Daily Cycling Facts 05.08.2014

Gilles Delion

Gilles Delion

Born in Saint-Étienne on this day in 1966, Gilles Delion was seen a one of the greatest hopes of French cycling when he won the Giro di Lombardia, a stage at the Critérium International and the Youth category at the Tour de France in 1990, followed by Stage 7 at the Tour one year later; he tended also to perform well at the Giro di Lombardia and won it in 1990. Mononucleosis had a severe impact on his performance in 1991 and it took him a very long time to recover.

Or so it seemed, in cycling as it was at that time: in fact, Delion recovered at what the majority of doctors would consider to be a normal, natural rate and began racing again in good time, albeit far slower than many other cyclists. What made Delion different was that he loathed cheats, especially dopers, and refused to have anything to do with doping whatsoever. It took him a while to build up his strength after illness for that reason; his opponents could simply increase the dose of EPO and become competitive almost immediately.

In 1996 - right in the midst of what would probably have been his best years had he not have faced rivals he refused to match, he turned his back on cycling forever as an expression of disgust at doping. It was, he said, widespread throughout cycling and all the French teams were involved with it; and as is the case with all the riders who did well in his era without turning to drugs, we must ask ourselves how well he might have done had the playing field been level.

Delion was one of the signatories of "100 pour 2000," a manifesto that called for greater transparency and "humanistic" ethics in sport so that "the human would become the central concern." Among others, from a wide range of sports, to sign the manifesto were Willy Voet, the soigneur at the centre of the Festina Affair, Antoine Vayer who had been the Festina team coach, Christophe Bassons who, like Delion, was an outspoken opponent of doping, and five-time World Champion track cyclist Félicia Ballanger.


May Britt Hartwell, born in Sola, Norway in this day in 1968, won four Junior and thirteen Elite National Track Championship titles between 1984 and 1995.

Santiago Perez

Santiago Pérez, born in Vega de Peridiello, Spain on this day in 1977, won Stages 14, 15 and 21 and came second overall at the 2004 Vuelta a Espana while racing for Phonak. In March the following year, by which time he had switched to Relax-Fuenlabrada, it was announced that he had failed an out of competition anti-doping test in October after the race, testing positive for a homologous blood transfusion (ie, one using somebody else's blood). He was suspended from competition for two years, then returned to the same team (by then renamed Relax-GAM). Pérez  began his professional career with Barbot-Torrie in 2001, in 2011 - when the team was known as Barbot-Efapel - he returned to them, retiring later in the year.

Tim Johnson, born in Middleton, Massachusetts on this day in 1977, is arguably the USA's most successful male cyclo cross rider of all time with six National titles to his name: Junior in 1995, Under-23 in 1999 and 2000, Elite in 2001, 2007 and 2009. He has also won 43 cyclo cross races and numerous road events. In 1999, he came third in the Under-23 Cyclo Cross World Championships and remains the only American male to have stood on the podium at the official UCI Championships (Katie Compton, born in Delaware, has done so three times). Johnson is the husband of Canadian professional cyclist Lyne Bessette.

Other cyclists born on this day: Alejandro González (Argentina, 1972); Giovanni Cazzulani (Italy, 1909, died 1983); Jean Van Den Bosch (Belgium, 1898, died 1985); Saleem Farooqi (India, later Pakistan, 1940); Jean-Pierre Paranteau (France, 1944); Peter Vogel (Switzerland, 1939); Lucien Didier (Luxembourg, 1950).