous the philosophy could be. They also say that Mussolini would not have been especially concerned about an enemy who remained only barely semi-literate, but semi-literacy is not the same thing as stupid - the year before he died, Bottecchia had begun work designing bikes with Teodoro Carnielli (Greg Lemond won the 1989 Tour on a Bottecchia-branded Carnielli bike), which suggests he was able to understand geometry and at least basic engineering principles. He was, therefore, at least reasonably intelligent which, combined with a passionate nature (found in all Grand Tour winners, especially Italian ones) and his fame added up to made him an enemy with too much potential strength for Mussolini to simply dismiss. Therefore, it seems very likely that the Fascists would have known exactly who he was and he may very well have been on their hit list - and anyway, Fascists are known for their willingness to do away with all rivals given a chance, not merely the most powerful ones.
There is alternative explanation. Years later, a farmer from Pordenone made a deathbed confession that he had killed Bottecchia after finding him stealing grapes from his vineyard. "He'd pushed through the vines and damaged them," he explained. "I threw a rock to scare him, but it hit him. I ran to him and realised who it was. I panicked and dragged him to the roadside and left him. God forgive me!" Where the story falls apart in that Bottecchia was found in Peonis, nearly 60km from Pordenone. Secondly, anyone who has ever picked and tried to eat a grape in mid-June will know that at that time of the year they're small, hard and so bitter as to be almost entirely inedible. Strangely, Bottecchia's brother was murdered in almost the same place two years later.
South African professional Ryan Cox, born on the 9th of August in 1979, won the Tour of Qinghai Lake in 2004 and the Tour de Langkawi and National Road Race Championship one year later. In July 2007, he underwent vascular lesion surgery in a knotted artery in his leg. Three weeks later, the artery burst and caused massive internal bleeding which led to heart failure. He received several blood transfusions but his condition did not improve, and he died at 05:15 on the 1st of August. He was 28 years old.
Zimbabwean cyclist Timothy Jones, born in Harare on this day in 1975, won a National Time Trial Championship in 1998, then the General Classification at the Giro di Capo later that same year. In 1999 he won the Tour of Slovenia, two years later he rode the Giro d'Italia, his only Grand Tour, and came 73rd overall. Jones was taken on by the Italian Amore & Vita-Forzacore team in 1997 and spent the net ten years with European and US-based outfits, but he never lived up to his early promises and won just one stage at the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda and a US cyclo cross retirement in the years between his Giro and retirement in 2007.
Sally Zack, born in the USA on this day in 1962, won the National Criterium Championships in 1987 and 1988 and four stages at the Women's Challenge in 1991 - then in 1993, when she seemed to be reach her athletic prime, she gave up cycling to become a champion cross-country skier instead.
Talat Tunçalp was born in Istanbul on this day in 1915, 1917 or 1919 - all three years are listed on official records. He won the National Road Race Championship every year from 1933 (which suggests either that he was born in 1915 or that boys aged as young as 14-16 took part) to 1949, also taking the Sprint Champion title for all but one of those years. He also competed in the Individual Road Race at the Olympics in 1936 and 1948, sharing eighth place the first time around and failing to finish the second. After retiring in 1949 he became president of the Turkish Cycling Federation and held the post until 1969, the same year that he organised and directed the first Tour of Turkey. At the time of writing, he is Turkey's second-oldest Olympian behind Halet Çambel. A retired professional archaeologist and fencer, Çambel is a little under one year older (assuming Tunçalp was born in 1915) and was the first Muslim woman to ever compete in the Games.
Francesco Gavazzi, born in Morbegno, Italy on this day in 1987, is a rider who seems to have been around forever - in fact, he turned professional with Lampre-Caffita in 2005, but spent the next few years selflessly working hard as domestique and occasionally scoring a good result at the less prestigiou races. In 2008 he went to the Giro d'Italia and, when given an opportunity on Stage 6, proved himself capable of finishing seventh. That secured his place the following year too, when managers decided to see what else he might be able to do: seventh place on Stage 2 and third on Stages 3 and 14 must have impressed. 2011 brought him his first Grand Tour glory with a Stage 18 victory, which brought him the offer of a better contract with Astana; so far in 2012 he has come seventh at the Tour Méditerranéen and achieved four podium placing - currently 27, he seems a rider to watch over the next five or six years.
Gonzalo Rabuñal, born in Arteixo, Spain on this day in 1980, won the King of the Mountains at the 2010 Tour of the Basque Country. Later that year, he finished the Vuelta a Espana in 30th place.
Other cyclists born on this day: Henri Hoevenaers (Belgium, 1901); Juan Murillo (Venezuela, 1982); Gordon Johnson (Australia, 1946); Wayne Morgan (New Zealand, 1965); Janelle Parks (USA, 1962); Marek Galiński (Poland, 1974); Alfred Reul (Poland, 1909, died 1980); Henri Mouillefarine (France, 1910, died 1994); Kim Gyeong-Suk (South Korea, 1967); Emanuela Menuzzo (Italy, 1956); Ben Duijker (Netherlands, 1903, died 1990).
Bernard Sainz, born in Rennes on either this day in 1943 or the first of September (sources vary), began his cycling career when he won a bike in a race on rollers in 1958. Inspired by this success, he joined the UC Créteil, a club based in the Parisian suburbs, where he met, befriended and trained with Pierre Trentin - who would go on to win two gold medals at the 1968 Olympics. In 1964, when he was 21, Sainz won bronze at the National Universities Championships; then his racing career was brought to an early end by a crash during a motorpaced race at Grenoble.
 |
| Poulidor, one of Sainz's first "patients" |
 |
| Cyrille Guimard |
Like the stories of a prehistoric beast living in the Scottish lake, the rumours refused to go away. However, it wasn't until 1986 that Sainz was first arrested as part of an investigation into a doping ring, when he faced accusations that he had supplied amphetamine at a six-day race in Paris; he was cleared of all charges. It wasn't really until 1988, when a previously undistinguished three-year-old racehorse named Soft Machine won an important race after being "prepared" by him, that the authorities really began to take an interest in him. Horse racing at the time was, if anything, even more rife with doping than cycling in the same period; but it never suffered from the same omerta that prevented even those cyclists who wanted to end doping from speaking up and allegations that he'd adminstered illegal drugs to the animal appeared immediately. The horse was subjected to accept that homeopathy has no physical effect and that whatever psychosomatic benefits Poulidor and Guimard derived from his therapy would not have been experienced by an animal incapable of understanding what the process was supposed to achieve, then we must also accept that either Sainz was remarkably fortunate in once again carrying out his treatments before a natural improvement in form or that he did in fact dope the horse, and that the product(s) he used went undetected by the limited techniques available at the time. Sainz says that when he first came to horse racing he was amazed at the long recovery periods afforded to the animals - whereas a cyclist might be expected to ride 200km or more every day for three weeks, sometimes without rest days, the standard in the horse racing world was that a horse rested for eighteen days after each race. He insists that it was his introduction of a more intensive technique combined with the instructions he provided to the jockeys and horses that made the difference, and he may be telling the truth - it's not unknown for an individual to enter a new area, armed with knowledge picked up from another area, and then completely transform it. It is notable, meanwhile, that EPO first emerged in cycling at this time, having been brought into the sport by Dr. Francesco Conconi (who unlike Sainz really is a doctor and a very good - if crooked - one at that), and that there was no test for it until 2000. Could it be, therefore, that this was the knowledge he brought with him, that he had seen the dramatic improvements it made to a cyclist's performance and decided to experiment with administering it to his equine charges? Is he, in fact, the Conconi of horse racing? Whatever really happened, he earned a new nickname - Dr. Mabuse, after the villainous doctor and hypnotist who made his first appearance in a novel by Norbert Jacques and was later made famous by the film director Fritz Lang; he would became better-known by that name than his real one.
 |
| Frank Vandenbroucke |
Sainz still insists that the "medicine" and treatments he administered to horses and human athletes was entirely homeopathic, but he now admits that since qualifications in neither homeopathy nor acupuncture are recognised in France he broke the law by practising as and allowing others to believe that he was a doctor. He neither produced any evidence of medical training during his trial nor claimed to be in a position to do so.
Ottavio Bottecchia
 |
| Ottavio Bottecchi |
A police investigation concluded that he had fainted due to the hot sun and crashed, but his body had been found in the morning before it got hot and as an experienced cyclist and veteran of five Grand Tours, he would have been accustomed to riding in hot weather. Meanwhile, the priest hinted that Bottecchia had been murdered by Fascists: a dangerous thing to say since Mussolini was in power, but could that be why the police had closed the case so rapidly and with such an unlikely verdict?
 |
| Bottecchia with Nicolas Frantz at the 1925 Tour de France |
There is alternative explanation. Years later, a farmer from Pordenone made a deathbed confession that he had killed Bottecchia after finding him stealing grapes from his vineyard. "He'd pushed through the vines and damaged them," he explained. "I threw a rock to scare him, but it hit him. I ran to him and realised who it was. I panicked and dragged him to the roadside and left him. God forgive me!" Where the story falls apart in that Bottecchia was found in Peonis, nearly 60km from Pordenone. Secondly, anyone who has ever picked and tried to eat a grape in mid-June will know that at that time of the year they're small, hard and so bitter as to be almost entirely inedible. Strangely, Bottecchia's brother was murdered in almost the same place two years later.
 |
| Ryan Cox 09.04.1979 - 01.08.2007 |
Zimbabwean cyclist Timothy Jones, born in Harare on this day in 1975, won a National Time Trial Championship in 1998, then the General Classification at the Giro di Capo later that same year. In 1999 he won the Tour of Slovenia, two years later he rode the Giro d'Italia, his only Grand Tour, and came 73rd overall. Jones was taken on by the Italian Amore & Vita-Forzacore team in 1997 and spent the net ten years with European and US-based outfits, but he never lived up to his early promises and won just one stage at the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda and a US cyclo cross retirement in the years between his Giro and retirement in 2007.
Sally Zack, born in the USA on this day in 1962, won the National Criterium Championships in 1987 and 1988 and four stages at the Women's Challenge in 1991 - then in 1993, when she seemed to be reach her athletic prime, she gave up cycling to become a champion cross-country skier instead.
Talat Tunçalp was born in Istanbul on this day in 1915, 1917 or 1919 - all three years are listed on official records. He won the National Road Race Championship every year from 1933 (which suggests either that he was born in 1915 or that boys aged as young as 14-16 took part) to 1949, also taking the Sprint Champion title for all but one of those years. He also competed in the Individual Road Race at the Olympics in 1936 and 1948, sharing eighth place the first time around and failing to finish the second. After retiring in 1949 he became president of the Turkish Cycling Federation and held the post until 1969, the same year that he organised and directed the first Tour of Turkey. At the time of writing, he is Turkey's second-oldest Olympian behind Halet Çambel. A retired professional archaeologist and fencer, Çambel is a little under one year older (assuming Tunçalp was born in 1915) and was the first Muslim woman to ever compete in the Games.
 |
| Francesco Gavazzi - one to watch |
Gonzalo Rabuñal, born in Arteixo, Spain on this day in 1980, won the King of the Mountains at the 2010 Tour of the Basque Country. Later that year, he finished the Vuelta a Espana in 30th place.
Other cyclists born on this day: Henri Hoevenaers (Belgium, 1901); Juan Murillo (Venezuela, 1982); Gordon Johnson (Australia, 1946); Wayne Morgan (New Zealand, 1965); Janelle Parks (USA, 1962); Marek Galiński (Poland, 1974); Alfred Reul (Poland, 1909, died 1980); Henri Mouillefarine (France, 1910, died 1994); Kim Gyeong-Suk (South Korea, 1967); Emanuela Menuzzo (Italy, 1956); Ben Duijker (Netherlands, 1903, died 1990).
Tuesday 31 July 2012
Eileen Roe wins in Friesland
22-year-old Roe used a similar tactic to win the Colchester round of the Johnson HealthTech Women's GP in June, beating Vanderkitten's Ruth Winder and Twenty3c.co.uk-Orbea's Alice Barnes on that occasion. Her sprint seems, therefore, to be a powerful talent and is one that will be sure to bring her many more victories.
Chapeau Eileen - we'll be looking forward to seeing you race in the 2016 Olympics!
Armitstead on the issues facing women's cycling
.jpg "Image credit: André Karwath http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_Armitstead_-_Women%27s_Tour_of_Thuringia_2012_(aka).jpg CC BY-SA 2.5 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en") |
| Lizzie Armitstead |
Armitstead believes that one possible solution would be "forcing ProTour teams to have a women's team." That is certainly an option, and seems a good one at first - many people also support the idea of forcing race organisers to hold women's races alongside their men's events. But would it work? Would teams devote the time, money and media to their female riders as they do to their men?
When whether Team Sky should sponsor a women's team, Armitstead hits the nail on the head - "I think Team Sky is missing an opportunity," she says. That is the real answer: persuading, rather than forcing, teams that it is in their interest to have a women's team. That way, they'll give them the backing they deserve. Force them to run women's teams and they'll do so resentfully, fielding athletes who have been given the cheapest minimum of coaching, riding bikes that are only a fraction of the value and quality that the men on the team ride. Result: in the eyes of the public, who in many cases will not understand the underlying issues, female cyclists appear less talented and less competitive than the men. Sky have had plenty of opportunity to put together a women's team and have a budget more than high enough to run several; it seems clear, therefore, that they have no interest in doing so (note that they do sponsor female track cyclists - who enjoy a higher public profile than female road cyclists).
So, how can they be persuaded that women's teams will bring them more glory and, crucially, more sponsors? The riders themselves are already doing all they can - they ride to their limits, even if they've had to work a forty-hour week in order to be able to afford to be at the races in which they compete, and they raise the issues facing their sport whenever they can, just as Armitstead is doing. There are a few team officials and managers doing a superb job too - Stefan Wyman, owner of Britain's Matrix-Prendas, is a glowing example and has recently written a series of informative articles on the subject (the latest of which can be found here); so to is Karl Lima, manager of the Hitec Products-Mistral Home - both have fought for many years to get a fair deal for the athletes on their own teams and in women's cycling in general. Rabobank is another admirable case and provides excellent support for its highly successful women's team.
 |
| "The race with the Dutch girl and the English girl" - Armitstead and Vos follow Olga Zabelinskaya |
Daily Cycling Facts 31.07.12
Craig MacLean
Born in Grantown-on-Spey on this day in 1971, Craig MacLean had a very successful track career, having been selected for the Team GB Sprint team and becoming lead rider in 2004 he was a part of several successful victory attempts, also winning numerous Individual Sprints and Kilos. He announced his imminent retirement at the Manchester round of the World Cup in 2008, citing a back injury that had prevented him finding form throughout the season - at that event, he won a heat for the Keirin but was relegated by judges.
Two years after retiring - the minimum required by UCI rules - MacLean returned as able-bodied pilot for paralympic tandem competitions; at the 2011 World Championships he teamed up with retinitis pigmentosa sufferer Neil Fachie and piloted him to gold medals in the Tandem B 1,000m Time Trial and the Tandem B Sprint.
Rémy Di Gregorio
Rémy Di Gregorio, born in Marseilles on this day in 1985, won Stage 8 at the Tour de l'Avenir and came nineteenth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2005 - impressive results for a rider who had joined his first professional team, La Française des Jeux, only the previous season. The following year he finished Dauphiné in seventeenth place and won the King of the Mountains, which encouraged the team to select him for the Tour de France; unfortunately he crashed and broke his elbow during Stage 4. He was widely touted at the time as France's next great climber, but would never manage to match his early promise.
In 2008, Di Gregorio returned to the Tour after coming third in the King of the Mountains at the Tour de Romandie, this time he won the Combativity Award for Stage 10 and finished in 59th place. 2009 brought him only one podium place (third, Stage 2, Route du Sud), though he was top ten twice at the Vuelta a Espana; then he finished the 2010 Vuelta in 21st place the following year. In 2011 he joined Astana, won Stage 7 at Paris-Nice and finished the Tour de France in 39th place; raising hopes that he might win his first Grand Tour stage the next year - but, on the 10th of July 2012, during the Tour de France's first rest day, he was arrested by French police as part of an investigation into doping. He was immediately suspended by his new team Cofidis and will be sacked if allegations against him are proved.
Svetlana Pauliukaitė, born in Mosėdis, Lithuania on this day in 1985, won the National Time Trial Championship in 2005, then the National Points Race Championship the following year. At the time of writing, she rides for the Forno d'Asolo-Colavita team.
Australian rider Henk Vogels, born in Perth on this day in 1973, came tenth at Paris-Roubaix in 1997 and 1999 and second at Gent-Wevelgem in 2003.
Tatsiana Sharakova, born on this day in 1984, was Belarusian Road Race Champion in 2005, European Under-23 Pursuit Champion in 2005 and 2006 and National Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2011 she won the Points Race at the World Track Championships; to date in 2012 she has won the National titles for Pursuit, Sprint, Scratch, Points and Omnium and shares the Team Pursuit title.
Belizean rider Orlando Chavarria, born on this day in 1971, enjoyed a successful career peaking with 27th place in the 100km Team Time Trial at the 1992 Olympics and his 1995 victory at Belize's most prestigious race, the Holy Sunday Classic. Then, one day, he went to a race and came back "a different person," according to his sister Therese. He couldn't sleep and, having been a quiet and gentle person previously, began to shout and act in a threatening manner - and refused to discuss it with his family. Eventually enough was enough and against his will, the family enlisted the help of a doctor, Claudina Cayetano, who recognised the symptoms of schizophrenia. With care, attention and anti-psychotic medication, Chavarria soon regained his health and the world once again made sense to him; he was able to return to his job as a mechanic. He also returned to training and still races today.
Amir Zargari, who was born in Khomein on this day in 1980, is one of Iran's most successful cyclists with numerous stage wins in Middle Eastern and Asian races. In 2011 he won the UCI 2.2 Tour of Singkarak in Indonesia, which proved sufficient to earn him a contract with the World Tour French AG2R-La Mondiale team.
Auguste Daumain, born in Selles-sur-Cher in this day in 1877, won a bronze medal for the 25km Race at the 1900 Olympics and, following the disqualification of numerous riders for cheating, was awarded sixth place overall at the 1904 Tour de France.
On this day in 2007 Patrik Sinkewitz was sacked from the T-Mobile team after a sample taken at that year's Tour de France turned out to contain suspiciously high levels of testosterone; he refused his right to have the B sample provided at the same time tested and later confessed to using a testosterone ointment, then to EPO and illegal blood transfusions. Two years later, again in the 31st of July, Iban Mayo's two-year ban for EPO - upheld by the CAS after the Spanish Federation cleared him due to a clean B sample - came to an end; on that very same day Mikel Astarloza, who ridden for Euskaltel-Euskadi since 2007 (Mayo rode for the team ontil 2006), started a two-year ban after he too tested positive for EPO. Astarloza has continually insisted that he is innocent and says that doping amounts to "sporting suicide" due to the efficiency of modern tests; the team could find no reason to disagree and took the very unusual step of publicly stating that it would keep a place open for him once his ban expired; he rejoined them in August 2011.
Other cyclists born on this day: Diego Caccia (Italy, 1981); Franky van Haesebroucke (Belgium, 1970); Vitaly Shchedov (USSR, now Ukraine, 1987); Hermann Smiel (Germany, 1880); Rodolfo Rodino (Uruguay, 1937); Nils Henriksson (Finland, 1928); Vittorio Cavalotti (Italy, 1893, died 1939); Euripides Ferreira (Brazil, 1966).
 |
| Craig MacLean |
Two years after retiring - the minimum required by UCI rules - MacLean returned as able-bodied pilot for paralympic tandem competitions; at the 2011 World Championships he teamed up with retinitis pigmentosa sufferer Neil Fachie and piloted him to gold medals in the Tandem B 1,000m Time Trial and the Tandem B Sprint.
Rémy Di Gregorio
Rémy Di Gregorio, born in Marseilles on this day in 1985, won Stage 8 at the Tour de l'Avenir and came nineteenth overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2005 - impressive results for a rider who had joined his first professional team, La Française des Jeux, only the previous season. The following year he finished Dauphiné in seventeenth place and won the King of the Mountains, which encouraged the team to select him for the Tour de France; unfortunately he crashed and broke his elbow during Stage 4. He was widely touted at the time as France's next great climber, but would never manage to match his early promise.
 |
| Rémy Di Gregorio, Tour de Romandie, 2010 |
Svetlana Pauliukaitė, born in Mosėdis, Lithuania on this day in 1985, won the National Time Trial Championship in 2005, then the National Points Race Championship the following year. At the time of writing, she rides for the Forno d'Asolo-Colavita team.
Australian rider Henk Vogels, born in Perth on this day in 1973, came tenth at Paris-Roubaix in 1997 and 1999 and second at Gent-Wevelgem in 2003.
Tatsiana Sharakova, born on this day in 1984, was Belarusian Road Race Champion in 2005, European Under-23 Pursuit Champion in 2005 and 2006 and National Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2011 she won the Points Race at the World Track Championships; to date in 2012 she has won the National titles for Pursuit, Sprint, Scratch, Points and Omnium and shares the Team Pursuit title.
Belizean rider Orlando Chavarria, born on this day in 1971, enjoyed a successful career peaking with 27th place in the 100km Team Time Trial at the 1992 Olympics and his 1995 victory at Belize's most prestigious race, the Holy Sunday Classic. Then, one day, he went to a race and came back "a different person," according to his sister Therese. He couldn't sleep and, having been a quiet and gentle person previously, began to shout and act in a threatening manner - and refused to discuss it with his family. Eventually enough was enough and against his will, the family enlisted the help of a doctor, Claudina Cayetano, who recognised the symptoms of schizophrenia. With care, attention and anti-psychotic medication, Chavarria soon regained his health and the world once again made sense to him; he was able to return to his job as a mechanic. He also returned to training and still races today.
 |
| Amir Zargari |
Auguste Daumain, born in Selles-sur-Cher in this day in 1877, won a bronze medal for the 25km Race at the 1900 Olympics and, following the disqualification of numerous riders for cheating, was awarded sixth place overall at the 1904 Tour de France.
On this day in 2007 Patrik Sinkewitz was sacked from the T-Mobile team after a sample taken at that year's Tour de France turned out to contain suspiciously high levels of testosterone; he refused his right to have the B sample provided at the same time tested and later confessed to using a testosterone ointment, then to EPO and illegal blood transfusions. Two years later, again in the 31st of July, Iban Mayo's two-year ban for EPO - upheld by the CAS after the Spanish Federation cleared him due to a clean B sample - came to an end; on that very same day Mikel Astarloza, who ridden for Euskaltel-Euskadi since 2007 (Mayo rode for the team ontil 2006), started a two-year ban after he too tested positive for EPO. Astarloza has continually insisted that he is innocent and says that doping amounts to "sporting suicide" due to the efficiency of modern tests; the team could find no reason to disagree and took the very unusual step of publicly stating that it would keep a place open for him once his ban expired; he rejoined them in August 2011.
Other cyclists born on this day: Diego Caccia (Italy, 1981); Franky van Haesebroucke (Belgium, 1970); Vitaly Shchedov (USSR, now Ukraine, 1987); Hermann Smiel (Germany, 1880); Rodolfo Rodino (Uruguay, 1937); Nils Henriksson (Finland, 1928); Vittorio Cavalotti (Italy, 1893, died 1939); Euripides Ferreira (Brazil, 1966).
Monday 30 July 2012
New backer for Holland Ladies' Tour
Chairman Marten de Lange announced at the end of January this year that the race had been temporarily suspended due to financial difficulties. However, around four weeks later he was able to confirm that the race would go ahead after other sponsors agreed to provide more backing, but that it would have to be a more "economical" event. "It would be a shame if this race was to disappear, especially now that it offers such a perfect prelude towards the world championship in Limburg one a week later," he said. "We are still negotiating with a potential sponsor. If that happens, we can make the race as good as previous years - which is what the successful women of Dutch cycling deserve."
The new backer, Brainwash, is a chain of hairdressers that will already be familiar to many fans, having maintained links to women's cycling for some years - it previously sponsored its own Brainwash team before becoming co-sponsor of the Rabobank Women's team. However, company managers had let it be known when the team closed that they remained keen to continue their support and presence in the sport: that they have now extended it is a promising sign that they've found the returns satisfactory. In difficult economic times that have seen numerous races and teams vanish due to financial problems, this goes a long way to encouraging other firms to become involved.
The race, which has been won in the past by such illustrious names as Leontien van Moorsel, Petra Rossner, Kristin Armstrong and new Olympic champion Marianne Vos, is due to take part between the 4th and 9th of September and will now become known as the Brainwash Women's Tour.
Congrats Lizzie!
Lizzie's success in winning Team GB's first Olympic medal of 2012 - even if she was unable to beat the fantastically-talented Marianne Vos of the Netherlands - is the best advert that British women's cycling could ever have hoped to receive. Many people who watched the race will have had little or no interest in cycling prior to Bradley Wiggins' historic Tour de France victory and were probably unaware that there is a whole world of professional cycling existing just beyond the range of most media; Lizzie's triumph and appearances on the nightly news brings the sport to the public's attention and attracts new fans.
Chapeau to her and the entire women's team!
 |
| Left to right: Lizzie Armitstead, Marianne Vos and Olga Zabelinskaya |
Daily Cycling Facts 30.07.12
Bert Oosterbosch
Born in Eindhoven on this day in 1957, Bert Oosterbosch showed enormous potential as an amateur and won seven major races in 1978, the year before he turned professional with Peter Post's legendary Ti-Raleigh, then in his first season with the team he won six victories and became World Pursuit Champion.
Oosterbosch did well on the track throughout his career with three National and one World Champion titles, but he would become known primarily as a road time trial specialist. Yet he could also perform well enough on mass-start stages to place well in General Classifications, as was the case in 1980 when he won the Tour de Luxembourg and Stage 8 at the Tour de France. He would also win Stages 6 (time trial) and 8 (222km mass-start) at the Tour in 1983, and in 1985 he won the Prologue at the Vuelta a Espana.
All in all, Oosterbosch achieved around 91 professional victories, mostly for Ti-Raleigh or Panasonic, the team Post set up after Raleigh withdrew from racing. He would almost certainly have won many more had he not have been plagued by bad health - he had meningitis twice, and his career was brought to a premature end in 1988 when he developed severe knee problems. In 1989 his knees had recovered sufficiently that he came out of retirement, winning his first post-return race on the 13th of August. Five days later, aged just 32, he died of a massive heart attack, leaving behind his wife and two young daughters.
As is invariably the case when any young athlete dies, suspicions soon arose that Oosterbosch's death was caused by doping, specifically EPO which has been linked to numerous similar cases - if so, he would be one of the first victims of the drug. Willy Voet, the Belgian soigneur who was arrested with a car full of drugs and thus sparked off the notorious Festina Affair of 1998, claims in his book Breaking the Chain that Oosterbosch used Synacthen (tetracosactide), a drug that stimulates the adrenal glands and thus raises cortisol blood levels, at the GP des Nations in 1982. However, his statement that the rider came 18th because "the drugs initially blocked his ability to work hard" when he in fact came third may be an indication that Voet's memory is unreliable (perhaps as a result of his taste for the odd injection of Belgian Mix - a concoction of cocaine, heroin, morphine, amphetamine, caffeine and, apparently, anything else that happened to be around) or that - as many people believe - he is a liar; and it is equally possible that Oosterbosch's death was caused by a pre-existing heart defect, undiagnosed by the methods available at that time.
Ben Greenwood, born in Nether Kellet, Lancashire on this day in 1984, was British Under-23 Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2005.
Aldo Bini, born Montemurlo, Italy on this day in 1915, won the Giro di Lombardia in 1937 and 1942. He also won Stage 2 at the Giro d'Italia in 1936 (and came second at the World Championships), 13, 14 and 19b in 1937 and 5b in 1946. His career lasted from 1934 to 1955.
Julio Alberto Pérez, born in Tlaxcala on this day in 1977, won the Giro del Trentino in 2005 and remains the only Mexican to have ever won the race. In 2002, he won Stages 13 and 16 and the overall King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia.
Ángel Madrazo Ruiz, born in Santander, Cantabria on this day in 1988, had won just enough races to be signed up by Movistar in 2011. That year, fans at the Tour Down Under made him the subject of their very fine tradition of picking the humblest non-English speaking domestique in the race and treating him like the greatest cyclist that ever lived, turning up at hotels in vast numbers, painting his name in vast letters on the roads and cheering him at every opportunity. He paid them back in 2012 with a superb performance for fourteenth place overall and later came fifth at the Tour Méditerranéen and fourth at the GP Miguel Indurain.
Mike Fraysse, born in the USA on this day in 1943, was president of US Cycling from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1994 to 1998, having sat on the Federation's board of directors from 1969 to 1994. As a result, he was involved in the coaching and development of some of the finest riders his nation has ever produced, among them Greg Lemond, Connie Carpenter, Rebecca Twigg, Andy Hampsten and Lance Armstrong. He also holds life membership of the Polish Federation, which awarded him its Medal of Distinction in recognition of his work with and support for the legendary coach Eddie Borysewicz. Fraysse designed and built the bike ridden to second place by Greg Lemond at the 1979 Junior Worlds, believed to be the first frame to use aerodynamic teardrop-shaped tubing, and now owns and runs a private training facility.
Other cyclists born on this day: Janez Žirovnik (Yugoslavia, 1935); Jiang Guang-Nan (Taipei, 1948); Joseph McClean (Great Britain, 1935); Vicente Reynès (Spain, 1981); Conor Henry (Ireland, 1970); Arnaldo Carli (Italy, 1901); John Lundgren (Denmark, 1940); Gilles Maignan (France, 1968); Håkan Karlsson (Sweden, 1958); Karl Hansen (Norway, 1902, died 1965); Rainer Müller (West Germany, 1946); Giorgio Morbiato (Italy, 1948).
Oosterbosch did well on the track throughout his career with three National and one World Champion titles, but he would become known primarily as a road time trial specialist. Yet he could also perform well enough on mass-start stages to place well in General Classifications, as was the case in 1980 when he won the Tour de Luxembourg and Stage 8 at the Tour de France. He would also win Stages 6 (time trial) and 8 (222km mass-start) at the Tour in 1983, and in 1985 he won the Prologue at the Vuelta a Espana.
All in all, Oosterbosch achieved around 91 professional victories, mostly for Ti-Raleigh or Panasonic, the team Post set up after Raleigh withdrew from racing. He would almost certainly have won many more had he not have been plagued by bad health - he had meningitis twice, and his career was brought to a premature end in 1988 when he developed severe knee problems. In 1989 his knees had recovered sufficiently that he came out of retirement, winning his first post-return race on the 13th of August. Five days later, aged just 32, he died of a massive heart attack, leaving behind his wife and two young daughters.
As is invariably the case when any young athlete dies, suspicions soon arose that Oosterbosch's death was caused by doping, specifically EPO which has been linked to numerous similar cases - if so, he would be one of the first victims of the drug. Willy Voet, the Belgian soigneur who was arrested with a car full of drugs and thus sparked off the notorious Festina Affair of 1998, claims in his book Breaking the Chain that Oosterbosch used Synacthen (tetracosactide), a drug that stimulates the adrenal glands and thus raises cortisol blood levels, at the GP des Nations in 1982. However, his statement that the rider came 18th because "the drugs initially blocked his ability to work hard" when he in fact came third may be an indication that Voet's memory is unreliable (perhaps as a result of his taste for the odd injection of Belgian Mix - a concoction of cocaine, heroin, morphine, amphetamine, caffeine and, apparently, anything else that happened to be around) or that - as many people believe - he is a liar; and it is equally possible that Oosterbosch's death was caused by a pre-existing heart defect, undiagnosed by the methods available at that time.
Ben Greenwood, born in Nether Kellet, Lancashire on this day in 1984, was British Under-23 Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2005.
Aldo Bini, born Montemurlo, Italy on this day in 1915, won the Giro di Lombardia in 1937 and 1942. He also won Stage 2 at the Giro d'Italia in 1936 (and came second at the World Championships), 13, 14 and 19b in 1937 and 5b in 1946. His career lasted from 1934 to 1955.
Julio Alberto Pérez, born in Tlaxcala on this day in 1977, won the Giro del Trentino in 2005 and remains the only Mexican to have ever won the race. In 2002, he won Stages 13 and 16 and the overall King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia.
Mike Fraysse, born in the USA on this day in 1943, was president of US Cycling from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1994 to 1998, having sat on the Federation's board of directors from 1969 to 1994. As a result, he was involved in the coaching and development of some of the finest riders his nation has ever produced, among them Greg Lemond, Connie Carpenter, Rebecca Twigg, Andy Hampsten and Lance Armstrong. He also holds life membership of the Polish Federation, which awarded him its Medal of Distinction in recognition of his work with and support for the legendary coach Eddie Borysewicz. Fraysse designed and built the bike ridden to second place by Greg Lemond at the 1979 Junior Worlds, believed to be the first frame to use aerodynamic teardrop-shaped tubing, and now owns and runs a private training facility.
Other cyclists born on this day: Janez Žirovnik (Yugoslavia, 1935); Jiang Guang-Nan (Taipei, 1948); Joseph McClean (Great Britain, 1935); Vicente Reynès (Spain, 1981); Conor Henry (Ireland, 1970); Arnaldo Carli (Italy, 1901); John Lundgren (Denmark, 1940); Gilles Maignan (France, 1968); Håkan Karlsson (Sweden, 1958); Karl Hansen (Norway, 1902, died 1965); Rainer Müller (West Germany, 1946); Giorgio Morbiato (Italy, 1948).
Sunday 29 July 2012
Daily Cycling Facts 29.07.12
Vic Sutton
Charly Gaul and Federico Bahamontes are rightly regarded as the greatest climbers in the history of professional cycling, but they faced competition from an entirely unexpected source at the 1959 Tour de France - a skinny little British 23-year-old named Victor Sutton; British riders being considered in those days to be among the lower ranks of cyclists, despite Brian Robinson's Stage 7 victory a year earlier, and certainly not great climbers (indeed, to this day Britain has produced only two world-class grimpeurs, the Scotsman Robert Millar and Emma Pooley from England).
Born in Thorne, Yorkshire on the 3rd of December in 1935, Sutton has been so entirely forgotten today that Cycling Archives doesn't list a palmares for him and he has no page on Wikipedia, but his natural talent in the mountains, where he could keep turning a low gear at high revolutions per minute just like Gaul did, enabled him to climb from 109th place at the end of the first week of the Tour to 37th by the finish; on the Puy de Dôme time trial he recorded a time that remained the fastest for an hour and might have finished in the top ten in Paris had he not have shared Bahamontes' terror of descending - once over the summit, he seized up and lost large chunks of the time he'd gained on the way up.
He returned to the Tour in 1960, another year older and wiser and believed by some to now be in a position to beat the Eagle and the Angel, but his season up to the race had been too hard and he suffered a minor heart attack in Stage 18, the Tour's last day in the Alps. His doctor ordered him to give up racing immediately, but Sutton chose to continue to the end of the season. He continued cycling for pleasure for the remainder of his life, which ended on this day in 1999. Alongside Robinson, he was one of the first riders to show the world that British cyclists could compete at the highest level of the sport, and he should be far better known than he is today.
Canadian mountain biker Roland Green, born in Victoria on this day in 1974, won the National Championships in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2003. He was World Champion in 2001 and 2002, also winning the World Cup the first year and a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in the second.
Massimo Podenzana, born in La Spezia on this day in 1961, won the Italian Road Race Championship in 1993 and 1994. In 1988 he won Stage 4a at the Giro d'Italia, in 1994 he finished in seventh place overall. He won the Giro di Toscana in 1995, then Stage 15 at the 1996 Tour de France. He is a brother-in-law of Ivan Basso.
Kilian Moser, born in Interlaken on this day in 1988, became Swiss Pursuit Champion in 2012. He is not related to the Italian cyclist Francesco Moser.
Faustino Rupérez, born in Piquera de San Esteban on this day in 1956, won the Spanish Road Race Championship in 1979, then the General Classification at the Vuelta a Espana one year later
Tommy Prim, born in Svenljunga on this day in 1955, had an extraordinarily successful junior and amateur career during which he won five National Championships and dominated the Swedish racing scene. He turned professional with Bianchi in 1980 (and would remain with them for his entire career), and won Stage 15 and the Youth category as well as fourth place overall and third in the Points competition that same year: a stunning Grand Tour debut by a new rider. The following year, he came second overall and for Points, then came second overall again in 1982. In 1983, Prim won Paris-Brussels, becoming the first Scandinavian rider to win a Classic; had his career not have coincided with that of Bernard Hinault, he might have been the second (after Gösta Pettersson, who won the Giro in 1971) to win a Grand Tour, too. After retiring in 1986, he opened a bike shop and later worked in a variety of jobs including at a mail order company, a saw mill and a fish smokery; he made his return to cycling as a manager for Team Crescent, which aimed to ind and develop Swedish promises.
Born on this day in 1990, British road and track rider Erick Rowsell became National Junior Time Trial Champion in 2007 and National Junior Road Race Champion the following year. He is the younger brother of three-time World Track Championships gold medal-winner Joanna Rowsell.
Eddy Mazzoleni, born in Bergamo on this day in 1971, finished third at the Giro di Lombardia in 1999, fifteenth at the Giro d'Italia in 2002, tenth at the Giro in 2003, thirteenth at the Tour de France in 2005 and third at the Giro in 2007, behind Danilo di Luca and Andy Schleck. Later that year he was implicated in the Oil for Drugs scandal, during which he and several other riders were investigating over their connections to Dr. Carlo Santuccione, who was accused of running a doping ring. Mazzoleni and others were caught out by a surveillance operation; he left Astana voluntarily and was later given a two-year ban.
Other cyclists born on this day: Laëtitia Le Corguillé (France, 1986); Sergei Kopylov (USSR, 1960); Kilian Moser (Switzerland, 1988); Atle Pedersen (Norway, 1964); Gabriel Niell (Argentina, 1941); Gwon Jung-Hyeon (South Korea, 1942); Janis Pratnieks (Russia, 1887); Sergey Kopylov (USSR, 1960); Chris Coletta (USA, 1972).
 |
| Vic Sutton, riding for Libera-Grammont in 1960 |
Born in Thorne, Yorkshire on the 3rd of December in 1935, Sutton has been so entirely forgotten today that Cycling Archives doesn't list a palmares for him and he has no page on Wikipedia, but his natural talent in the mountains, where he could keep turning a low gear at high revolutions per minute just like Gaul did, enabled him to climb from 109th place at the end of the first week of the Tour to 37th by the finish; on the Puy de Dôme time trial he recorded a time that remained the fastest for an hour and might have finished in the top ten in Paris had he not have shared Bahamontes' terror of descending - once over the summit, he seized up and lost large chunks of the time he'd gained on the way up.
He returned to the Tour in 1960, another year older and wiser and believed by some to now be in a position to beat the Eagle and the Angel, but his season up to the race had been too hard and he suffered a minor heart attack in Stage 18, the Tour's last day in the Alps. His doctor ordered him to give up racing immediately, but Sutton chose to continue to the end of the season. He continued cycling for pleasure for the remainder of his life, which ended on this day in 1999. Alongside Robinson, he was one of the first riders to show the world that British cyclists could compete at the highest level of the sport, and he should be far better known than he is today.
Canadian mountain biker Roland Green, born in Victoria on this day in 1974, won the National Championships in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2003. He was World Champion in 2001 and 2002, also winning the World Cup the first year and a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in the second.
Massimo Podenzana, born in La Spezia on this day in 1961, won the Italian Road Race Championship in 1993 and 1994. In 1988 he won Stage 4a at the Giro d'Italia, in 1994 he finished in seventh place overall. He won the Giro di Toscana in 1995, then Stage 15 at the 1996 Tour de France. He is a brother-in-law of Ivan Basso.
Kilian Moser, born in Interlaken on this day in 1988, became Swiss Pursuit Champion in 2012. He is not related to the Italian cyclist Francesco Moser.
Faustino Rupérez, born in Piquera de San Esteban on this day in 1956, won the Spanish Road Race Championship in 1979, then the General Classification at the Vuelta a Espana one year later
 |
| Tommy Prim |
Born on this day in 1990, British road and track rider Erick Rowsell became National Junior Time Trial Champion in 2007 and National Junior Road Race Champion the following year. He is the younger brother of three-time World Track Championships gold medal-winner Joanna Rowsell.
 |
| Eddy Mazzoleni |
Other cyclists born on this day: Laëtitia Le Corguillé (France, 1986); Sergei Kopylov (USSR, 1960); Kilian Moser (Switzerland, 1988); Atle Pedersen (Norway, 1964); Gabriel Niell (Argentina, 1941); Gwon Jung-Hyeon (South Korea, 1942); Janis Pratnieks (Russia, 1887); Sergey Kopylov (USSR, 1960); Chris Coletta (USA, 1972).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)