Daily Cycling Facts 23.05.2014

The seventh edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1943. The parcours was the same length as the previous year at 208km, but the route differed - both races began at Mons, but this edition finished at Charleroi rather than at Marcinelle. Marcel Kint won, the first of his three consecutive victories, and became the first rider to win this and Paris-Roubaix in the same year.

Angelo Gremo, 1914

The Giro d'Italia began on this day four times - 1920, 1923, 1988 and 1993. 1920, which included eight stages and covered 2,632km, was won by Gaetano Belloni, one of only ten riders (from 49 starters) to complete the race. The edition saw a classic battle between Belloni and Angelo Gremo, the latter turning a five minute disadvantage into a fourteen minute lead in Stage 5 when he escaped the peloton as part of a group of five and took the General Classification leadership. With only three stages to go, most riders would have given up any hope of winning after that - but not Belloni, who simply increased the frequency and severity of his attacks in an effort to claw his way back. In the penultimate stage he had the ride of his life, escaping solo and crossing the finish line alone and 42 minutes ahead of his rival. At the end of the final stage, his time was 102h44'33"; 32'24" faster than Gremo. (Note: Giovanni Rossignoli is sometimes incorrectly listed as having become the oldest ever Giro stage winner this year at the age of 37 years and 188 days. In actual fact, he was not in the race that year.)

1923 consisted of ten stages over 3,202km - eight of them won by Costante Girardengo, who had also won in 1919 and taken the third of his six Milan-San Remo victories and the seventh of his nine National Championships that year. In fifth place, finishing 45'49" behind Girardengo's time of 122h58'17", was a young man named Ottavio Bottecchia who was then an unknown independent rider. His success brought him to the attention of Henri Pélissier who arranged for him to receive an invite to join the Automoto-Hutchinson team with whom he would win the Tour de France for the next two consecutive years.

Andy Hampsten and the '88 Giro

Andy Hampsten at the Tour de France, 1993
(image credit: Eric Houde CC BY-SA 3.0)

The 1988 Giro d'Italia covered 3,580km in 23 stages (two split). Stage 11 had to be stopped and, eventually, cancelled after environmental protestors occupied the finish line and refused to move, then Stage 14 could only just go ahead after it poured all day long, with rain turning to snow at altitude. Snow ploughs cleared the roads higher roads literally minutes before the riders arrived (the dirt roads lower down turned into a quagmire) and at 2,600m the snow turned into a blizzard. Johan van der Velde (who shouldn't be confused with John Vande Velde, father of Christian) was the first to the top, beating Andy Hampsten by around a half minute, but became so cold on the descent that he was forced to stop and ask for help from some fans in a camper van - they allowed him to come in and warm up (well, what cycling fan wouldn't - even though being van der Velde there was a fairly high chance you'd have found something had mysteriously vanished afterwards), but as a result he finished the stage 46'49" behind the winner. Hampsten's 7-Eleven team, meanwhile, had a man waiting at the summit with a musette full of skiing gear so that their rider would survive the way down. Erik Breukink sailed past him as he stopped to put it on but Hampsten, the only rider sufficiently protected from the element to ride at high speed without crashing due to shivering so much, was able to catch him up and took a good second place.

The weather had not improved the following day, which although organisers decided to drop the Stelvio Pass and shorten the stage to 83km left the riders in foul moods. Stage 16 was no better and included a climb up the 2,424m Timmelsjoch in Austria (known to the Italians as the Passo del Rombo). This time, however, the organisers would not shorten the stage, a decision that inspired two rider protests as the rain turned to snow on the way up the mountain. In the end, it was Stage 18, an 18km mountain time trial, that decided the race: Breukink was the better time trialer (he'd become Dutch National Champion nine years later), but Hampsten was by far the better climber - and since the stage climbed almost 1,000m at an average gradient of around 8.5%, he had a massive advantage. When he started the stage, he was 42" ahead of Breukink in the General Classification; then he finished the stage more than a minute ahead of his rival. His lead now all but insurmountable, he led the race to the end and finished with a lead of 1'43" - the first American and non-European to have won since the race began.

The 1993 Giro covered 3,703km in 22 stages. Miguel Indurain, who led the race in the last eight stages, won overall for a second and final time after facing down strong, repeated attacks from the Latvian Piotr Ugrumov.

Giampaolo Cheula

Giampaolo Cheula
It's not at all uncommon for mountain bikers to defect to road cycling, but the exchange tends to be one-way with few road cyclists moving into mountain biking. One of those that did is the Italian Giampaolo Cheula, who was born in Premosello-Chiovenda on this day in 1979. Having turned professional with Mapei-QuickStep in 2001, Cheula won some good results in his first couple seasons, then switched to Vini Caldirola and raced in the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana. He moved on to the British Barloworld squad in 2005, remaining with them for five seasons, picking up more good results and riding in two editions of the Tour de France and another Giro, then went to Footon-Servetto in 2010 and remained with them after the transformation into Geox-TMC and eventual demise in 2011.

Then, at the start of 2012, he announced that he would be changing to fat tyres and from that point onwards would be a mountain biker. "I am aware that the only common denominator between road and mountain biking are the two wheels, and are also aware that I worked so hard," he explained. "But the idea of starting from scratch appeals to me. I'm curious to see how I will adapt to the new discipline - and one thing's for sure, I'll put in the same effort and the same professionalism that I did for all those years on the road."


Cédric Gracia, born in Pau on this day in 1978, began cycle racing as a BMX rider when he was six years old. However, his first taste of professional sport would be as a freestyle skier and he didn't return to cycling until 2001 with the Volvo-Cannondale mountain biking team, initially and enjoying considerable success as a downhiller (twice taking silver at the World Championships) and, once the disciplines had been invented, 4X and Freeride. In 2010 he started his own team, the CG Racing Brigade, and for that year was its only member (which must surely be unique in cycling, as well as pushing the definition of the term "team" somewhat); it's since swelled in numbers with the addition of Colombian National Champion Marcelo Guttierez. Gracia's reputation is so great that the two riders were among the very few other than those in the Santa Cruz Syndicate to be supplied with the firm's factory V10 carbon fibre bikes.

Other cyclists born on this day: Wim Stroetinga (Netherlands, 1985); Matthew Crampton (Great Britain, 1986); Lars Wahlqvist (Sweden, 1964); Mark Noble (Great Britain, 1963); Per Lyngemark (Denmark, 1941, died 2010); Valery Chaplygin (USSR, 1952); Didier Garcia (France, 1964); Beat Wabel (Switzerland, 1967); Gerrie Slot (Netherlands, 1954); Gabriel Cano (Mexico, 1965); Oleg Logvin (USSR, 1959); Julio Illescas (Guatemala, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.05.2014

Alfredo Binda, 1924

The 27th edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1963 on a 213km parcours between Liège and Charleroi. The winner was Raymond Poulidor.

The Giro d'Italia has begun on this day three times. The first was in 1913, the fifth edition of the race ever held, when it was won by Carlo Oriani who had been born on the 5th of November 1888. The second time was in 1933 when Alfredo Binda won for a fifth and final time. It would be twenty years until Fausto Coppi - whom Binda trained - would equal this record, and to date it has not been bettered. The final time was 2006, the year that saw the reintroduction of the Team Time Trial for the first time since 1989 and the unpaved mountain pass Plan de Corones wa due to be used, but could not be due to bad weather. The winner that year was Ivan Basso.

Tino Tabak
Tino Tabak was born on this day in 1946 in De Bataaf, Netherlands, but emigrated to New Zealand with his family when he was six. He fell in love with cycling during his childhood and, by the age of ten, listed Tour de France victory as his main ambition in life.

In 1965, aged 19, he won the Elite National Road Race Championship, then that same year became the youngest rider in history to win the Tour of Southland - which he won for the next two years, too. In 1966 and 1967, he also won the Dulux Six Day and Manawatu Tours, making him the only rider to have ever won New Zealand's three major races in a single season. After the second time he did so he emigrated back to Europe, in his words "to learn how to ride a bike." He spent the next three seasons riding as an amateur and had amassed sufficient wins, including the Ronde van Noord-Holland, to earn a professional contract with Flandria-Mars in 1971 and with them he rode his first Tour, finishing the prologue in third place and crossing the line within the top ten on two other stages before abandoning after finishing Stage 9 in 89th place.

Still eligible to ride for the country of his birth, Tabak became National Road Race Champion in 1972 and entered his second Tour. This time he maintained consistently good results and took 18th place in the overall General Classification - the highest ever achieved by a rider from New Zealand. Sadly, he never did get his win: in 1973 he abandoned and then didn't enter again until 1976 when he abandoned for a third time. His career came to an end with a nasty crash at the 1978 Tour of Holland and he now lives in Canterbury, New Zealand. Tino Tobak - Dreams and Demons of a New Zealand Cycling Legend (Jonathan Kennet, 2009) tells the story of his life and provides an interesting insight into the world and processes of professional cycling in the 1970s.

Christophe Brandt
(image credit: Heidas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Christophe Brandt
Christophe Brandt was born in Liège on this day in 1977. In 1997 he won a stage at the amateur race Ronde van Limburg, which earned him a trainee contract in 1999 with Saeco and he spent his first professional season with them before moving onto Lotto, where he remained for the rest of his career.

In 2004, he fell foul of anti-doping controls when a sample he provided was discovered to contain traces of methadone, a synthetic opiate used to treat heroin addicts and which mimics the effects - including pain-killing effects, hence its appeal to endurance athletes - of heroin. Brandt stated that he had not intentionally used the drug and insisted it must have got into his body via a contaminated nutritional supplement he was using as part of his treatment for a liver condition and which about which he had notified the relevant authorities. Lotto management, meanwhile, chose not to take his word for it and fired him from the team - however, the Belgian Federation found during their investigation that the pharmacist who had prepared the supplement had in fact been preparing methadone prescriptions a short while before Brandt's medicine and cleared the rider of all charges. The team then rehired him, and he remained with them until his retirement in 2010.

Roman Kreuziger

Roman Kreuziger
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

Roman Kreuziger, born in Moravská Třebová in the Czech Republic on this day in 1986, is the son of the Roman Kreuziger who won the Österreich Rundfahrt in 1991. In 2004, he won both the Under-19 National Road Race and Time Trial, then also took the U-19 World Championship title - that same year, he won silver medals for the U-19 Time Trial and Cyclo Cross Championships too. That was, needless to say, more than enough to earn him his first offers of trainee contracts, and he turned professional with LiquiGas in 2006.

Unusually for a rider so skilled in a time trial, Kreuziger is also a very talented climber and, having come a surprise 21st at the 2007 Vuelta a Espana, he won the Tour de Suisse in 2008 after proving easily the fastest man up the 1948m Klausen Pass. That same year, still aged only 23, he kept up with the world's greatest over the mountains in the Tour de France - his first participation in the race - and finished in 13th place overall whilst only Andy Schleck could beat him in the Youth Classification.

In 2012 whilst riding for Astana, Kreuziger won Stage 9 at the Giro d'Italia and was sixth overall at the Tour de Suisse; in 2013 with SaxoBank he won the Amstel Gold Race - indication that at 26, he's finding the form to perform well in stage races and the Classics.

Vito Taccone
Born in Avezzano, Italy on this day in 1940, Vito Taccone turned professional with Atala in 1961 and immediately began to make his name - that year, he won two stages and the General Classification at the Tre Giorni del Sud, Stage 10 and the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia and then took first place at the Giro di Lombardia. In the subsequent years, he continued to be highly successful at the Giro d'Italia: in 1962 he was fourth overall, in 1963 sixth overall (having won Stages 10, 11, 12, 13 and 19) and again first in the King of the Mountains, in 1964 he won Stage 4, in 1965 he was sixth overall and second in the King of the Mountains and in 1966 he was ninth overall and third in the Points competition. Along the way, he won Milano-Torino in 1965, was third in the National Championship and second at Tirreno-Adriatico in 1966 and then second at the Nationals in 1968.

Taccone evidently had piles of cycling talent - he was also very good at getting himself in trouble. At the 1964 Tour de France, he was accused by other riders of causing a large crash. After denying that he was to blame he got into a fight with Fernando Manzaneque who won numerous stages at the Vuelta a Espana; Taccone was not invited to the Tour again afterwards. He didn't change with age: in June 2007, he was arrested and charged with selling stolen and counterfeit clothing, chaining himself to the railings of Avezzano court in protest. Just a few months later, on the 15th of October, he died after having a heart attack.


Hans Junkermann, born in Sankt Tönis, Germany on this day in 1934, was a true all-rounder who excelled in tough one-day races, mountain stages and on the track. Whilst still an amateur, he was approached on numerous occasions by East German representatives who tried to persuade him to defect and become a paid amateur, but he was confident enough of his abilities to remain in the West and wait for a professional contract. That paid off in 1955 when he joined Bauer; the first of the many teams for whom he rode over the course of his 19-year career, because Junkermann was a rider who refused to stay put - in 1958 alone, he rode for Molteni, Solo, Feru and Altenburger. He held ten National Championship titles in his time, including for Track Pursuit in 1958, Road Race in 1959, 1960 and 1961, Madison in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1965 and Team Pursuit in 1962. In addition, he won the 1959 and 1962 Tour de Suisse, thus becoming the first German to do so without wearing a swastika jersey (Ludwig Geyer had won in 1934).

Mario Kummer was born in Thuringia on this day in 1962 and represented East Germany at the 1988 Olympics prior to the Reunification of his nation, riding on the gold medal winning squad in the Team Time Trial. In 1990, when East Germans had been freed to travel to the West, he turned professional with Chateau d'Ax-Salotti and remained with them for two seasons before switching to PDM; then in 1993 he joined Telekom and remained with them until retirement in 1997. Since 2007, he has worked as a manager with the Astana team.

Other cyclists born on this day: Artūrs Matisons (Latvia, 1985); Bernhard Stübecke (Germany, 1904, died 1964); Dieter Koslar (Germany, 1940, died 2002); Franc Škerlj (Yugoslavia, 1941).

Daily Cycling Facts 03.06.2013

This photograph, taken at the 1921 Paris-Roubaix, is
believed to show Henri Pélissier, Léon Scieur and René
Vermandel.

The ninth edition of La Flèche Wallonne, which took place on this day in 1945, was the first to be held since Belgium was liberated from Nazi occupation. It ran between Mons and Charleroi, as it had done in the previous two years, but took a different route which was 5km longer at 213km in total. The winner was Marcel Kint for a third consecutive year - nobody else has yet matched his achievement.

The thirteenth edition of La Doyenne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, was held on this day in 1923. The winner for the first of two consecutive years was René Vermandel. This was the only time that the race was held on this date.

Evgeni Berzin, the man who should have been great

Evgeni Berzin
Evgeni Berzin, born in Vyborg on this day in 1970, won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1994. Two months later, he won the Giro d'Italia too - one of the few truly heroic Grand Tours of the last few decades, coming at the end of a race in which he wore the maglia rosa for 19 days. Being only 24 at the time, the cycling world immediately hailed him as the next great hero, a man who would follow in the footsteps of Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil, Coppi and Bartoli, but it was not to be - Berzin proved to be one of those unfortunate cyclists who peaks early in his career and can never quite live up to that early promise.

Berzin first appeared on the radar in 1988 when he formed part of the winning National Junior Championships Pursuit team, then formed part of the Russian Junior squad that won the same race at the Worlds. This was followed in 1989 with a National Amateur Team Pursuit title, which was repeated in 1990; the year he also rode with the victorious Amateur Pursuit team at the Worlds and took the World Amateur Individual Pursuit title for himself. In 1993, he turned professional with Mecair-Ballan, the team with which he would remain for five years through numerous sponsor changes and the gradual transformation into Gewiss-Playbus in 1997, taking second place at the 1995 Giro in addition to his overall victory the previous year, then winning Stage 19 in the Giro and Stage 8 in the Tour de France of 1998.

His performances in several other stages (and races) that year were good too, with numerous podium places, which persuaded the world that his form was simply not what it had been the year before but, as tends to be the way when a rider enters his late 20s, he'd get better than ever. With that in mind, La Française des Jeux took him on in 1998. The Tour that year was in fact his fourth, as he had competed in 1995 (abandoned), 1996 (20th overall) and 1997 (abandoned); and he came 25th overall. Alarm bells started ringing: the Tour is the hardest race of all and sometimes a top-notch rider will get a bad result through no fault of his own, but the man Russia hoped would be its first Tour champion had been expected to do better and, when his contract expired at the end of the year, he could not find a team at the same level that would take him, so instead he went to Amica Chips-Costa de Almeria - but 1999 was much worse and he won nothing. Amica too let him go, but this time he was more fortunate and found a ride with Mobilvetta Design-Rossin, a team in the same class - but then 2000 turned out not to be much better, his only good result being third place in the little 53.2km Broni criterium. Berzin, it could now be seen, was not having a couple of bad seasons before a glorious flourishing into his best years; he was a rider who had already declined. After a second season with Mobilvetta (during which he again won no races), he called it a day.

Karel Kaers

Karel Kaers

Nowadays, many people will tell you that when 21-year-old Lance Armstrong won the 1993 Elite World Championship Road Race in Oslo, he was the youngest rider to have ever done so. In fact, he was only the third youngest: Jempi Monseré was one week younger when he won in Leicester in 1970, and Karel Kaers - who was born on this day in 1914 in Voselaar - had only just passed his 20th birthday when he won on his first attempt at the race in Leipzig, 1934; an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that up until then he was known primarily as a track rider.

Kaers began racing during childhood and won the Belgian Boys' Championship along with 36 other races in his first two years, then he became a Junior in 1931 and won a National Sprint Championship, after which he moved up a gear and became an independent, remaining so when he was selected for the Belgian team in 1934, then turned professional the following year for F. Pélissier-Hutchinson (the team lasted only a season, and he moved on to Bury later in the same year). Over the next few years, he flitted back and fourth between Bury, Colin-Wolber, Bristol and Alcyon-Dunlap, and it was with the latter that he achieved his second great claim to fame - winning the 1939 Ronde van Vlaanderen without intending to do so.

Acht van Chaam criterium 1938, won by Kaers (Gerrit Schulte was second, Theo Middelkamp was third)

It is, perhaps, a tale that may have been somewhat embellished for the sake of legend and one that might not stand up to scrutiny should anybody who thinks facts are more important that a good story decide to dissect it. Kaers, it's said, had no plans to compete for the victory but, since the race started not too far from his home, it offered a good chance to get in some valuable race training. So, he put his bike in his car and drove to Kluisberg before riding the 40km to the start line in Ghent where he signed up and set off with the bunch. His plan was to ride with them to Kwaremont and then drive back home again, so when the race arrived at Kluisberg he attacked and leapt away from the field, going at full throttle up the 11% hill without worrying about conserving energy for the remainder of the race and by the time he got to the top he had a lead of one minute. However, his car was not where he'd left it; rather than find a policeman or a phone to report the theft, he decided that he may as well press on and finish the race. After he'd won, his manager admitted that when he'd seen how well Kaers was going on the hill, he realised that the rider had the potential to win; so he'd broken into and moved the car himself.

In retirement, Kaers bought and ran a bar near the entrance to Antwerp's Sportpaleis velodrome. He died in the city on the 20th of December, 1972.

Joachim Halupczok

Joaquim Halupczok,
03.06.1968 - 05.02.1994

Polish Joachim Halupczok, born in Ozimek on this day in 1968, won his nation's Junior Cyclo Cross and Elite Road Race Championships in 1987; then won the World Amateur Road Race Championship, the National Amateur Road Race Championship, the Under-23 GP Liberazione and the General Classification at the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt in 1989. Those results were good enough to get him a professional contract, and he rode for Diana-Colnago in 1990 when he finished in third place on Stage 8 at the Giro d'Italia, was second in the Trofeo Baracchi and eight overall in the Giro del Trentino.

In 1990, Halupczok was discovered to be suffering from cardiac arrhythmia and announced his temporary retirement; but just over a year he returned and took part in the Vuelta a Espana of 1992, before being ordered to stop cycling by his doctors at the end of the season. Fifteen months later, as he warmed up before playing in an indoor football match, he collapsed and died at the age of 26, leaving behind his wife and two young children. Many people suspected that he was another victim of EPO, but it has never been proved one way or the other if he was a doper.


Mary Grigson, born in Wellington, New Zealand on this day in 1971, was Australian National Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and was named Australian Female Mountain Biker of the Year in 2000 and 2001.

Cathy Moncassin

Cathy Moncassin, born in Bonnetage on this day in 1977, became French Junior Individual Pursuit Champion in 1994, then took the Elite title for the same discipline in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2007 - a well as Points Champion in 2003 and a host of track silver and bronze medals along the way.

Vincenzo Zucconelli, who was born in Jolanda di Savoia, Italy on this day in 1931, won the Under-23 GP Liberazione in 1951 and was a professional rider between 1954 and 1958 - a short career during which he won Stage 11 at the 1955 Giro d'Italia (the same year that 35-year-old Fiorenzo Magni became the oldest General Classification winner in Giro history), came second on two other Giro stages (Stage 8, 1955 and Stage 8, 1956) and third on another (Stage 14, 1955).

Rossano Brasi, born in Bergamo on this day in 1972, won the very first edition of the Vattenfall Cyclassics - then rather overlooked and known as the HEW Cyclassics, HEW at that time being the name of the Vattenfall electricity plant that still sponsors the race to this day - in 1996

Trine Schmidt, born in Copenhagen on this day in 1988, became National Scratch Race Champion - at Elite level - in 2004, when she was sixteen years old (and also became National Junior Independent Time Trial Champion). In 2006, she won Stages 1 and 2 and came second in the General Classification at the Silkeborg Viborg Hammel; then in 2007 the VDO Ladies Cup and Stage 4 at the Gracia Orlova before winning no fewer than three National titles for the Individual Time Trial on road and Scratch and Pursuit on the track. She added another National Pursuit win in 2009.

Boguslaw Fornalczyk, born on this day in 1937, was Polish National Road Race Champion in 1958.

Olympic Time Trial, 1912

István Müller, born in Hungary on this day in 1883, rode with his National team (in fact representing the Austro-Hungarian Empire) at the Olympics of 1912 - the first time that Hungarian riders took part in the the cycling events (and the first time since the advent of modern Olympics that no track cycling events featured in the Games). He was 73rd out of 123 (94 finished) in the Individual Time Trial, taking 12h39'28" to complete the 315.39km parcours.

Liz Hatch, who was born in Austin, Texas on this day in 1980, began racing at the comparatively late age of 26 and realised immediately that Belgium was the place for any female cyclist to be, traveling there that same year. Two years later, she became one of the founding members of the  Vanderkitten road racing programme, one of the top teams in the sport, then signed to Lotto Ladies in 2009. Intelligent and sometimes outspoken, Liz is one of the "go to" riders whenever magazines or newspapers need a handy soundbite (the fact that she happens to look like supermodel helps, too). Among her finest is this description of cycling, published by The Sporting Life:

"I thrive off of the pain. I keep telling myself that it´s just another form of pleasure. Once you tell yourself that it hurts too much to continue, you may as well get off your bike and get a real job. It´s the races that really hurt, that really put you in your grave; that you remember and cherish."

Other births: Fabio Masotti (Italy, 1974); Tim Phivana (Cambodia, 1940); Jean-Marcel Brouzes (France, 1953); Vittorio Marcelli (Italy, 1944); Jair Braga (Brazil, 1954); Errol McLean (Guyana, 1952); Tjow Choon Boon (Malaysia, 1945); Ira Fabian (Antigua and Barbuda, 1964).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.05.2013

The seventh edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1943. The parcours was the same length as the previous year at 208km, but the route differed - both races began at Mons, but this edition finished at Charleroi rather than at Marcinelle. Marcel Kint won, the first of his three consecutive victories, and became the first rider to win this and Paris-Roubaix in the same year.

Angelo Gremo, 1914

The Giro d'Italia began on this day four times - 1920, 1923, 1988 and 1993. 1920, which included eight stages and covered 2,632km, was won by Gaetano Belloni, one of only ten riders (from 49 starters) to complete the race. The edition saw a classic battle between Belloni and Angelo Gremo, the latter turning a five minute disadvantage into a fourteen minute lead in Stage 5 when he escaped the peloton as part of a group of five and took the General Classification leadership. With only three stages to go, most riders would have given up any hope of winning after that - but not Belloni, who simply increased the frequency and severity of his attacks in an effort to claw his way back. In the penultimate stage he had the ride of his life, escaping solo and crossing the finish line alone and 42 minutes ahead of his rival. At the end of the final stage, his time was 102h44'33"; 32'24" faster than Gremo. (Note: Giovanni Rossignoli is sometimes incorrectly listed as having become the oldest ever Giro stage winner this year at the age of 37 years and 188 days. In actual fact, he was not in the race that year.)

1923 consisted of ten stages over 3,202km - eight of them won by Costante Girardengo, who had also won in 1919 and taken the third of his six Milan-San Remo victories and the seventh of his nine National Championships that year. In fifth place, finishing 45'49" behind Girardengo's time of 122h58'17", was a young man named Ottavio Bottecchia who was then an unknown independent rider. His success brought him to the attention of Henri Pélissier who arranged for him to receive an invite to join the Automoto-Hutchinson team with whom he would win the Tour de France for the next two consecutive years.

Andy Hampsten and the '88 Giro

Andy Hampsten at the Tour de France, 1993
(image credit: Eric Houde CC BY-SA 3.0)

The 1988 Giro d'Italia covered 3,580km in 23 stages (two split). Stage 11 had to be stopped and, eventually, cancelled after environmental protestors occupied the finish line and refused to move, then Stage 14 could only just go ahead after it poured all day long, with rain turning to snow at altitude. Snow ploughs cleared the roads higher roads literally minutes before the riders arrived (the dirt roads lower down turned into a quagmire) and at 2,600m the snow turned into a blizzard. Johan van der Velde (who shouldn't be confused with John Vande Velde, father of Christian) was the first to the top, beating Andy Hampsten by around a half minute, but became so cold on the descent that he was forced to stop and ask for help from some fans in a camper van - they allowed him to come in and warm up (well, what cycling fan wouldn't - even though being van der Velde there was a fairly high chance you'd have found something had mysteriously vanished afterwards), but as a result he finished the stage 46'49" behind the winner. Hampsten's 7-Eleven team, meanwhile, had a man waiting at the summit with a musette full of skiing gear so that their rider would survive the way down. Erik Breukink sailed past him as he stopped to put it on but Hampsten, the only rider sufficiently protected from the element to ride at high speed without crashing due to shivering so much, was able to catch him up and took a good second place.

The weather had not improved the following day, which although organisers decided to drop the Stelvio Pass and shorten the stage to 83km left the riders in foul moods. Stage 16 was no better and included a climb up the 2,424m Timmelsjoch in Austria (known to the Italians as the Passo del Rombo). This time, however, the organisers would not shorten the stage, a decision that inspired two rider protests as the rain turned to snow on the way up the mountain. In the end, it was Stage 18, an 18km mountain time trial, that decided the race: Breukink was the better time trialer (he'd become Dutch National Champion nine years later), but Hampsten was by far the better climber - and since the stage climbed almost 1,000m at an average gradient of around 8.5%, he had a massive advantage. When he started the stage, he was 42" ahead of Breukink in the General Classification; then he finished the stage more than a minute ahead of his rival. His lead now all but insurmountable, he led the race to the end and finished with a lead of 1'43" - the first American and non-European to have won since the race began.

The 1993 Giro covered 3,703km in 22 stages. Miguel Indurain, who led the race in the last eight stages, won overall for a second and final time after facing down strong, repeated attacks from the Latvian Piotr Ugrumov.

Giampaolo Cheula

Giampaolo Cheula
It's not at all uncommon for mountain bikers to defect to road cycling, but the exchange tends to be one-way with few road cyclists moving into mountain biking. One of those that did is the Italian Giampaolo Cheula, who was born in Premosello-Chiovenda on this day in 1979. Having turned professional with Mapei-QuickStep in 2001, Cheula won some good results in his first couple seasons, then switched to Vini Caldirola and raced in the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana. He moved on to the British Barloworld squad in 2005, remaining with them for five seasons, picking up more good results and riding in two editions of the Tour de France and another Giro, then went to Footon-Servetto in 2010 and remained with them after the transformation into Geox-TMC and eventual demise in 2011.

Then, at the start of 2012, he announced that he would be changing to fat tyres and from that point onwards would be a mountain biker. "I am aware that the only common denominator between road and mountain biking are the two wheels, and are also aware that I worked so hard," he explained. "But the idea of starting from scratch appeals to me. I'm curious to see how I will adapt to the new discipline - and one thing's for sure, I'll put in the same effort and the same professionalism that I did for all those years on the road."


Cédric Gracia, born in Pau on this day in 1978, began cycle racing as a BMX rider when he was six years old. However, his first taste of professional sport would be as a freestyle skier and he didn't return to cycling until 2001 with the Volvo-Cannondale mountain biking team, initially and enjoying considerable success as a downhiller (twice taking silver at the World Championships) and, once the disciplines had been invented, 4X and Freeride. In 2010 he started his own team, the CG Racing Brigade, and for that year was its only member (which must surely be unique in cycling, as well as pushing the definition of the term "team" somewhat); it's since swelled in numbers with the addition of Colombian National Champion Marcelo Guttierez. Gracia's reputation is so great that the two riders were among the very few other than those in the Santa Cruz Syndicate to be supplied with the firm's factory V10 carbon fibre bikes.

Other cyclists born on this day: Wim Stroetinga (Netherlands, 1985); Matthew Crampton (Great Britain, 1986); Lars Wahlqvist (Sweden, 1964); Mark Noble (Great Britain, 1963); Per Lyngemark (Denmark, 1941, died 2010); Valery Chaplygin (USSR, 1952); Didier Garcia (France, 1964); Beat Wabel (Switzerland, 1967); Gerrie Slot (Netherlands, 1954); Gabriel Cano (Mexico, 1965); Oleg Logvin (USSR, 1959); Julio Illescas (Guatemala, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.05.2013

Alfredo Binda, 1924

The 27th edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1963 on a 213km parcours between Liège and Charleroi. The winner was Raymond Poulidor.

The Giro d'Italia has begun on this day three times. The first was in 1913, the fifth edition of the race ever held, when it was won by Carlo Oriani who had been born on the 5th of November 1888. The second time was in 1933 when Alfredo Binda won for a fifth and final time. It would be twenty years until Fausto Coppi - whom Binda trained - would equal this record, and to date it has not been bettered. The final time was 2006, the year that saw the reintroduction of the Team Time Trial for the first time since 1989 and the unpaved mountain pass Plan de Corones wa due to be used, but could not be due to bad weather. The winner that year was Ivan Basso.

Tino Tabak
Tino Tabak was born on this day in 1946 in De Bataaf, Netherlands, but emigrated to New Zealand with his family when he was six. He fell in love with cycling during his childhood and, by the age of ten, listed Tour de France victory as his main ambition in life.

In 1965, aged 19, he won the Elite National Road Race Championship, then that same year became the youngest rider in history to win the Tour of Southland - which he won for the next two years, too. In 1966 and 1967, he also won the Dulux Six Day and Manawatu Tours, making him the only rider to have ever won New Zealand's three major races in a single season. After the second time he did so he emigrated back to Europe, in his words "to learn how to ride a bike." He spent the next three seasons riding as an amateur and had amassed sufficient wins, including the Ronde van Noord-Holland, to earn a professional contract with Flandria-Mars in 1971 and with them he rode his first Tour, finishing the prologue in third place and crossing the line within the top ten on two other stages before abandoning after finishing Stage 9 in 89th place.

Still eligible to ride for the country of his birth, Tabak became National Road Race Champion in 1972 and entered his second Tour. This time he maintained consistently good results and took 18th place in the overall General Classification - the highest ever achieved by a rider from New Zealand. Sadly, he never did get his win: in 1973 he abandoned and then didn't enter again until 1976 when he abandoned for a third time. His career came to an end with a nasty crash at the 1978 Tour of Holland and he now lives in Canterbury, New Zealand. Tino Tobak - Dreams and Demons of a New Zealand Cycling Legend (Jonathan Kennet, 2009) tells the story of his life and provides an interesting insight into the world and processes of professional cycling in the 1970s.

Christophe Brandt
(image credit: Heidas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Christophe Brandt
Christophe Brandt was born in Liège on this day in 1977. In 1997 he won a stage at the amateur race Ronde van Limburg, which earned him a trainee contract in 1999 with Saeco and he spent his first professional season with them before moving onto Lotto, where he remained for the rest of his career.

In 2004, he fell foul of anti-doping controls when a sample he provided was discovered to contain traces of methadone, a synthetic opiate used to treat heroin addicts and which mimics the effects - including pain-killing effects, hence its appeal to endurance athletes - of heroin. Brandt stated that he had not intentionally used the drug and insisted it must have got into his body via a contaminated nutritional supplement he was using as part of his treatment for a liver condition and which about which he had notified the relevant authorities. Lotto management, meanwhile, chose not to take his word for it and fired him from the team - however, the Belgian Federation found during their investigation that the pharmacist who had prepared the supplement had in fact been preparing methadone prescriptions a short while before Brandt's medicine and cleared the rider of all charges. The team then rehired him, and he remained with them until his retirement in 2010.

Roman Kreuziger

Roman Kreuziger
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

Roman Kreuziger, born in Moravská Třebová in the Czech Republic on this day in 1986, is the son of the Roman Kreuziger who won the Österreich Rundfahrt in 1991. In 2004, he won both the Under-19 National Road Race and Time Trial, then also took the U-19 World Championship title - that same year, he won silver medals for the U-19 Time Trial and Cyclo Cross Championships too. That was, needless to say, more than enough to earn him his first offers of trainee contracts, and he turned professional with LiquiGas in 2006.

Unusually for a rider so skilled in a time trial, Kreuziger is also a very talented climber and, having come a surprise 21st at the 2007 Vuelta a Espana, he won the Tour de Suisse in 2008 after proving easily the fastest man up the 1948m Klausen Pass. That same year, still aged only 23, he kept up with the world's greatest over the mountains in the Tour de France - his first participation in the race - and finished in 13th place overall whilst only Andy Schleck could beat him in the Youth Classification.

In 2012 whilst riding for Astana, Kreuziger won Stage 9 at the Giro d'Italia and was sixth overall at the Tour de Suisse; in 2013 with SaxoBank he won the Amstel Gold Race - indication that at 26, he's finding the form to perform well in stage races and the Classics.

Vito Taccone
Born in Avezzano, Italy on this day in 1940, Vito Taccone turned professional with Atala in 1961 and immediately began to make his name - that year, he won two stages and the General Classification at the Tre Giorni del Sud, Stage 10 and the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia and then took first place at the Giro di Lombardia. In the subsequent years, he continued to be highly successful at the Giro d'Italia: in 1962 he was fourth overall, in 1963 sixth overall (having won Stages 10, 11, 12, 13 and 19) and again first in the King of the Mountains, in 1964 he won Stage 4, in 1965 he was sixth overall and second in the King of the Mountains and in 1966 he was ninth overall and third in the Points competition. Along the way, he won Milano-Torino in 1965, was third in the National Championship and second at Tirreno-Adriatico in 1966 and then second at the Nationals in 1968.

Taccone evidently had piles of cycling talent - he was also very good at getting himself in trouble. At the 1964 Tour de France, he was accused by other riders of causing a large crash. After denying that he was to blame he got into a fight with Fernando Manzaneque who won numerous stages at the Vuelta a Espana; Taccone was not invited to the Tour again afterwards. He didn't change with age: in June 2007, he was arrested and charged with selling stolen and counterfeit clothing, chaining himself to the railings of Avezzano court in protest. Just a few months later, on the 15th of October, he died after having a heart attack.


Hans Junkermann, born in Sankt Tönis, Germany on this day in 1934, was a true all-rounder who excelled in tough one-day races, mountain stages and on the track. Whilst still an amateur, he was approached on numerous occasions by East German representatives who tried to persuade him to defect and become a paid amateur, but he was confident enough of his abilities to remain in the West and wait for a professional contract. That paid off in 1955 when he joined Bauer; the first of the many teams for whom he rode over the course of his 19-year career, because Junkermann was a rider who refused to stay put - in 1958 alone, he rode for Molteni, Solo, Feru and Altenburger. He held ten National Championship titles in his time, including for Track Pursuit in 1958, Road Race in 1959, 1960 and 1961, Madison in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1965 and Team Pursuit in 1962. In addition, he won the 1959 and 1962 Tour de Suisse, thus becoming the first German to do so without wearing a swastika jersey (Ludwig Geyer had won in 1934).

Mario Kummer was born in Thuringia on this day in 1962 and represented East Germany at the 1988 Olympics prior to the Reunification of his nation, riding on the gold medal winning squad in the Team Time Trial. In 1990, when East Germans had been freed to travel to the West, he turned professional with Chateau d'Ax-Salotti and remained with them for two seasons before switching to PDM; then in 1993 he joined Telekom and remained with them until retirement in 1997. Since 2007, he has worked as a manager with the Astana team.

Other cyclists born on this day: Artūrs Matisons (Latvia, 1985); Bernhard Stübecke (Germany, 1904, died 1964); Dieter Koslar (Germany, 1940, died 2002); Franc Škerlj (Yugoslavia, 1941).

Daily Cycling Facts 03.06.12

This photograph, taken at the 1921 Paris-Roubaix, is
believed to show Henri Pélissier, Léon Scieur and René
Vermandel.

The ninth edition of La Flèche Wallonne, which took place on this day in 1945, was the first to be held since Belgium was liberated from Nazi occupation. It ran between Mons and Charleroi, as it had done in the previous two years, but took a different route which was 5km longer at 213km in total. The winner was Marcel Kint for a third consecutive year - nobody else has yet matched his achievement.

The thirteenth edition of La Doyenne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, was held on this day in 1923. The winner for the first of two consecutive years was René Vermandel. This was the only time that the race was held on this date.

Evgeni Berzin, the man who should have been great

Evgeni Berzin
Evgeni Berzin, born in Vyborg on this day in 1970, won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1994. Two months later, he won the Giro d'Italia too - one of the few truly heroic Grand Tours of the last few decades, coming at the end of a race in which he wore the maglia rosa for 19 days. Being only 24 at the time, the cycling world immediately hailed him as the next great hero, a man who would follow in the footsteps of Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil, Coppi and Bartoli, but it was not to be - Berzin proved to be one of those unfortunate cyclists who peaks early in his career and can never quite live up to that early promise.

Berzin first appeared on the radar in 1988 when he formed part of the winning National Junior Championships Pursuit team, then formed part of the Russian Junior squad that won the same race at the Worlds. This was followed in 1989 with a National Amateur Team Pursuit title, which was repeated in 1990; the year he also rode with the victorious Amateur Pursuit team at the Worlds and took the World Amateur Individual Pursuit title for himself. In 1993, he turned professional with Mecair-Ballan, the team with which he would remain for five years through numerous sponsor changes and the gradual transformation into Gewiss-Playbus in 1997, taking second place at the 1995 Giro in addition to his overall victory the previous year, then winning Stage 19 in the Giro and Stage 8 in the Tour de France of 1998.

His performances in several other stages (and races) that year were good too, with numerous podium places, which persuaded the world that his form was simply not what it had been the year before but, as tends to be the way when a rider enters his late 20s, he'd get better than ever. With that in mind, La Française des Jeux took him on in 1998. The Tour that year was in fact his fourth, as he had competed in 1995 (abandoned), 1996 (20th overall) and 1997 (abandoned); and he came 25th overall. Alarm bells started ringing: the Tour is the hardest race of all and sometimes a top-notch rider will get a bad result through no fault of his own, but the man Russia hoped would be its first Tour champion had been expected to do better and, when his contract expired at the end of the year, he could not find a team at the same level that would take him, so instead he went to Amica Chips-Costa de Almeria - but 1999 was much worse and he won nothing. Amica too let him go, but this time he was more fortunate and found a ride with Mobilvetta Design-Rossin, a team in the same class - but then 2000 turned out not to be much better, his only good result being third place in the little 53.2km Broni criterium. Berzin, it could now be seen, was not having a couple of bad seasons before a glorious flourishing into his best years; he was a rider who had already declined. After a second season with Mobilvetta (during which he again won no races), he called it a day.

Karel Kaers

Karel Kaers

Nowadays, many people will tell you that when 21-year-old Lance Armstrong won the 1993 Elite World Championship Road Race in Oslo, he was the youngest rider to have ever done so. In fact, he was only the third youngest: Jempi Monseré was one week younger when he won in Leicester in 1970, and Karel Kaers - who was born on this day in 1914 in Voselaar - had only just passed his 20th birthday when he won on his first attempt at the race in Leipzig, 1934; an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that up until then he was known primarily as a track rider.

Kaers began racing during childhood and won the Belgian Boys' Championship along with 36 other races in his first two years, then he became a Junior in 1931 and won a National Sprint Championship, after which he moved up a gear and became an independent, remaining so when he was selected for the Belgian team in 1934, then turned professional the following year for F. Pélissier-Hutchinson (the team lasted only a season, and he moved on to Bury later in the same year). Over the next few years, he flitted back and fourth between Bury, Colin-Wolber, Bristol and Alcyon-Dunlap, and it was with the latter that he achieved his second great claim to fame - winning the 1939 Ronde van Vlaanderen without intending to do so.

Acht van Chaam criterium 1938, won by Kaers (Gerrit Schulte was second, Theo Middelkamp was third)

It is, perhaps, a tale that may have been somewhat embellished for the sake of legend and one that might not stand up to scrutiny should anybody who thinks facts are more important that a good story decide to dissect it. Kaers, it's said, had no plans to compete for the victory but, since the race started not too far from his home, it offered a good chance to get in some valuable race training. So, he put his bike in his car and drove to Kluisberg before riding the 40km to the start line in Ghent where he signed up and set off with the bunch. His plan was to ride with them to Kwaremont and then drive back home again, so when the race arrived at Kluisberg he attacked and leapt away from the field, going at full throttle up the 11% hill without worrying about conserving energy for the remainder of the race and by the time he got to the top he had a lead of one minute. However, his car was not where he'd left it; rather than find a policeman or a phone to report the theft, he decided that he may as well press on and finish the race. After he'd won, his manager admitted that when he'd seen how well Kaers was going on the hill, he realised that the rider had the potential to win; so he'd broken into and moved the car himself.

In retirement, Kaers bought and ran a bar near the entrance to Antwerp's Sportpaleis velodrome. He died in the city on the 20th of December, 1972.

Joachim Halupczok

Joaquim Halupczok,
03.06.1968 - 05.02.1994

Polish Joachim Halupczok, born in Ozimek on this day in 1968, won his nation's Junior Cyclo Cross and Elite Road Race Championships in 1987; then won the World Amateur Road Race Championship, the National Amateur Road Race Championship, the Under-23 GP Liberazione and the General Classification at the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt in 1989. Those results were good enough to get him a professional contract, and he rode for Diana-Colnago in 1990 when he finished in third place on Stage 8 at the Giro d'Italia, was second in the Trofeo Baracchi and eight overall in the Giro del Trentino.

In 1990, Halupczok was discovered to be suffering from cardiac arrhythmia and announced his temporary retirement; but just over a year he returned and took part in the Vuelta a Espana of 1992, before being ordered to stop cycling by his doctors at the end of the season. Fifteen months later, as he warmed up before playing in an indoor football match, he collapsed and died at the age of 26, leaving behind his wife and two young children. Many people suspected that he was another victim of EPO, but it has never been proved one way or the other if he was a doper.


Mary Grigson, born in Wellington, New Zealand on this day in 1971, was Australian National Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and was named Australian Female Mountain Biker of the Year in 2000 and 2001.

Cathy Moncassin

Cathy Moncassin, born in Bonnetage on this day in 1977, became French Junior Individual Pursuit Champion in 1994, then took the Elite title for the same discipline in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2007 - a well as Points Champion in 2003 and a host of track silver and bronze medals along the way.

Vincenzo Zucconelli, who was born in Jolanda di Savoia, Italy on this day in 1931, won the Under-23 GP Liberazione in 1951 and was a professional rider between 1954 and 1958 - a short career during which he won Stage 11 at the 1955 Giro d'Italia (the same year that 35-year-old Fiorenzo Magni became the oldest General Classification winner in Giro history), came second on two other Giro stages (Stage 8, 1955 and Stage 8, 1956) and third on another (Stage 14, 1955).

Rossano Brasi, born in Bergamo on this day in 1972, won the very first edition of the Vattenfall Cyclassics - then rather overlooked and known as the HEW Cyclassics, HEW at that time being the name of the Vattenfall electricity plant that still sponsors the race to this day - in 1996

Trine Schmidt, born in Copenhagen on this day in 1988, became National Scratch Race Champion - at Elite level - in 2004, when she was sixteen years old (and also became National Junior Independent Time Trial Champion). In 2006, she won Stages 1 and 2 and came second in the General Classification at the Silkeborg Viborg Hammel; then in 2007 the VDO Ladies Cup and Stage 4 at the Gracia Orlova before winning no fewer than three National titles for the Individual Time Trial on road and Scratch and Pursuit on the track. She added another National Pursuit win in 2009.

Boguslaw Fornalczyk, born on this day in 1937, was Polish National Road Race Champion in 1958.

Olympic Time Trial, 1912

István Müller, born in Hungary on this day in 1883, rode with his National team (in fact representing the Austro-Hungarian Empire) at the Olympics of 1912 - the first time that Hungarian riders took part in the the cycling events (and the first time since the advent of modern Olympics that no track cycling events featured in the Games). He was 73rd out of 123 (94 finished) in the Individual Time Trial, taking 12h39'28" to complete the 315.39km parcours.

Liz Hatch, who was born in Austin, Texas on this day in 1980, began racing at the comparatively late age of 26 and realised immediately that Belgium was the place for any female cyclist to be, traveling there that same year. Two years later, she became one of the founding members of the  Vanderkitten road racing programme, one of the top teams in the sport, then signed to Lotto Ladies in 2009. Intelligent and sometimes outspoken, Liz is one of the "go to" riders whenever magazines or newspapers need a handy soundbite (the fact that she happens to look like supermodel helps, too). Among her finest is this description of cycling, published by The Sporting Life:

"I thrive off of the pain. I keep telling myself that it´s just another form of pleasure. Once you tell yourself that it hurts too much to continue, you may as well get off your bike and get a real job. It´s the races that really hurt, that really put you in your grave; that you remember and cherish."

Other births: Fabio Masotti (Italy, 1974); Tim Phivana (Cambodia, 1940); Jean-Marcel Brouzes (France, 1953); Vittorio Marcelli (Italy, 1944); Jair Braga (Brazil, 1954); Errol McLean (Guyana, 1952); Tjow Choon Boon (Malaysia, 1945); Ira Fabian (Antigua and Barbuda, 1964).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.05.12

The seventh edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1943. The parcours was the same length as the previous year at 208km, but the route differed - both races began at Mons, but this edition finished at Charleroi rather than at Marcinelle. Marcel Kint won, the first of his three consecutive victories, and became the first rider to win this and Paris-Roubaix in the same year.

Angelo Gremo, 1914

The Giro d'Italia began on this day four times - 1920, 1923, 1988 and 1993. 1920, which included eight stages and covered 2,632km, was won by Gaetano Belloni, one of only ten riders (from 49 starters) to complete the race. The edition saw a classic battle between Belloni and Angelo Gremo, the latter turning a five minute disadvantage into a fourteen minute lead in Stage 5 when he escaped the peloton as part of a group of five and took the General Classification leadership. With only three stages to go, most riders would have given up any hope of winning after that - but not Belloni, who simply increased the frequency and severity of his attacks in an effort to claw his way back. In the penultimate stage he had the ride of his life, escaping solo and crossing the finish line alone and 42 minutes ahead of his rival. At the end of the final stage, his time was 102h44'33"; 32'24" faster than Gremo. (Note: Giovanni Rossignoli is sometimes incorrectly listed as having become the oldest ever Giro stage winner this year at the age of 37 years and 188 days. In actual fact, he was not in the race that year.)

1923 consisted of ten stages over 3,202km - eight of them won by Costante Girardengo, who had also won in 1919 and taken the third of his six Milan-San Remo victories and the seventh of his nine National Championships that year. In fifth place, finishing 45'49" behind Girardengo's time of 122h58'17", was a young man named Ottavio Bottecchia who was then an unknown independent rider. His success brought him to the attention of Henri Pélissier who arranged for him to receive an invite to join the Automoto-Hutchinson team with whom he would win the Tour de France for the next two consecutive years.

Andy Hampsten and the '88 Giro

Andy Hampsten at the Tour de France, 1993
(image credit: Eric Houde CC BY-SA 3.0)

The 1988 Giro d'Italia covered 3,580km in 23 stages (two split). Stage 11 had to be stopped and, eventually, cancelled after environmental protestors occupied the finish line and refused to move, then Stage 14 could only just go ahead after it poured all day long, with rain turning to snow at altitude. Snow ploughs cleared the roads higher roads literally minutes before the riders arrived (the dirt roads lower down turned into a quagmire) and at 2,600m the snow turned into a blizzard. Johan van der Velde was the first to the top, beating Andy Hampsten by around a half minute, but became so cold on the descent that he was forced to stop and ask for help from some fans in a camper van - they allowed him to come in and warm up (well, what cycling fan wouldn't - even though being van der Velde there was a fairly high chance you'd have found something had mysteriously vanished afterwards), but as a result he finished the stage 46'49" behind the winner. Hampsten's 7-Eleven team, meanwhile, had a man waiting at the summit with a musette full of skiing gear so that their rider would survive the way down. Erik Breukink sailed past him as he stopped to put it on but Hampsten, the only rider sufficiently protected from the element to ride at high speed without crashing due to shivering so much, was able to catch him up and took a good second place.

The weather had not improved the following day, which although organisers decided to drop the Stelvio Pass and shorten the stage to 83km left the riders in foul moods. Stage 16 was no better and included a climb up the 2,424m Timmelsjoch in Austria (known to the Italians as the Passo del Rombo). This time, however, the organisers would not shorten the stage, a decision that inspired two rider protests as the rain turned to snow on the way up the mountain. In the end, it was Stage 18, an 18km mountain time trial, that decided the race: Breukink was the better time trialer (he'd become Dutch National Champion nine years later), but Hampsten was by far the better climber - and since the stage climbed almost 1,000m at an average gradient of around 8.5%, he had a massive advantage. When he started the stage, he was 42" ahead of Breukink in the General Classification; then he finished the stage more than a minute ahead of his rival. His lead now all but insurmountable, he led the race to the end and finished with a lead of 1'43" - the first American and non-European to have won since the race began.

The 1993 Giro covered 3,703km in 22 stages. Miguel Indurain, who led the race in the last eight stages, won overall for a second and final time after facing down strong, repeated attacks from the Latvian Piotr Ugrumov.

Giampaolo Cheula

Giampaolo Cheula

It's not at all uncommon for mountain bikers to defect to road cycling, but the exchange tends to be one-way with few road cyclists moving into mountain biking. One of those that did is the Italian Giampaolo Cheula, who was born in Premosello-Chiovenda on this day in 1979. Having turned professional with Mapei-QuickStep in 2001, Cheula won some good results in his first couple seasons, then switched to Vini Caldirola and raced in the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana. He moved on to the British Barloworld squad in 2005, remaining with them for five seasons, picking up more good results and riding in two editions of the Tour de France and another Giro, then went to Footon-Servetto in 2010 and remained with them after the transformation into Geox-TMC and eventual demise in 2011.

Then, at the start of 2012, he announced that he would be changing to fat tyres and from that point onwards would be a mountain biker. "I am aware that the only common denominator between road and mountain biking are the two wheels, and are also aware that I worked so hard," he explained. "But the idea of starting from scratch appeals to me. I'm curious to see how I will adapt to the new discipline - and one thing's for sure, I'll put in the same effort and the same professionalism that I did for all those years on the road."



Cédric Gracia, born in Pau on this day in 1978, began cycle racing as a BMX rider when he was six years old. However, his first taste of professional sport would be as a freestyle skier and he didn't return to cycling until 2001 with the Volvo-Cannondale mountain biking team, initially and enjoying considerable success as a downhiller (twice taking silver at the World Championships) and, once the disciplines had been invented, 4X and Freeride. In 2010 he started his own team, the CG Racing Brigade, and for that year was its only member (which must surely be unique in cycling, as well as pushing the definition of the term "team" somewhat); it's since swelled in numbers with the addition of Colombian National Champion Marcelo Guttierez. Gracia's reputation is so great that the two riders were among the very few other than those in the Santa Cruz Syndicate to be supplied with the firm's factory V10 carbon fibre bikes.

Other births: Wim Stroetinga (Netherlands, 1985); Matthew Crampton (Great Britain, 1986); Lars Wahlqvist (Sweden, 1964); Mark Noble (Great Britain, 1963); Per Lyngemark (Denmark, 1941, died 2010); Valery Chaplygin (USSR, 1952); Didier Garcia (France, 1964); Beat Wabel (Switzerland, 1967); Gerrie Slot (Netherlands, 1954); Gabriel Cano (Mexico, 1965); Oleg Logvin (USSR, 1959); Julio Illescas (Guatemala, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.05.12

Alfredo Binda, 1924

The 27th edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1963 on a 213km parcours between Liège and Charleroi. The winner was Raymond Poulidor.

The Giro d'Italia has begun on this day three times. The first was in 1913, the fifth edition of the race ever held, when it was won by Carlo Oriani who had been born on the 5th of November 1888. The second time was in 1933 when Alfredo Binda won for a fifth and final time. It would be twenty years until Fausto Coppi - whom Binda trained - would equal this record, and to date it has not been bettered. The final time was 2006, the year that saw the reintroduction of the Team Time Trial for the first time since 1989 and the unpaved mountain pass Plan de Corones wa due to be used, but could not be due to bad weather. The winner that year was Ivan Basso.

Tino Tabak
Tino Tabak was born on this day in 1946 in De Bataaf, Netherlands, but emigrated to New Zealand with his family when he was six. He fell in love with cycling during his childhood and, by the age of ten, listed Tour de France victory as his main ambition in life.

In 1965, aged 19, he won the Elite National Road Race Championship, then that same year became the youngest rider in history to win the Tour of Southland - which he won for the next two years, too. In 1966 and 1967, he also won the Dulux Six Day and Manawatu Tours, making him the only rider to have ever won New Zealand's three major races in a single season. After the second time he did so he emigrated back to Europe, in his words "to learn how to ride a bike." He spent the next three seasons riding as an amateur and had amassed sufficient wins, including the Ronde van Noord-Holland, to earn a professional contract with Flandria-Mars in 1971 and with them he rode his first Tour, finishing the prologue in third place and crossing the line within the top ten on two other stages before abandoning after finishing Stage 9 in 89th place.

Still eligible to ride for the country of his birth, Tabak became National Road Race Champion in 1972 and entered his second Tour. This time he maintained consistently good results and took 18th place in the overall General Classification - the highest ever achieved by a rider from New Zealand. Sadly, he never did get his win: in 1973 he abandoned and then didn't enter again until 1976 when he abandoned for a third time. His career came to an end with a nasty crash at the 1978 Tour of Holland and he now lives in Canterbury, New Zealand. Tino Tobak - Dreams and Demons of a New Zealand Cycling Legend (Jonathan Kennet, 2009) tells the story of his life and provides an interesting insight into the world and processes of professional cycling in the 1970s.

Christophe Brandt
(image credit: Heidas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Christophe Brandt
Christophe Brandt was born in Liège on this day in 1977. In 1997 he won a stage at the amateur race Ronde van Limburg, which earned him a trainee contract in 1999 with Saeco and he spent his first professional season with them before moving onto Lotto, where he remained for the rest of his career.

In 2004, he fell foul of anti-doping controls when a sample he provided was discovered to contain traces of methadone, a synthetic opiate used to treat heroin addicts and which mimics the effects - including pain-killing effects, hence its appeal to endurance athletes - of heroin. Brandt stated that he had not intentionally used the drug and insisted it must have got into his body via a contaminated nutritional supplement he was using as part of his treatment for a liver condition and which about which he had notified the relevant authorities. Lotto management, meanwhile, chose not to take his word for it and fired him from the team - however, the Belgian Federation found during their investigation that the pharmacist who had prepared the supplement had in fact been preparing methadone prescriptions a short while before Brandt's medicine and cleared the rider of all charges. The team then rehired him, and he remained with them until his retirement in 2010.

Roman Kreuziger

Roman Kreuziger
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

Roman Kreuziger, born in Moravská Třebová in the Czech Republic on this day in 1986, is the son of the Roman Kreuziger who won the Österreich Rundfahrt in 1991. In 2004, he won both the Under-19 National Road Race and Time Trial, then also took the U-19 World Championship title - that same year, he won silver medals for the U-19 Time Trial and Cyclo Cross Championships too. That was, needless to say, more than enough to earn him his first offers of trainee contracts, and he turned professional with LiquiGas in 2006.

Unusually for a rider so skilled in a time trial, Kreuziger is also a very talented climber and, having come a surprise 21st at the 2007 Vuelta a Espana, he won the Tour de Suisse in 2008 after proving easily the fastest man up the 1948m Klausen Pass. That same year, still aged only 23, he kept up with the world's greatest over the mountains in the Tour de France - his first participation in the race - and finished in 13th place overall whilst only Andy Schleck could beat him in the Youth Classification.

Now 25 and riding for Astana, Kreuziger continues to grow and develop and has become one of the finest all-rounders of his generation, which in turn has led many to mark him out as a probable future Grand Tour winner.

Vito Taccone
Born in Avezzano, Italy on this day in 1940, Vito Taccone turned professional with Atala in 1961 and immediately began to make his name - that year, he won two stages and the General Classification at the Tre Giorni del Sud, Stage 10 and the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia and then took first place at the Giro di Lombardia. In the subsequent years, he continued to be highly successful at the Giro d'Italia: in 1962 he was fourth overall, in 1963 sixth overall (having won Stages 10, 11, 12, 13 and 19) and again first in the King of the Mountains, in 1964 he won Stage 4, in 1965 he was sixth overall and second in the King of the Mountains and in 1966 he was ninth overall and third in the Points competition. Along the way, he won Milano-Torino in 1965, was third in the National Championship and second at Tirreno-Adriatico in 1966 and then second at the Nationals in 1968.

Taccone evidently had piles of cycling talent - he was also very good at getting himself in trouble. At the 1964 Tour de France, he was accused by other riders of causing a large crash. After denying that he was to blame he got into a fight with Fernando Manzaneque who won numerous stages at the Vuelta a Espana; Taccone was not invited to the Tour again afterwards. He didn't change with age: in June 2007, he was arrested and charged with selling stolen and counterfeit clothing, chaining himself to the railings of Avezzano court in protest. Just a few months later, on the 15th of October, he died after having a heart attack.


Hans Junkermann, born in Sankt Tönis, Germany on this day in 1934, was a true all-rounder who excelled in tough one-day races, mountain stages and on the track. Whilst still an amateur, he was approached on numerous occasions by East German representatives who tried to persuade him to defect and become a paid amateur, but he was confident enough of his abilities to remain in the West and wait for a professional contract. That paid off in 1955 when he joined Bauer; the first of the many teams for whom he rode over the course of his 19-year career, because Junkermann was a rider who refused to stay put - in 1958 alone, he rode for Molteni, Solo, Feru and Altenburger. He held ten National Championship titles in his time, including for Track Pursuit in 1958, Road Race in 1959, 1960 and 1961, Madison in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1965 and Team Pursuit in 1962. In addition, he won the 1959 and 1962 Tour de Suisse, thus becoming the first German to do so without wearing a swastika jersey (Ludwig Geyer had won in 1934).

Mario Kummer was born in Thuringia on this day in 1962 and represented East Germany at the 1988 Olympics prior to the Reunification of his nation, riding on the gold medal winning squad in the Team Time Trial. In 1990, when East Germans had been freed to travel to the West, he turned professional with Chateau d'Ax-Salotti and remained with them for two seasons before switching to PDM; then in 1993 he joined Telekom and remained with them until retirement in 1997. Since 2007, he has worked as a manager with the Astana team.

Other births: Artūrs Matisons (Latvia, 1985); Bernhard Stübecke (Germany, 1904, died 1964); Dieter Koslar (Germany, 1940, died 2002); Franc Škerlj (Yugoslavia, 1941).