Born in Sartrouville, France on this day in 1966, Pascal Lino became a household name in France when he wore the maillot jaune for eleven days at the Tour in 1992 after finishing Stage 3 in fourth place, having got into a break that managed to finish seven minutes ahead of the pack - and although he wasn't able to take on the big guns as the race began to draw towards its end, he performed sufficiently well to finish up in fifth place overall.
Lino rode for RMO that year and, when the team closed down at the end of the season, he moved on to Festina-Lotus where he remained until the end of 1994; with them, he won Stage 14 at the 1993 Tour, then in 1994 he was eleventh overall at the Tour and fourteenth at the Vuelta a Espana. In 1995 he switched again to Le Groupement, the rather peculiar team that lasted just one year and courted much controversy due to main sponsor Groupement Européen des Professionnels du Marketing's suspicious similarities to a pyramid scheme; when Le Groupemont closed down he went to Roslotto-ZG Mobili and then in 1997 to BigMat-Auber'93, with whom he remained until 1999 when he was sacked after being found to have "attempted to use steroids" without the knowledge of the team's doctors. Nevertheless, he had little difficulty in finding a new contract and lived out the rest of his career back with Festina, which had survived the doping scandal to which it gave its name, and eventually retired when the team came to an end in 2001.
Lino now runs his own company, specialising in the import and distribution of watches.
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| Jules Buysse leading Stage 1, Tour de France 1926 |
Born in Wontergem on this day in 1901, Belgian Jules Buysse was the younger brother of Lucien and Marcel. He won the first stage of the 1926 Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey for two days, then it passed first to Gustave van Slembroucke and then Lucien, who won the General Classification. Jules came ninth.
Other cyclists born on this day: Dionisio Galparsoro (Spain, 1978); Michael van Staeyen (Belgium, 1988); Jairo Hernández (Colombia, 1972); José Medina (Chile, 1973); Grega Bole (Slovenia, 1985); José Antonio Díez (Spain, 1982); John Geddes (Great Britain, 1936); Moana Moo-Caille (France, 1988); Kurt Postl (Austria, 1937); Park Se-Ryong (South Korea, 1959); Dashnyamyn Tömör-Ochir (Mongolia, 1964); Tadeusz Mytnik (Poland, 1949); Michael Walker (Great Britain, 1885, died 1971); Tompson Mensah (Togo, 1954); Martin Sæterhaug (Norway, 1882, died 1961); Aleksandr Kirichenko (USSR, 1967); Carlos Galeano (Colombia, 1950); René Abadie (France, 1935, died 1996).
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