Daily Cycling Facts 27.10.12

Santiago Botero

Santiago Botero

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

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


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

Ko Willems

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

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 26.10.12

André Darrigade

Cyclists born on this day: André Darrigade (Belgium, 1889); Sarah Storey (Great Britain, 1977); Georges Maton (France, 1913, died 1998); Tony Lally (Ireland, 1953); Arulraj Rosli (Malaysia, 1940); Aidis Kruopis (Lithuania, 1986); Morris Foster (Ireland, 1936); Paul Martens (Germany, 1983); Marcus Ljungqvist (Sweden, 1974); Aleksandr Yudin (USSR, 1949, died 1986); Maurice Perrin (France, 1911, died 1992); Bernd Drogan (East Germany, 1955); Louis Bastien (France, 1881, died 1963); Josef Hellensteiner (Austria, 1889, died 1980).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.10.12

Claude Rouer, born in Paris on this day in 1929, rode with Jacques Anquetil and Alfred Tonello in the Team Road Race at the 1952 Olympics, months after he'd finished the Amateur National Road Race Championships. The team won a bronze medal and Rouer was invited to turn professional with the Mercier-A. Leducq team - however, other than second place at a race called the Boucles de la Gartempe, Rouer's first season was not at all successful and he became Lanterne Rouge at the Tour de France. The following year he managed to find a place with La Perle-Hutchinson, but when that year passed without notable results his short-lived professional career came to and end.

Lauren Tamayo, born in Barto, Pennsylvania on this day in 1983, was US Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2005.

Viktor Kapitonov, born in Kalinin, USSR on this day in 1933, was National Road Race Champion in 1958 and won the Indvidual Road Race at the 1960 Olympics. Over the course of his career, Kapitonov won four stages at the Peace Race; he was also one of the very few Soviet athletes to get a chance to compete against the West's professionals, as in 1962 when he finished third in the General Classification at the Tour de Saint-Laurent in Canada and in 1963 when he took second place at the end of Stage 4 at the Tour de l'Avenir.

Vendramino Bariviera, who was born in Rome on this day in 1937, same second at the National Road Race Championships in 1963. That same year, he won Stages 5, 6 and 17 at the Giro d'Italia; then in 1964 he won Stage 6 and in 1966 Stages 5 and 22.

Mark Gornall, a British rider born on this day in 1961, won the GP Faber and Lincoln International in 1989 and Stage 6 at the Milk Race in 1991. He also rode at the Olympics in 1988, placing 62nd in the Road Race. Following his retirement from competition, Gornall became a farmer at Pendleton in Lancashire; in 2007 his name once again appeared in the news after a barn collapsed while he was inside it - he escaped with minor cuts and bruises.

Petrus "Piet" Michaelis van der Horst, born in Klundert, Netherlands on this day in 1963, won a silver medal when he rode with the Dutch pursuit team at the 1928 Olympics.

Other cyclists born on this day: Maik Landsmann (Germany, 1967); Nadir Haddou (France, 1983); Hugo Daya (Colombia, 1963); Huỳnh Châu (Vietnam, 1960); Cristiano Citton (Italy, 1974); Bernt Scheler (Sweden, 1955); Ladislav Ferebauer (Czechoslovakia, 1957); Evaristo Oliva (Guatemala, 1945); Christian Cuch (France, 1943); Vilmos Radasics (Hungary, 1983); Cai Yingquan (China, 1966); Wacław Latocha (Poland, 1936, died 2006).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.10.12

Octave Lapize
Born in Montrouge, Paris on this day in 1887, Octave Lapize had already been Elite National Cyclo Cross Champion, Amateur National Road Race Champion, won a stage at the Tour of Belgium (1907), won Paris-Auxerre and been third in a 100km race on the track at the Olympics in London (1908) by the time he turned professional with Biguet-Dunlop in 1909. When he did so, his manager Paul Ruinart warned the cycling world that they should prepare themselves for some crushing defeats because Lapize was, he said, "the best rider of his generation. He can and must win everything, because he has all the gifts of a perfect cyclists."

He was indeed a phenomenal all-rounder, able to sprint, climb, endure the inhumanly long stages of the era and - perhaps most importantly - had the intelligence to outwit his rivals at a time when most stage racers relied on the simple method of riding as fast as possible for as long as possible. During the first few months of his professional career it looked like Ruinart had been right when the rider won a bronze medal at the National Cyclo Cross Championships and enjoyed victory on the road at Milan-Varese, Paris-Dreux and Paris-Roubaix; his opponents must, therefore, have felt some relief when he dropped out of his first Tour de France that summer after suffering badly in the freezing, snowy conditions that hit the race that year. However, Lapize went away and began immediately preparing for the next edition and when he rolled up to the start line in 1910 he had become an altogether different rider - leaner, fitter, meaner. These were factors that would stand him in good stead because, after seven years in which Tour director Henri Desgrange had kept his race away from the high mountains (which, he worried, would prove impossible to ride and where bears might eat the riders), the parcours was taking the peloton over the highest roads in the Pyrenees.

Lapize on Tourmalet, 1910

The man who had persuaded Desgrange that high mountain stages should be added was Adolphe Steinès, who had designed the route every year since the first Tour in 1903. In 1905 he had convinced Desgrange that a smaller mountain, Ballon d'Alsace, would add spectacle and it had proved popular with fans; this year, following a January fact-finding mission in which he was warned by locals that the col was barely passable in July (and would probably have died if a search party hadn't found him after he tried to make it over the pass in heavy snow and fell into a ravine), he'd talked the director into letting him add the 2,115m Col du Tourmalet, almost 1,000m higher than Ballon d'Alsace. Rivals of L'Auto, the newspaper Desgrange edited, said that the parcours was "dangerous" and "bizarre," and when it was first published no fewer that 26 riders asked for their names to be taken off the start list. Nevertheless, the mountains stayed and the Tour entered a new era - though Desgrange was still sufficiently worried that the experiment would prove a disaster that, when the race reached the Pyrenees in Stage 9 and he saw how much the riders struggled, he temporarily made Victor Breyer director just in case the whole affair descended into embarrassing farce on the harder climbs in the next stage.

The tall, powerfully-built Luxembourgian François Faber, who had won the Tour the previous year after such an impressive performance in the first half of the race (including five consecutive stage wins, still a record 103 years later) that organisers asked him to ease off a bit to make the race appear more interesting, now found himself at a serious disadvantage - no matter how much of a lead he could gain on the flat stages, he lost it all on the big climbs where the smaller, lighter riders left him far behind. Nevertheless, he did extraordinarily well despite a dog causing him to crash in tage 7 and led the race for ten stages from Stage 2, even winning on the small mountains of Stage 4 - but when the peloton reached the Pyrenees in Stage 9 Lapize beat him, then did so again the following day when they climbed Tourmalet. Lapize was the first man to the top, but could only get there by dismounting and pushing his bike; Gustave Garrigou, who ended the race in third place, was the only man to ride to the top and earned a bonus of 100 francs for doing so. According to legend, when Lapize passed the race officials waiting at the top, he hissed one single word at them: "Assassins!" In fact, those who were there to hear it remembered that it was "Vous êtes des assassins! Oui, des assassins!" - and that he shouted it, rather than hissed.

Lapize on Tourmalet, 1910

Faber had done sufficiently well in the earlier stages to maintain his lead and hoped to add to it in the flat stages to come, but then when he had a puncture in Stage 12 Garrigou helped Lapize to attack; Lapize thus became race leader with three stages to go. Lapize also won Stage 14; by the final stage, Stage 15, he was six points ahead of the Luxembourgian - the outcome of the race in those days being decided according to a points system (still used, in modified fashion, to decide the Points competition run alongside the General Classification and King of the Mountains to this day). When Lapize punctured shortly after the start of the final stage, Faber tried to seize his chance and sprinted away, hoping to gain an insurmountable lead and win back the race. However, he too punctured; he finished the stage in fourth place, beating sixth place Lapize by 6'01", but this only won him back two points - Lapize had won the Tour.

Lapize also won Paris-Roubaix in 1910, then he won it again the next year and became the first man to have won three times and three times consecutively - Gaston Rebry would match him with a third victory a quarter of a century later, but it would be 70 years until Francesco Moser managed to match the three consecutive victories (to date, nobody else has done so). He also won Paris-Tours, Paris-Brussels and became National Road Race Champion in 1911, a title he successfully defended in 1912; that year, he won Paris-Brussels again and also Stage 6 at the Tour. In 1913 he won Paris-Brussels for a third time, a record both for total wins and consecutive wins that has been matched once (Félix Sellier, 1924) and beaten once (Robbie McEwen, 2008), then in 1914 he won Stage 8 at the Tour.

On the same day that the 1914 Tour de France began, the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo and the First World War began. A week after the Tour ended, Germany invaded Belgium and declared war on France. Lapize joined up to fight, becoming a fighter pilot. He survived until the 14th of July in 1917 - that day, he was shot down over Flirey in Meurthe-et-Moselle near the German border and died shortly afterwards in hospital, aged 29 years.

Emilia Fahlin
Born in Örebro on this day in 1988, Emilia Fahlin entered her first bike race when she was 12 years old. Only four other riders took part, and she was the fourth to finish - however, she caught the racing bug and, four years later in 2005, she became Junior Road Race Champion of Sweden, also taking second place in the Junior National Individual Time Trial Championship. The following year she lost her title (but won a bronze medal); however, good results in stage races brought her to the attention of the T-Mobile team. She signed her first professional contract with them for 2007 and stayed as the team gradually transformed into HTC-Highroad before dissolving at the end of 2011.

Right from the start of her professional career, Fahlin was successful. In her first year she won the Under-23 Skandisloppet in Sweden, finished Stage 3 at the Tour of Poland in third place and was second at the Sparkassen Giro. In 2008 she won Stage 3 at the Redlands Classic, took the Elite National Road Race Championship title and then dominated the U-23 Svanesunds 3-dagars by winning three of the total four stages (and coming second on the one she didn't win). The year after that she won the Tour of California Women's Criterium and the National Individual Time Trial Championship, then in 2010 she won the National ITT and Road Race Championships. She kept the ITT title in 2011 and was third in the Road Race; then won the Prologue and Stages 2, 5 and 6 at the Tour de l'Ardèche but was unable to make it into the Emma Pooley-led top 5 overall finishers.

Following the demise of Highroad, Fahlin joined Specialized-Lululemon and helped towards the team's victory in the team time trial at the Energiwacht Tour. She took second place in the Road Race and third in the ITT at the Nationals, then came 19th in the Road Race at the Olympics before finishing the season with good top ten results at the Route de France and Lotto-Decca Tour.

Levi Leipheimer

Leipheimer in 2005

Born in Butte, Montana on this day in 1973, Levi Leipheimer was for many years one of the most popular riders in the ProTour peloton: partly for his longevity (he remained competitive in the Grand Tours right up until 2012, when he was 37 years old) and excellent results (he was third at the Tour de France in 2007) but also for his caring nature - he supports animal welfare organisations and, with his wife Odessa Gunn (also a professional cyclist), runs a sanctuary for mistreated animals at home in California.

As a youth, Leipheimer was more interested in skiing than other sports and didn't start cycling until an accident kept him away from the slopes. As has been the case with a surprisingly large number of riders who came to cycling by accident, he showed promise right from the start and, in 1995, was signed up as a trainee with the British MS Maestro-Frigas team. He won the Tour de la Province de Namur with them but although the team continued in 1996, under the new name Sit&Sit-FS Maestro, his contract was not extended; instead he split his time between racing as an  Independent and for the Einstein team. He enjoyed one victory that year - a criterium at Burlingame in the US, but also failed a doping test when a sample he provided at the National Criterium Championships turned out to be positive for ephedrine. He was, therefore, stripped of the title and had to give back the prize money he'd won at the event, but claimed that the drug had got into his system via an antihistamine medicine he'd used to combat hayfever; race rules have since been altered to allow riders to use the drug with a doctor's note. In 1997 he was picked up by the Comptel Data Systems team and enjoyed seven victories in American races, then in 1998 and 1999 he went to Saturn Cycling and won another seven times, including two General Classifications  at the Tour of Beuce in Canada. Now very much on the international professional cycling radar, Johan Bruyneel's US Postal came calling; Leipheimer rode alongside Lance Armstrong with the team in 2000 and 2001.

In 2001 Leipheimer rode the Vuelta a Espana, his first Grand Tour, as a domestique for Roberto Heras - but then performed so well in the final stage, a time trial, that he overtook Heras and took third place in the General Classification and the Points competition. He was the first American rider to have ever finished the Vuelta in the top three. Heras, who had won in 2000, was fourth and not at all impressed with what had happened, but Leipheimer had done enough to earn himself a more lucrative contract with Rabobank for 2002: the year that he made his debut at the Tour de France and finished in eighth place. In 2003 he was eighth at the Critérium du Dauphiné but otherwise performed poorly all year, managing only 58th place at the Vuelta; he experienced a return to form in 2004 and was ninth at the Tour, then departed the team for Gerolsteiner with whom he was sixth at the Tour de France and won the General Classification and the King of the Mountains at the Tour of Germany. In 2006 he won the Critérium du Dauphiné and was 13th at the Tour de France; in 2007 he returned to Johan Bruyneel, riding for the team now known as Discovery Channel Pro Cycling, and won the Tour of California and Stage 19 at the Tour de France before his third place finish. Bruyneel became manager of Astana for 2008 and 2009 and Leipheimer moved with him; in 2008 he won the Tour of California again and took two stages at the Vuelta, where he was second overall, then in 2009 he won the Tour of California (for a record third time), the Vuelta Castilla y Leon and the Tour of the Gila, also taking sixth place at the Giro d'Italia. He didn't finish the Tour de France that year, breaking his wrist in a crash in Stage 12 while he was in fourth place in the General Classification.

Leipheimer in 2011

Leipheimer moved with Bruyneel in 2010 to RadioShack. He won the Tour of the Gila again, then came 13th at the Tour de France before winning the Tour of Utah; in 2011 he won the Tour de Suisse, the Tour of Utah and the USA ProCycling Challenge. In 2012 he joined Omega Pharma-QuickStep and won the Tour de San Luis before finishing his tenth Tour de France in 31st place. At the Tour of California that year, Bruyneel had been served with a subpoena as part of USADA's investigation into doping at US Postal. The full extent of the investigation at that time was not known; however, within a few months it had exploded into perhaps the biggest doping scandal to have ever hit cycling and led to Bruyneel's dismissal as manager of RadioShack-Nissan. Leipheimer  was one of the riders who gave evidence against Lance Armstrong, who was subsequently stripped of his seven Tour de France victories, and in doing so admitted the truth about his own doping before accepting a six month ban to expire in March 2013 - he was also stripped of all his race results gained between June 1999 and July 2006, as well as for July in 2007.

Other cyclists born on this day: Caroline Buchanan (Australia, 1990); Chris Carmichael (USA, 1961); Jill Kintner (USA, 1981); Peter Rogers (Australia, 1974); Emil Richli (Switzerland, 1904, died 1934); Joseph Farrugia (Malta, 1955); Marie-Hélène Prémont (Canada, 1977); Mario van Baarle (Netherlands, 1965); Koichi Azuma (Japan, 1966); Roland Königshofer (Austria, 1962); Rudolf Juřícký (Czechoslovakia, 1971); Rodolfo Caccavo (Argentina, 1927, died 1958); Johann Summer (Austria, 1951); Ezio Cardi (Italy, 1948).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.10.12

Charles Crupelandt

Charles Crupelandt

There are a plethora of sad stories in cycling: riders whose dreams were smashed, riders whose bodies were smashed, riders who lost everything due to drugs, drink, gambling and bad business decisions and, of course, many who lost their lives while serving their countries during the two conflicts that brought European racing to a halt in the 20th Century. Other than those riders who died early in their careers, before they had chance to reach their full potential, the saddest of them all is surely Charles Crupelandt, a French rider born in Wattrelos on this day in 1886. He first raced as a professional with the French Radiator team in 1904, then spent a year as an Independent before signing to La Française for 1906 and riding in the Tour de France (he abandoned in Stage 2); the team didn't keep him on at the end of the year and so in 1907 he was back among the Independents - that year he again abandoned the Tour, this time in Stage 3, but began performing rather well elsewhere with two victories at Belgian criteriums and second place at Paris-Brussels. Two slow years followed, then in 1910 he was taken on by Le Globe-Dunlop and Stage 1 at the Tour de France in 1910, leading the race for a day before finishing in sixth place overall. In 1911 he returned to La Française, now named La Française-Diamant, and won Stages 4 and 7 at the Tour, finishing in fourth place overall; in 1912 he won Paris-Roubaix, then Stage 1 at the Tour again. The year after that he was third at Paris-Roubaix and the National Road Race Championships and won Paris-Tours; in 1914 he was third at Milan-San Remo, became National Champion and won what would be the last edition of Paris-Roubaix until after the First World War.

Crupelandt in 1912

Crupelandt fought during the war and became a hero, winning the Croix de guerre medal. However, at some point, be found himself in trouble with the law - there is a lack of clarity concerning the year this happened, with various sources claiming 1914, 1917 and 1921/2; whichever it was, he was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison and the Union Vélocipédique handed him a lifetime ban from competition, almost certainly after being pressured into doing so by Crupelandt's rivals. Once freed he was able to continue racing under the aegis of another organisation and won the unofficial National Championships in 1922 and 1923, but it spelled the end of a career that Henri Desgrange once predicted would lead to victory in the Tour de France. As the Vélocipédique gained greater control over the sport in France, Crupelandt's opportunies to race became fewer and fewer and he was unable to earn his living: by the time he died in great poverty on the 18th of February in 1955, he had lost both his legs and his sight.

To mark Paris-Roubaix's centenary in 1996, the commune of Roubaix laid a 300m stretch of cobbles along the centre of the Avenue Alfred Motte on the final approach to the velodrome that hosts the finish line. Set among the cobbles are inscribed stones commemorating all of the riders to have won what has become known as the hardest race in cycling, which has caused it to become popularly known as Chemin des Géants, Road of Giants; its official name is Espace Charles Crupelandt.

Chris Horner

Chris Horner

Born in Bend, Oregon on this day in 1971, Chris Horner turned professional with the American Nutrafig team in 1995 and won three races, then stayed with them the following year to win ten times and come second at the Redlands Classic and third at Fitchburg Longsjo. Those results were good enough for him to go to Europe and join Française des Jeux but, as is often the case when a rider unaccustomed to the level of competition in European racing makes the move, the next three years were a disappointment with third place at the 1997 GP Ouest France being the only notable result from the period; in 2000 he went to the second-category US based Mercury team and won the Redlands Classic, also picking up three other victories and an excellent third place stage finish at the Critérium International, then in 2001 he won the Solano Classic and four other races but switched to the third-category Prime Alliance team towards the end of the season - an unusual move for a rider whose career appeared to be starting to build up steam, but one that worked out very well for him because, with Prime in 2002, he won Fitchburg Longsjo, the Red River Classic, Redlands, the Sea Otter Classic, Solano and the season-long National Racing Calendar as well as taking second place at the Nature Valley Grand Prix and the Elite National Individual Time Trial Championship.

Horner began 2004 with another US team, Webcor, and won Redlands, the Sea Otter, the Tour de Toona and the National Racing Calendar. In October he received an invitation to join Saunier Duval-Prodir and, four years after his previous attempt failed, he returned to European racing. This time he was a very different and vastly more experienced rider - at the Tour de Suisse he won Stage 6 and was second in the King of the Mountains, then he went to the Tour de France and finished two stages in the top ten before coming 33rd overall. He went to Davitamon-Lotto for 2006 and won Stage 1 at the Tour de Romandie, finished the Tour de France in 64th place and the Vuelta a Espana in 20th, then came 15th at the Tour and 36th at the Vuelta the next year.

Horner in 2011

Rather than being an also-ran, as he must once have feared was his destiny, Horner had now proved himself to be a stage racer of considerable repute; this being a fact not missed by Astana, which signed him for two years in 2008. Since he was with the team primarily to act as domestique for Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, the results Horner added to his palmares while at Astana were not especially impressive; however, he was apparently more than content to have realised his ambition of competing in the biggest cycling events in the world - it was during this time that he became a highly popular rider with fans, who nicknamed him "Smiler" after noticing his constant cheerfulness and enjoyment of his sport. Then, at the Cascade Classic that year, Horner earned his place as one of the greatest characters in the history of cycling: when he saw that a rider named Billy Demong had crashed 2km from the finish at the Cascade Classic, he rode up to him, stopped and said "Hey dude - hop on!" before giving him and his broken bike a "backie" over the line.

In 2010 Horner joined RadioShack, the team for which he still rides, and won the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco before taking ninth place at the Critérium du Dauphiné; he also made his return to the Tour de France and finished in 10th place overall. In 2011, aged 40, he won the Tour of California, then in 2012 he was second at Tirreno-Adriatico and 13th at the Tour de France. Now aged 41, his career is likely to soon reach its end, much to the disappointment of many fans who believe that he deserved a Tour victory.


Beat Breu, born in St. Gallen, Switzerland on this day in 1957, won the Tour de Suisse in 1981 and  again in 1989. He also enjoyed some success in the Grand Tours, winning Stage 20 and finishing eighth overall at the Giro d'Italia in 1981, then Stages 13 and 16 (on the Alpe d'Huez) at the Tour de France a year later for sixth place overall; and in cyclo cross - he was National Champion in 1988 and 1994.

Nariyuki Masada, born in Sendai, Japan on this day in 1983, was second at the National Road Race Championship in 2012. He will ride for the Cannondale ProCycling team, the successor to Liquigas-Cannondale, in 2013.

Alessando Zanardi, known as Alex, was a successful racing car driver from the late 1990s until a crash in 2001 resulted in the amputation of both his legs. Nevertheless, he was racing again less than two years later and also later took up handcycling. At the 2012 Paralympics in London, he won the gold medals for the Individual Road Race and Time Trial and a silver in the Team Relay; his performance later being declared one of the top twelve highlights of the Games.

Art Longsjo Jnr., born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on this day in 1931, rode for an hour and a half to get to the first race he ever entered and then once there won the 1-mile, 3-mile and 25-mile events; he was also a successful speed skater and, in 1956, competed in the cycling at the Summer Olympics and the skating at the Winter Olympics. In 1958, when he was 26, he won the Tour of Somerville but shortly afterwards he died in a road accident - the inaugural Fitchburg Longsjo Classic was organised in his memory two years later and has been held every year since.

Otto Weckerling, who was born in Kehnert, Germany on this day in 1910, dreamed of becoming a professional rider when he was a child. The heavy bike he used to ride to get to the farm where he worked as an apprenticeship gave him the legs to become one: he won his first race in 1927, beating his closest rival by four minutes, seven years later took second place at the Amateur National Championships - which earned him a contract with the Dürkopp team. In 1937 Weckerling won Stage 8 at the Tour de France and the General Classification at the Tour of Germany, then he won Stage 17 at the Tour de France in 1938 before the Second World War brought the race to a temporary end. He survived the conflict and, realising what lay ahead following the establishment of the German Democratic Republic and despite having recently finished building a new home, he moved his family from Madgeburg in the East to Dortmund in the West in 1950. Only weeks afterward, free movement in the Soviet-controlled GDR became impossible.

Other cyclists born on this day: Toivo Hörkkö (Finland, 1898, died 1975); Arturo García (Mexico, 1946); Mats Gustafsson (Sweden, 1957); Hiromi Yamafuji (Japan, 1944, died 1984); József Peterman (Hungary, 1947); Joseph Evouna (Cameroon, 1952); Alexis Méndez (Venezuela, 1969); Carlos Roqueiro (Argentina, 1944); Sven Höglund (Sweden, 1910, died 1995); Lionel Kent (New Zealand, 1928).

Ken Kifer

Ken Kifer

Cycling - not just racing, but in all its many forms - has long been inhabited by characters and eccentrics; a prime example of which was the writer, scholar, transcendentalist, self-sufficiency advocate and above all touring cyclist Ken Kifer, who was born in the USA on this day in 1945. Kifer's website is considered an authoritative source of information and advice on touring, but is equally known for his anecdotes and insights regarding life, love, work and a vast array of other matters.

Though something of a hippy, his essays on what he calls The New World ("simple living, organic gardening, T-groups, natural childbirth, progressive education, and lots of adventure") are well-thought-out and based largely on common sense; as when he advises that those who live in some parts of the USA and wish to go foraging for wild foods in the forest do so only with an experienced guide - having actually lived the sort of life he advocated, his concept of the "harmony of nature" was somewhat more practical than most who share his ideals and left him under no illusion that hippies are not likely to be viewed as tasty and easy meals by bears.

Kifer completed numerous tours thousands of miles long in his life, but was only six miles from his home when he was killed by a drunk driver on the 14th of September in 2003.

"One day, returning to Alabama by bike, I stopped to wash my clothes in Roanoke, Virginia. Two fellows were also doing laundry. They admired my courage and physical fitness, and one of them said, 'I'd like to do something like that, if I were as young as you are.' 'How old are you?' I asked. He said, 'forty-three.' I said, 'I'm almost fifty-one' ... I never lift weights, I never condition my abs, I never stretch, I never diet, I seldom see a doctor, I just walk and ride my bike ... Cycling keeps me lean, fit and healthy, and happy. I know that my own move back to the bike was the best decision I ever made." - Ken Kifer, 23.10.1945-14.09.2003

Daily Cycling Facts 22.10.12

Mark Renshaw

Renshaw at the Tour Down Under, 2011

Born in Bathurst, New South Wales on this day in 1982, Mark Renshaw started out as a track cyclist and won four National Championship titles in the Under-17 category in 1998, then two more as an U-19 in 1999 (when he also rode for the winning Pursuit team at the Worlds) and another four as an U-19 in 2000 (when he again rode with the winning Pursuit team at the Worlds and became World U-19 Kilo Champion). In 2001 he became Elite National Individual Time Trial Champion and in 2002 Elite National Scratch and Points Champion, riding with the winning Pursuit team at the Nations, the Manchester round of the World Cup and the World Championships.

Renshaw undoubtedly had a glittering career on the track ahead of him and with consistently excellent results in 2002 it looked as though that was indeed where his destiny lay; yet it was that same year that he made the switch into road racing. The process began with an invitation to join the FDJeux development team which, after he finished Stage 4 at the Herald Sun Tour in second place, was upgraded to a traineeship in the team's ProTour squad the following season. Victory at the Be Active Criterium Series and good results at several other races that year (having not turned his back entirely on track, he also became National Madison Champion alongside Graeme Brown) brought him a full professional contract with the team in 2004, the year he finished two stages at the Tour de l'Avenir in second place. In 2005 he rode his first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia, and finished one stage in eighth place before coming 144th overall; then at the end of the year he announced he would be moving to Crédit Agricole and, in his first season with them, won a stage at the Jayco Bay Classic, won the Tro-Bro Léon, impressed with third and second place stage finishes at the Tour Méditerranéen and Sachsen Tour, rode at but did not finish the Vuelta a Espana and then took two second place stage finishes at the Circuit Franco-Belge. In 2007, still with Crédit Agricole, he won the General Classification at Jayco Bay, won Stage 2 at the Tour de Picardie and returned to the Vuelta, this time finishing top ten twice and completing in 144th place. 2008 was his final year with the team; after winning Jayco Bay again he went to the Tour Down Under and won Stage 1 before coming third overall in the Points competition, then rode at but did not finish his first Tour de France.

A devastatingly fast sprinter in his own right, Renshaw has found his greatest fame not by winning races but as the most specialised of domestiques - a lead-out man. When he moved to Columbia-HTC in 2009, he found himself riding alongside a young sprinter who, at 24 years old, was showing signs of the potential to become something extraordinary - his name was Mark Cavendish, and the two men formed a partnership that, at the Tour de France that year, led to an incredible six stage wins for the Manxman. They worked together again in 2010 to win five stages (Cavendish won the final stage for a second consecutive year, the first rider in the history of the Tour to have done so); then again in 2011 when Cavendish won another five stages, taking first place in the Points competition and once again winning the final stage. To some, it seems a strange job - putting in so much effort to enable someone else to take the glory - but it had its advantages: before long, Renshaw was being called the best lead-out man in cycling whereas he'd only ever have been a very good sprinter, and of course he had his opportunities to win races for himself, as was the case when he won the General Classification at the Tour of Qatar and Stage 5 at the Tour of Britain in 2011. That year, when the team became known as HTC-Highroad, owner and manager Bob Stapleton announced that he was experiencing difficulty in securing sponsorship for 2012 with several of the companies he approached hinting that they were reluctant to become involved with a sport perceived by many as being rife with doping; this being especially unfortunate in Highroad's case because, following the transition to Stapleton's ownership after the troubled years when the team raced as T-Mobile (home to a number of riders to be implicated in high profile doping cases), it had been the first team to introduce its own anti-doping rules and procedures that were stricter and more stringent than those already required by the UCI. Nevertheless, at the end of the season, both the men's and women's teams were dissolved - a reminder that, despite all that had been done since the bad old days of the Festina Affair and Operacion Puerto, cycling still suffered the effects of what had happened in the past.

It was widely expected that Cavendish and Renshaw would remain together, continuing their partnership at a team that could afford them both, but this was not the case - following several months of somewhat hyped-up, media-delighting uncertainty, Cavendish went to Team Sky and Renshaw to Rabobank. Cav, whom some believed would be unable to win without Renshaw's help, won three stages at the Tour de France, including the final stage for a fourth time; Renshaw went to Rabobank where he rode once again with his old Madison partner Graeme Brown. Now permitted more chances to ride for himself, he finished top ten 25 times that season, including a victory on Stage 4 at the Tour of Turkey when he beat his fellow Australian Matthew Goss (one of the few sprinters able to take on Cav), three top ten stage finishes at the Giro d'Italia and one at the Tour de France (which he abandoned in Stage 12, suffering pain from four crashes earlier on during the race).

Renshaw leading Cav

At the end of the year, when the full extent of USADA's investigation into Lance Armstrong and the huge doping program at US Postal in the late 1990s and early 2000s became apparent, Rabobank announced that after 17 years it would be ending its association with professional cycling, claiming that it no longer had confidence in the UCI's ability to combat the problem. The organisation said that, as it was too late for riders to secure new contracts elsewhere, it would honour its contracts and continue to provide financial support for the team in 2013 though without its name being used; Renshaw will, therefore, see out his two-year contract despite showing some signs of unhappiness at his team's decision to support their General Classification contenders rather than their sprinters. Meanwhile, Cav - having experienced a similar situation at the Tour de France when Sky threw their full weight behind Bradley Wiggains, will ride for Omega Pharma-QuickStep in 2013. In August 2012, Renshaw told Cycling News: "You never know what can happen, I told [Cav] that when I left, it's a small world and there could be a chance that we hook-up again. I enjoyed working with him. I'm never going to rule out riding with him again." In 2014, we may see the return of the greatest double act in cycling.


Born in Ramnäs, Sweden on this day in 1965, Marie Höljer became Junior National Individual Time Trial Champion in 1982 and then came second at the Elite National Road Race Championship a year later, when she also rode with the winning Elite time trial team (as she would again in 1986, 1987, 1989 and 1990). She became Elite National Individual Time Trial Champion in 1984 and 1991 and was Elite Road Race Champion again in 1988, 1989 and 1991; also taking either second or third in each competition in several of the intervening years before retiring in 2000.

Aad de Graaf, born in Rotterdam on this day in 1939, was Dutch Amateur Sprint Champion in 1960, 1961 and 1962, then came second in 1963 and 1964. In 1965 he turned professional, winning silver for the Sprint at the Elite National Championships that year and the next.

Other cyclists born on this day: Maxime Bally (Switzerland, 1986); Paul Schulze (Germany, 1882); Tim Carswell (New Zealand, 1971); Donna Wynd (New Zealand, 1961); Rudolf Franz (Germany, 1937); Pascal Robert (France, 1963); César Marcano (Venezuela, 1987).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.10.12

Fred de Bruyne

Alfred de Bruyne, born in Berlare, Belgium on this day in 1930, became the dominant Classics and Monuments rider of the late 1950s. Like many Classics specialists, his powerful sprint made him a formidable stage winner too, though he never stood a chance of challenging the General Classification of the long stage races: winning the Independents Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1953 earned him a place at his first Tour de France - he finished Stage 5 in 3rd place. The next year, he won Stages 8, 13 and 22.

In 1955, de Bruyne finished two stages at the Tour in the top three and was second at the Giro di Lombardia. In 1956 he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Paris-Nice and Milan-San Remo, then came second behind Louison Bobet at Paris-Roubaix before winning Stages 2, 6 and 10 at the Tour. He also won the Desgrange-Colombo, a season-long competition run by L'Équipe, Het Nieuwsblad/Sportwereld, La Gazzetta dello Sport and the now-defunct Les Sports newspapers that formed an early version of today's UCI ranking system; he would win it again in 1957 and 1959 - the Swiss Tour de France winner Ferdinand Kübler had won it three times too, but de Bruyne is the only rider to have won it three times consecutively.

De Bruyne could ride well on the track too, winning the Six Days of Gent with Rik van Steenbergen in 1957 prior to achieving one of the rarest and most prestigious doubles in cycling: winning the notoriously difficult Ronde van Vlaanderen and then, a week later, Paris-Roubaix - a feat that in almost a century (Paris-Roubaix began in 1896, the Ronde in 1913), only ten other riders have managed. He finished the season with victory at Paris-Tours, then got 1958 off to a good start when he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Paris-Nice for a second time. In 1959 he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège again and was second at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. From that year, de Bruyne's performance began to tail off and in 1960 he won only one event, a derny race at Zedelgem. The following year was to be his last as a professional rider, but he went out on a high with victory at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.

De Bruyne retained his links to cycling after retiring, writing books on the careers of van Steenbergen, Rik van Looy, Patrick Sercu, Peter Post and himself - they were well-received and remain worth seeking out today. He also served as a manager, later an official spokesperson, for the Ti-Raleigh team when it was at the the height of its legendary success, then became a TV sports commentator before his death aged 63 in 1994.

Schorn at the 2012 Giro

At the 2012 Giro d'Italia where his NetApp team made their Grand Tour debut, Daniel Schorn (born in Zell am See, Austria on this day in 1988), managed to avoid a crash 400m from the Stage 5 finish line and then out-sprinted several older and more-experienced sprinters to take fifth place. Now aged 24, he seems a rider to watch in the coming years.

Luke Parker, born in Melbourne, Australia on this day in 1993, rode with the winning Sprint team at the Junior National Championships in 2010 and 2011. In 2012 he won the Austral Wheel Race, the oldest track competition still held anywhere in the world.

Kari Myyryläinen, born in Hyvinkää, Finland on this day in 1963, became National Champion in Cyclo Cross, Road Racing and Individual Time Trial in 1983, then successfully defended the ITT title and added the Points Race Championship in 1984. In 1985 he was Road Race and ITT champion again and won the GP de France; then he won the Road Race Championship in 1986, the Cyclo Cross Championship in 1991 and 1992, the ITT Championship in 1993 and the Cyclo Cross Championship in 1994 and 1995.


Other cyclists born on this day: Albert Kruschel (USA, 1889, died 1959); Orlando Rodrigues (Portugal 1969); Neil Ritchie (New Zealand, 1933); Ivan Valant (Yugoslavia, 1909); Bent Hansen (Denmark, 1932); Kathlyn Ragg (Fiji, 1962).