Daily Cycling Facts 30.03.2013

Lucien Lesna

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1902. Having begun at Saint-Germain in 1900 and Porte Maillot in 1901, the race returned to its previous starting point at Chatou - where the start line would remain until 1914. The winner, Lucien Lesna, was born in Switzerland in 1863 but had taken French nationality before the turn of the century and as such is not considered the first Swiss Paris-Roubaix winner (they had to wait until 1923).

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1958, 1959, 1969 and 1980. The 1958 winner was Germain Derycke - nowadays it's always one week before Paris-Roubaix, which Derycke won in 1953, but was two weeks before that year. The winning time of 6h7'00" was shared by all ten riders first over the line. Derycke had won Stage 23 at the Tour de France in 1951, but then became a Classics specialist - in between his Paris-Roubaix  and Ronde successes, he won La Flèche Wallonne and the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1954, Milan-San Remo in 1955 and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 1957.

Michel Pollentier - the last man who will
ever win the Ronde van Vlaanderen in
March.
(image credit: Rynoventoux)

The Ronde was held on the same date the following year, 1959, when Rik Van Looy won despite a crash on the Muur van Geraardsbergen. He too was a Classics specialist, but went further than Derycke by becoming the first man to win all five Monuments - a feat achieved since by only two other men, Roger de Vlaeminck (perhaps the greatest Classics rider of them all) and Eddy Merckx (widely claimed to have been the greatest cyclist of all time). Out of 143 starters, only 58 finished the race that year; one of the main reasons for that being the Valkenburg, featured in the race for the first time: climbing from 45m to 98m, the hill has a maximum gradient of 15%.

1969 brought the first of two victories in this race for Eddy Merckx, the Belgian superstar who is widely regarded as the most successful cyclist of all time. The race was run in awful weather with heavy rain and strong winds which proved too much for lesser men, so Merckx led for much of the race. Then - in search of revenge against the other riders who, like much of the cycling world at the time, spent a great deal of time jealously sniping at him because of  how many races he won - he launched a solo breakaway on the Muur van Geraardsbergen and rode the remaining 70km alone. When he crossed the finish line, he did so 5'36" ahead of 2nd place Felice Gimondi and 8'08" ahead of the chasing group that included the British rider Barry Hoban. However, this race was a challenge even for him and it would be six years before he won for a second time.

In 1980 Michel Pollentier beat some of the greatest Classics riders of all time, defeating Francesco Moser, Jan Raas, Roger de Vlaeminck, Marc Demeyer, Freddy Maertens and Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle in a final sprint. Oddly, Pollentier was not himself known as a Classics man, having performed best in long stage races and the Grand Tours - he won a total of six Grand Tour stages, twice finished the Tour de France in 7th place, finished the Vuelta a Espana in 6th position in 1977 and 2nd five years later and won the Giro d'Italia in  1977. 1980, the 64th held, was the last time the race was held in March. Since the race is now held on the 14th Sunday of the year to ensure it falls one week prior to Paris-Roubaix, it will never be held in March again as the earliest possible date is the 1st of April.

Mari Holden

Mari Holden
(image credit: James F. Perry
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Mari Holden, born in Ventura, California on this day in 1971, was twice selected to compete with the US National Junior Triathlon team in the early 1990s and was elected Junior Triathlete of the Year in 1991, coming 7th on the Junior Triathlon World Championships that same year.

Gradually - as has often been the case with athletes who compete in other sports - Holden found that she enjoyed her cycling training more than any other part, and she became better on the bike as a result. However, it wasn't until 1992 when she relocated to Colorado and began training with the US Cycling Team that she decided to concentrate on cycle racing rather than triathlon. The next year, she entered the National Time Trial Championship and finished in 6th place.

In 1994 she sustained a spinal compression fracture, thus bringing a temporary halt to her new career, but a year later she won the National Time Trial and set a new American 40km time trial record at 51'36.24", also winning the Louisville Criterium and the Point Mogu Criterium and coming third in the presitigious Redlands Bicycle Classic. She won the Time Trial Championship again in 1996 and in 1998, 1999 and 2000, thus becoming the first US female cyclist to win the title for three consecutive years - and she won the Road Race Championship as well in 1999. She won the World Time Trial Championship in 2000.

In 1998, she won the Mountains Classification at the Women's Challenge, repeating that result in 1999 and developing her abilities so far that she was able to win the Mountains at the 2001 Giro Donne. Today, Holden uses her considerable expertise to run cycling training camps and clinics, also acting as a consultant to companies manufacturing women-specific bikes and components and to the cycle racing world in general. She has also served as athlete's ambassador to USADA.

Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley, born on his day in 1933, received a suspension from the National Cycling Union in 1958 after he was found to have competed abroad without their permission, but was then invited back to take part in the Berlin-Warsaw-Prague race later than year. He won the Tour of Britain - at that time known as the Milk Race as it was sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board in return for the words "Drink More Milk" embroidered n the jersey of every rider - in 1959 and again in 1960.

Bradley is notable in that he remained an amateur - probably so that he could avoid the NCU rule stating that once a rider had been a professional he could never race against amateurs again, even after retirement - for ten years until he was finally tempted by an offer from Falcon Cycles, and for his Stage 6 victory at the 1957 Österreich-Rundfahrt when he set a race record time for climbing Austria's highest mountain the Großglockner in 56'53" - a record that stood for many years and which beat one set six years earlier by none other than Charly Gaul, perhaps the greatest climber to have ever lived.. He died on the 30th of June 1997.


Laurens Schmitz Meintjes, born in Aberdeen, South Africa on the 12th of July 1868, was the winner of the first ever World Stayers Championship at the ICA Track Cycling World Championships in Chicago, 1893. He died on this day in 1931.

Jean Fischer, born in France on this day in 1867, was nicknamed Le Grimpeur, which suggests he specialised in climbing. However, he won the Paris-Tours, a race over relatively flat parcours that had first been held in 1896 and was originally run every five years, in 1901. In 1903, he finished the first ever Tour de France in 5th place, 4h58'44" behind winner Maurice Garin.

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

On this day in 2007, Rebecca Romero - who had already enjoyed a successful career as a professional rower - made her international competitive cycling debut at the UCI Track World Cup in Moscow. She won a silver medal in the 3km Pursuit.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jens-Erik Madsen (Denmark, 1981); Ensio Nieminen (Finland, 1930); Klaus-Jürgen Grünke (East Germany, 1951); Bengt Asplund (Sweden, 1957); Tamotsu Chikanari (Japan, 1929); Cor Schuuring (Netherlands, 1942); William Kund (USA, 1946); Mohamed Ali Acha-Cheloi (Iran, 1951); René Rouffeteau (France, 1926); Ben Luckwell (Great Britain, 1966); Sven Hamrin (Sweden, 1941); Darren Lawson (Australia, 1968); Fabien Sanchez (France, 1983); Anton Tkáč (Czechoslovakia, 1951); Manuel Fumic (Germany, 1982).

Daily Cycling Facts 29.03.2013

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held in this day in 1925 and the winner was Julien Delbecque, who would also win Paris-Roubaix a year later.


Igor Astarloa

Igor Astarloa in 2006
(image credit: Heidas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Igor Astarloa, born in Ermua, Euskadi on this day in 1976, turned professional in 2000 with Mercatone Uno-Albacom and remained with them for two seasons before spending two more with Saeco. In 2004, he joined Cofidis after winning the World Road Race Championship the year before, but secured his release in April following the David Millar doping scandal and moved to Lampre. He then moved to the British-based Barloworld for the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

In 2007 he'd moved again to Milram but was dramatically sacked from the team on the 29th of May 2008 after an anti-doping test revealed irregular blood values. He found a new contract with Amica Chips-Knauf, but that team folded in May 2009. One month later, he became one of the first riders to fall victim to the UCI's newly-introduced Biological Passport, a programme that keeps an accurate record of haematocrit counts, steroid profiles, whereabouts and other data in an effort to make it almost impossible for riders to use performance-enhancing drugs without detection. This left him unable to find a new contract and he announced his retirement at the beginning of 2010.

On the 1st of December 2010, the Spanish Cycling Federation handed Astarloa a €35,000 fine and a two year ban which, since he was approaching the age of 35, effectively ended his career even if he decided to come out of retirement should a team be willing to take him on. Cycling News later revealed that the rider had been under suspicion since as long ago as his 2003 World Championships victory with his test results becoming subject to considerable scrutiny during 2008 and 2009 in the wake of the results that led to his dismissal from Milram, but investigation had not found sufficient evidence at that time to prosecute.

Other than his World Champion title, Astarloa's best results were overall General Classification wins at the Flèche Wallonne in 2003 and Milano-Torino in 2006.


Evy van Damme, born in Lokeren, Belgium on this day in 1980, won the Novices National Road Race Championship in 1996, later becoming National Road Race Champion in 2000 and 2001 and National Time Trial Champion in 2003. She is married to Nick Nuyens, winner of the 2005 Tour of Britain and 2011 Tour of Flanders, and her younger sister Charlotte is also a professional cyclist.

Pasquale Fornara, born in Borgomanero, Italy on this day in 1925, won his fourth Tour de Suisse in 1958 - a record not yet broken (others: 1952, 1954, 1957 - when he also won the King of the Mountains). He rode well in the Grand Tours, coming 3rd overall and the Mountains Classification in the 1953 Giro d'Italia, 2nd overall at the 1958 Vuelta a Espana and 4th overall at the 1955 Tour de France.

Hyderabad Bicycling Club Enduro Team

On this day in 2009, the Hyderabad Bicycling Club held its first ever cross country cycle race over three laps of 5km and featuring rocks, mud and a stream crossing. The race was open to all, regardless of gender, age or bike

Other cyclists born on this day: Jon Norfolk (Great Britain, 1975); Milton Wynants (Uruguay, 1972); Jozef Regec (Czechoslovakia, 1965); Erik Cent (Netherlands, 1962); Weng Yu-Yi (Taipei, 1973); Benjamin Evangelista (Philippines, 1949); Jenning Huizenga (Netherlands, 1984); Jalil Eftekhari (Iran, 1965); Jan Bos (Netherlands, 1975); Lionel Coleman (Canada, 1918, died 1941); Michelle Hyland (New Zealand, 1984); José Castañeda (Mexico, 1952); Jarich Bakker (Netherlands, 1974); Les Haupt (South Africa, 1939).

Daily Cycling Facts 28.03.2013

Paris-Roubaix was held on this date in 1937, the last time it would be held in March. Jules Rossi became the first Italian rider to win the race. The finish line was located on the Avénue Gustave Delory (formerly the Avénue des Villas) in Roubaix for the first time.

Ivan Gotti

Ivan Gotti, born in San Pellegrino Terme, Italy on this day in 1969, won the Giro d'Italia in 1997 and 1999 having come to the attention of the cycling world when he finished the 1995 Tour de France in 5th place. Unfortunately, Gotti may not have won his two Grand Tours entirely fairly - he was caught out in a doping control in 2001, which brought his career to an end; then shortly afterwards his marriage broke up too. Today, Gotti is a sales agent for Ferrero, the well-known chocolate manufacturer. When discussing the way his cycling days ended and the way in which the cycling world went after dopers in the early years of the 21st Century, he sounds bitter; however, he seems happy enough in his new life. (See "Do you remember Ivan Gotti?" La Repubblica)

Salvatore Commesso, born in Torre del Greco, Italy on this day in 1975, won Stage 13 at the 1999 Tour de France and then later that year won the National Road Race Championship. He also won Stage 18 of the 2002 Tour and a second National Championship in 2002.

Giovanni Pettenella, who was born in Caprino Veronese, Italy on this day in 1943 and died on the 20th of February 2010, won one gold and one silver medal at the 1964 Olympics. He also had perhaps the strangest claim to fame of any cyclist: he was the inspiration for a character named Pettenella Giovanni (do you see what they did there?) in a computer game called Mother 2, released in 1995. In the game, Pettenella has lost a contact lens in the sand of a desert. If the player can find it and keep it until reaching a bakery in a town later in the game, they will again meet Pettenella and can return the lens to him. To show his gratitiude, he rewards the player with a pair of stinky socks that can be used to overcome enemies in fights. He also appears in EarthBound, a game created by the same developer, as Penetella Giovanni.

Other cyclists born on this day: Aiga Zagorska (Lithuania, 1970); Giordano Turrini (Italy, 1942); Daniele Righi (Italy, 1976); Bjorn Hoeben (Netherlands, 1980); Ignatius Gronkowski (USA, 1897, died 1981); Józef Beker (Poland, 1937); Jacques Majerus (Luxembourg, 1916, died 1972); Chan Fai Lui (Hong Kong, 1955); Zhou Lingmei (China, 1968); Katsuo Nakatake (Japan, 1964); Martin Rittsel (Sweden, 1971); Ralph Berner (Germany 1968); Keith Harrison (Great Britain, 1933); Pedro Simionato (Argentina, 1938); Sidney Ramsden (Australia, 1901, died 1975 - not to be confused with Sydney Ramsden, another Australian cyclist born in 1902); Francisco Funes (El Salvador, 1950); Lloyd Binch (Great Britain, 1931).

Daily Cycling Facts 27.03.2013

Lapize in the Tour de France, 1910

Paris-Roubaix was held on this day in 1910, 1911, 1921 and 1932. In 1910, the first year that pacing by bicycles or tandems was banned from the race (motorpacing had been banned in 1901), Octave Lapize won for the second consecutive year. Lapize won again in 1911, the first man to win in three consecutive years and, for nearly seven decades until Italian Francesco Moser equalled the achievement in 1980, the only man to have done so. 1921 finished for the second consecutive year at the Stadium Jean Dubrulle. The winner was Henri Pélissier, who had also won in 1919 and would win the Tour de France in 1923. Twelve years later, Pélissier was shot and killed by his lover Camille Therault after he attacked her with a knife - the gun she used was the same one with which  Pélissier's wife Léonie had committed suicide two years earlier after he drove her into a deep despair. The race was again held on this date in 1932, when it was won by Romain Gijssels.

Bobet
(image credit: Polygoon Hollands Nieuws
 CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Ronde van Vlaanderen - which is now always held one week before Paris-Roubaix - was held on this day in 1955 (when Paris-Roubaix was two weeks later on the 10th of April and won by Jean Forestier). The winner was Louison Bobet - the next year, the two men swapped positions: Forestier won the Ronde and Bobet won Paris-Roubaix. Bobet had been accused of being a crybaby by other riders in his early career, but his success in hard races such as the Monuments and the Tour de France (which he won in three consecutive years from 1953 to 1955) reveals him to have been one of the toughest, strongest men in the history of cycling. Hugo Koblet took 2nd place to become only the second Swiss rider to stand on the podium, the first having been Heiri Suter in 1923 - it was one of his last major successes before declining health and probable clinical depression led to his retirement and tragic death, possibly a suicide.

Tony Rominger at Paris-Nice, 1993
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Tony Rominger
Tony Rominger was born in Vejle, Denmark on this day in 1961, but is of Swiss nationality. On the 22nd of October 1994, he set a new Hour Record of 53.832km at the Velodrome du Lac in Bordeaux, then beat it with 55.291km two weeks later on the same track.

In addition to his success on track, Rominger was a road cyclist of considerable repute who won the Vuelta al País Vasco three times (1992, 1993, 1995), the Tour de Romandie twice (1991, 1995), the Giro di Lombardia twice (1989, 1992), the Tirrenio-Adriatico twice (1989, 1990), Paris-Nice twice (1991-1994) and the Grand Prix des Nations twice (1991, 1994). In addition, he won one edition of the Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme (1993), the GP Eddy Merckx (1994), the Giro dell'Emilia (1988) and the Subida a Urkiola (1993).

Rominger's Grand Tour performance is legendary, despite never winning the Tour de France (best result 2nd overall, 1st in the King of the Mountains and wins for Stages 10, 11 and 19 in 1993). He won the General Classification and the Points competition at the 1995 Giro d'Italia, but it was at the Vuelta a Espana that he really shone with a total of 13 stage wins and the Mountains, Points and General Classifications in 1993. He also won the General Classification in 1992 and 1994 - a record that still stands, Roberto Heras' fourth win in 2005 having been disqualified after he tested positive for EPO.

Rominger retired in 1997 after breaking his collarbone at the Tour de France.

Kieran Modra with pilot Kerry Golding
(image credit: John Sherwell CC BY-SA 3.0)

Kieran Modra, a visually-impaired Australian cyclist born in Port Lincoln on this day in 1972, set a new Paralympic tandem record of 4:21.451 in the B3 class with Robert Crowe. Three years later, he beat the world record with Tyson Lawrence, setting a time of 4:20.891. He has also represented Australia in athletics and swimming.

Blake Caldwell, a cyclist born in Boulder, Colorado on this day in 1984, rode at the top level of the sport between 2007 and 2009 with the Garmin-Chipotle team, winning a stage at the Tour of Utah. In 2010, he was forced to leave the team and join Team Holowesko Partners so that he could race at a less competitive level due to the onset of the "brittle bone disease" osteoporosis.

Lon Haldeman was born in Harvard, Illinois on this day in 1953. He won the Race Across America - a 4,800km multi-day, single-stage ultra marathon bike race - in 1982 (the first year the event was held) and 1983, doing so on a diet of junk food, little water and even less sleep.

The Charlotteville Cycling Club, once home to record-breaker Sid Ferris and Vic Jenner (the man who brought Louison Bobet to Britain in 1954), was founded on this day in 1903 in Surrey, England. It had grown out of the Guildford Bicycle Club that started in 1877.

Other cyclists born on this day: Herman Ponsteen (Netherlands, 1953); Gary Sutton (Australia, 1955); Alick Bevan (Great Britain, 1915, died 1945); Nebojša Jovanović (Serbia, 1983); Daiva Čepelienė (Lithuania, 1970); Ismael Torres (Argentina, 1952, died 2003); Hendrik Brocks (Indonesia, 1942); Kelvin Poole (Australia, 1958); Oscar von Büren (Switzerland, 1933); Pablo Hurtado (Colombia, 1932); Bernhard Britz (Sweden, 1906, died 1935).

Daily Cycling Facts 26.03.2013

Vietto at the Tour de France, 1933

Paris-Nice began on this day in 1935, the latest start in the history of the race. The winner was René Vietto - the very same rider who had become a hero at the Tour de France a year earlier after newspapers published a (skillfully clipped) photograph of his crying, apparently all alone (in fact, a sizable crowd of fans was taking care of him) after he'd ridden back up a mountain to give his bike to his team leader Antonin Magne - and the same rider who according to cycling legend, would demand that his domestique chopped off a toe after he'd lost one of his own in 1947.

Laurent Brochard
Born in Le Mans on this day in 1968, Laurent Brochard spent much of his career riding as a domestique for - among others - Richard Virenque. Like Virenque, he was implicated in the Festina Affair.

Brochard's professional career began in 1992 with a Stage 3 victory at the Tour Méditerranéen, but he had also been a successful amateur. He won another stage - 1b - at the Tour Méditerranéen the following year and rode his first Tour de France, coming 44th overall. In 1995, he was 4th in the Tour prologue and then a year later 4th in the Mountains Classification, revealing himself as a super-domestique - a rider who, when given opportunity, can ride for himself and pick up glory for the team as he does so. He confirmed this by winning Stage 9 in 1997 and Stage 7 at the 1999 Vuelta a Espana. In 2002, he won the General Classification at the Tour of Poland, in 2003 the same at the Criterium International.

At the time of the Festina Affair, a reliable test for EPO did not yet exist and so officials had to rely on a haematocrit reading, a measure of the blood's red cell population. 50% or above was considered likely indication of either EPO use or a blood transfusion. Brochard's was found to be 50.3%, according to results published on the 28th of November 1998. Three weeks later, on the 15th of December, he, Christophe Moreau and Didier Rous, Festina team mates, were each banned from competition for six months.

Rebecca Twigg
(image credit: James F. Perry CC BY-SA 3.0)

Rebecca Twigg
Born in Seattle on this this day in 1963, Rebecca Twigg became one of the most successful cyclists in US history during the 1980s with two Olympic medals, six Individual Pursuit World Championships and sixteen National Championships victories to her name. She also won the first three Women's Challenge races, a record that was never broken in the race's 19 year history.

Twigg's last Olympic appearance was in 1986 when she retired from the team due to disagreements with the US Cycling Federation over the so-called SuperBike which, having ridden a few times in training, she refused to ever ride again and the Federation's treatment of the legendary coach Eddie Borysewicz.

Alessio Galletti
Alessio Galletti, born on this day in 1968, suffered a heart attack during the Subida al Naranco on the 15th of June 2005 and died shortly afterwards in hospital. In 2000, he received a four month suspension after investigators discovered a vial of Eprex - a commercial name for EPO - and a box that had contained testosterone at his Tuscan home. In 2004, he was sacked by his Domina Vacanze team immediately before the Tour de France - police had raided his hotel room and found nothing, but had phone tap evidence that apparently revealed him buying banned doping products.

Alessio Galletti, 1968-2005
(image credit: My Name Is Elin)

Galletti was also under police surveillance due to suspected links to a blood doping gang that stole equipment from hospitals and investigators had built up a large glossary of what they believed to be code words for various illicit objects and activities - requesting a ten-spoke wheel for a time trial meant that the person asking for it wanted 10,000 doses of EPO, while asking for a car to undergo an oil change meant that a rider wanted a blood transfusion. His name had also been connected to that of Dr. Carlo Santuccione in what became known as the Oil For Drugs Affair, a scandal that uncovered a large doping ring and resulted in the suspension of several riders and Dr. Santuccione's lifetime ban from working with athletes.

A post mortem didn't find conclusive evidence that Galletti had been using EPO at the time of his death, but his track record and the fact that at 37 he was well into his career and seemingly past the age when young athletes tragically fall victim to undiagnosed heart defects certainly suggests that the drug had a part to play. He left a nine-month-old son and his wife who was carrying their second child.

Sérgio Paulinho
Sérgio Paulinho, born in Oeiras, Portugal on this day in 1980, drew attention to himself by winning a bronze medal in the Under-23 Time Trial at the 2002 World Championships. National Time Trial Championship victory at Elite level and a silver medal at the Olympics in 2004 confirmed that he was a rider with a future.

Then, in 2006, he was implicated in Operación Puerto, the doping case surrounding Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes that almost tore professional cycling apart. During that season Discovery Team boss Johan Bruyneel publicly announced that he had signed Paulihno for 2007 despite the fact that the rider was potentially facing a lengthy ban. However, Bruyneel stated that it was his opinion that Paulinho was innocent of all charges - as proved to be the case when he was cleared of any involvement with doping on the 26th of July, 2006.

Discovery folded at the end of 2007, leaving Paulinho in need of a new home which he subsequently found with Astana - and he spent the following two years with them. Then in 2010, perhaps to show thanks to the manager who had shown faith in him, he joined Bruyneel's new Radioshack team at the end of the 2009 season. He won Stage 10 at the Tour de France for them the next year, then put in some good performances in 2011 including fifth place on Stage 8 at the Vuelta a Espana, which enabled him to secure a contract with SaxoBank for 2012. That year, he took sixth place in the GP Miguel Indurain and finished Stage 14 at the Tour de France in sixth place; he remains with SaxoBank for the 2013 season.


French cyclist Léon Level, born on the 12th of July 1910, died after a crash at the Parc des Princes velodrome in Paris on this day in 1949. He had come 7th overall in the 1933 Tour de France and won Stage 9 before coming 10th overall in 1936.

Dante Gianello was born in Italy on this day in 1912 but adopted French nationality in 1931, before becoming a professional cyclist in 1935 with the Peugeot-Hutchinson team. Three years later, he won Stage 13 and finished 10th verall at the 1938 Tour de France. In 1939 he was 3rd on Stage 15, then he won the Criterium du Midi in 1941 and 1945. However, on the 15th of August that year, his career was brought to an end when he was hit by a Jeep at the GP del Desembarcament del Sud.

On this day in 1936, L'Union Vélocipédique de France published a new set of rules for bicycle polo - a sport that many of those who have begun playing during its recent resurgence in Britain don't realise goes back as far as 1891, the year that Irishman Richard J. Mecredy apparently invented it and when, in October, the first known match took place.

Other cyclists born on this day: Enrico Paolini (Italy, 1945); Alessio Galletti (Italy, 1968, died 2005); Lucien Choury (France, 1898, died 1987); Martin Martinov (Bulgaria, 1950); Cliff Burvill (Australia, 1937); Tony Graham (New Zealand, 1962); José Sanchis (Spain, 1963); Edmond Luguet (France, 1886, died 1974); Roberto Calovi (Italy, 1963).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.03.2013

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1928 and won by Jan Mertens, who retired from cycling three years later when he suffered a double fracture to his elbow. The finish line was moved to Wetteren, where it would remain until 1942.

On this day in 1876, Frank Dodds covered 15.85 miles (25.51km) in his penny-farthing at the Cambridge University athletics ground - the first recorded attempt to set an Hour Record.

Wim van Est

Wim van Est, who was born in Fijnaart, Netherlands on this day in 1923, began his cycling career not as a racer but as a smuggler, using his bike to carry illicit tobacco. When he was caught, he spent several months in prison - but it seems that fleeing from the law gave him a good set of legs because as early as 1947 he won the Saarland Rundfahrt, a race held intermittently in Germany between 1928 and 1950, and during his first professional year in 1949 he became National Track Pursuit Champion and won Stage 5 at the Ronde van Nederland.

His results through 1950 were good enough to earn him a place on the Dutch National Team in 1951 and, having broken away from the peloton with a small group earlier in the race, he was first over the finish line for Stage 12 with an advantage over the main field of 18 minutes.

Other Dutchmen had won stages before, but van Est was now race leader and thus became the first Dutch rider to wear the yellow jersey. The next day, he got his second entry in the annals of Tour lore: as he chased the stage leaders down the difficult descent from the Col d'Aubisque, he either went to fast for his ability or - as he insisted - got a puncture in his back wheel. He lost control as the bike slewed over the road and, with him still aboard, plunged into a ravine.

Time stands still whenever something like this happens as team mates, support crew and spectators are reluctant to look over the edge for fear of seeing a smashed corpse lying far below them. However, when they did they were greeted by the site of van Est looking back up at them - he had fallen between 30 and 70m (reports vary widely), yet was somehow unharmed. He later described the experience: "I was lucky because I undid the pedalstraps just before I started to descend. When I fell I kicked my bike away and held my hands over my head. In a few seconds I saw my whole life. My fall was broken by some young trees and I caught one of these trees."

He tried to climb back up to the road but couldn't, so his manager called for a rope - but nobody nearby had one, so they had to improvise one by tying together the team's entire supply of spare tyres. With that, they managed to pull him out and got him into the ambulance that had by now arrived, but he climbed back out and went looking for a bike so he could finish the the stage. Before he could find one, he was persuaded that it might not be such a bad idea to go to hospital just to be checked over and, regretfully, he abandoned the race. The tyres had been stretched and ruined so when they were unable to secure any more, the rest of the team also had to abandon what became - with Hugo Koblet's historic eventual win and Mont Ventoux in Stage 17 and the mountains of the Massif Central all making their first appearance in the race - one of the most eventful Tours of all time.

That death-defying plunge turned out to be highly profitable for van Est. The Dutch team had been supplied with watches by Pontiac, better known as a car manufacturer, who knew a good advertising opportunity when they saw one. Thus, the rider earned a decent income appearing in adverts with the slogan "Seventy meters deep I dropped, my heart stood still but my Pontiac never stopped!" The remainder of his cycling career wasn't bad either - he win Stage 16 at the 1953 Tour, Stage 4b in 1954 and was 8th overall in 1958. he also won a further eleven National Championship titles, Bordeaux-Paris in 1952 and 1961 and the Tour of Flanders in 1953. He was 80 when he died on the 1st of May, 2003.

Michael Wright

Micheal Wright
(image credit: Cycling Weekly)

Michael Wright was born on this day in 1941 in the Hertfordshire town of Bishop's Stortford. His father was killed during 1941 and his mother later remarried a Belgian soldier and took her family to live in Liège. Naturally athletic, Wright's preferred sport during youth was football, but when his stepfather also died he became the family's breadwinner - and if a young athlete wants to support his family by making a living from sport, he needs to get a bike.

Wright would later claim that his British nationality was responsible for his entry into prestigious races because while he wasn't nearly good enough to join the Belgian superstars on their teams, the British had to make do with riders in a lower class - including him. That left him in an unusual position - having spoken French for the majority of his life, he was an English rider who needed to take English lessons so he'd be able to communicate with his team mates. Thus, he became a member of the team during the period between 1964 and 1974 when Britain enjoyed the most success it had ever had in cycling up until recent years. It was also the period during which Tom Simpson died - Wright won Stage 7 that year, but abandoned in Stage 11, two days before his team mate's death on Mont Ventoux.

In all, he rode eight Tours and finished seven of them, winning three stages in total (Stage 20, 1965; Stage 7, 1967; Stage 10, 1973) with his best overall result 24th in 1965. He also entered the Vuelta a Espana, winning Stages  2 and 4 in 1968 and Stages 1 and 13 in 1969, with a best result of 5th in the General Classification and 2nd in the Points competition. After retiring from racing, he worked as an ice-cream salesman for Ijsboerke, the company that sponsored his last team in 1976, and owned a team of his own for a short period.


Elena Tchalykh, born in the USSR on this day in 1974, became Russian National Road Race Champion in 2001 and National Time Trial Champion in 2008.

Matteo Carrara, born in Alzano in Italy on this day in 1979, won the Tour of Luxembourg in 2010. His greatest love after cycling is mathematics.

Other cyclists born on this day: Martijn Keizer (Netherlands, 1988); Raúl Alarcón (Spain, 1986); Daniel Dhers (Venezuela, 1985); Hratch Zadourian (Lebanon, 1969): Remig Stumpf (Germany, 1966); Christos Volikakis (Greece, 1988); Francis Duteil (France, 1947); Pavel Kondr (Czechoslovakia, 1942); Lambros Vasilopoulos (Greece, 1972); Robert Pintarič (Slovenia, 1965); Mahmoud Delshad (Iran, 1953); Ziranda Madrigal (Mexico, 1977); Juan Alves (Argentina, 1939).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.03.2013

Kwok Ho Ting
(image credit: Nicola CC BY-SA 3.0)

Pierre Harvey, born in Rimouski, Quebec on this day in 1954, became the first male Canadian athlete to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympics in 1984 when he represented his country in cycling and cross-country skiing.

On this day in 2011, Kwok Ho Ting scored a surprise victory in the 15km Scratch Race at the Appeldoorn World Track Championships despite not preparing for the race and competing against a very strong field.

Other cyclists born on this day: Klaas Lodewyck (Belgium, 1988); Leopold Heuvelmans (Belgium, 1945); Jairo Pérez (Colombia, 1973); Do Eun-Cheol (South Korea, 1963); Stanley Jones (Great Britain, 1888); Rudi Valenta (Austria, 1921); Siegbert Schmeisser (East Germany, 1957); Christopher Dotterweich (USA, 1896, died 1969); Pier Hoekstra (Netherlands, 1947); Thomas Allier (France, 1975); Raphael Kazembe (Malawi, 1947); Masanori Tsuji (Japan, 1946, died 1985); Marcel Thull (Luxembourg, 1951); Walter Freitag (Austria, 1925).