Daily Cycling Facts 20.05.2014

The Giro d'Italia started on this day six times: 1961, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1977 and 1978. Jacques Anquetil, who had become the first Frenchman to win a Giro the year before, went to the race as the favourite in 1961; but he faced stiff competition from Arnaldo Pambianco who had finished in 7th place at the 1960 Tour de France. He fought hard to leave him behind and took the General Classification leadership in Stage 10 but, somehow, Pambianco stayed with him all the way until Stage 14 - where the Italian dropped him on the Passo del Magulione. From that point onwards, the tables were turned and Anquetil never got a look in, taking second place after 21 stages and 4,002km with a 3'45" deficit on Pambianco's time of 111h25'28".

Anquetil was widely expected to win 1967, too; especially since Italy's best hope Felice Gimondi was racked with bronchitis on the start line - and the tifosi all but forgot their dreams as he failed to keep up with the high pace in the first few stages. Yet, he kept going and in time began to feel a little better, then won Stage 19. - although there had been such blatant, widespread cheating with fans pushing the Italian riders (including Gimondi) up the mountains that even the notoriously patriotic judges agreed they would have to disallow the results and annul the stage. Realising, perhaps, that he now had a serious rival, Anquetil pulled out all the stops the next day and took over the General Classification. Now, however, Gimondi was fully recovered and determined to win; with superhuman effort, he clawed his way to the top and took the leadership, then retained it to overall victory three stages later in Milan, 3,572km from the start line. For the first time that year, the leader of the Points competition was awarded a red jersey. It was a change that can be seen as symbolic of greater changes in cycling, because a new era was just beginning - both Anquetil and Gimondi couldn't fail to notice that two of the 23  stages and 9th place overall had gone to a rider who was taking part for the very first time that year, a young Belgian named Eddy Merckx.

Gösta Pettersson, the only Swede to
have won a Giro

Gimondi would play an instrumental part in the outcome of the 1971 - but not in the way he'd hoped. Looking to win Stage 18, he teamed up with Francisco Galdos, Herman can Springel and Gösta Pettersson to make a four-man break which successfully escaped the peloton and led the race to the finish line, where he won the stage. Unfortunately for him, the plan had worked better than he thought - they finished so quickly that Petterson moved into the General Classification lead, followed by van Springel in second place. So great was their unexpected advantage that they remained thus through to the end when, after 23 stages and 3,567km, Petterson became the first 9and at the time of writing, only) Swedish rider to win a Giro. Gimondi was 7th.

1977 saw the Belgian Freddy Maertens lead the General Classification for the first six stages and win seven in total, which some fans (especially Belgian ones) apparently considered a more impressive achievement than the overall victory - he'd almost certainly have won the Points competition as a result, but a crash 100m from the finish line in Stage 8b forced him to abandon. Francesco Moser was a favourite for the GC and his success seemed all but inevitable after he took the race leadership in Stage 5 and kept it until Stage 17, when Michel Pollentier (another Belgian) wrested it away from him. However, Italy didn't worry unduly: the 29km time trial at Binago (Stage 21) may as well have been specifically in order that Moser could thrash his rivals, so ideally did the parcours suit his skills. Everybody knew that he was going to win it by an enormous margin. Of course, irony stepped in at this point and saw to it that it was in fact Pollentier who won the stage, and the General Classification. One year later, Pollentier's reputation and career were in tatters after he became the second rider to be caught using a pipe connected to a condom containing somebody else's urine that he had hidden under his armpit, which allowed him to produce a sample of "clean" urine at the anti-doping control (he was caught through sheer bad luck, in fact: the rider just before him had an identical system, but it became blocked, possibly as a result of sabotage, and the doctor, having spotted the pipe as he fiddled with it, demanded that Pollentier pull up his jersey to see if he had one too), so we can probably assume that irony was not the only factor in his time trial win. It's perhaps not quite as unfair as it first seems, meanwhile - if Moser was riding clean that day, it was probably the only race of his professional career in which he did so.

Felice Gimondi was still racing in 1978, though it would be his final Giro - now 36 years old, his 11th place overall was very respectable. The Belgian Rik van Linden held the General Classification leadership through Stages 1 and 2, fighting off savage attacks from Francesco Moser and Giuseppe Saronni. However, in Stage 3 he lost it to another Belgian, Johan de Muynck, who then defended it all the way through the remaining 18 stages and finished the race with a time of 101h31'22" - 59" faster than second place Gianbattista Baronchelli.

Isaac Gálvez
Road and track cyclist Isaac Gálvez, who was born in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain on this day in 1975, was twice World Madison Champion(1999 and 2006) and won numerous stages in road races including the Volta a Catalunya and Critérium International.

During the Six Days of Ghent in 2006, Gálvez was involved in a collision with the Belgian rider Dimitri de Fauw which sent him into the railings, hitting them hard enough to suffer massive internal bleeding that killed him early the next day. He was 31 and had been married for three weeks. Following his death, de Fauw suffered deep depression and, three weeks before the second anniversary of the incident, committed suicide.

Chris Froome
Born in Nairobi, Kenya on this day in 1985, Chris Froome moved to South Africa as a teenager and became interested in mountain biking, then road racing and began to show talent as a climber and time trial rider which led to his selection for the Kenyan team at the 2006 World Championships (where he got himself known by colliding with a UCI course official). He turned professional with the South Africa-registered Team Konica Minolta a year later but was then invited to join Barloworld in 2008, racing with a British licence as his father was born in Britain. With them, he entered his first Tour de France in 2009 and came 84th overall but 12th in the Youth Classification, indication that he had great potential, then in 2009 he was 36th overall and 7th in the Youth at the Giro d'Italia. Froome was one of the first riders to be announced for the new Team Sky in 2009 - he is still with them at the time of writing.

Chris Froome

In the 2011 Vuelta a Espana, Froome was selected by the team to act as a domestique for Bradley Wiggins and did an admirable job in assisting his leader to 4th place in Stage 9. The next day, meanwhile, he completely out-rode Wiggins in the time trial, finishing the stage in 2nd place behind Tony Martin. Over the next few stages he was notably weaker and concentrated on his domestique duties until Stage 15, which featured an ascent of Alto de l'Angliru - a mountain so steep that in the past team cars have been unable to follow their riders to the summit. After Stage 10, he'd taken 2nd place in the General Classification; this time he was the second fastest up the mountain behind Juan José Cobo - and while he got to the top 48" after Cobo, it was good enough to keep his GC place. Stage 17 featured a summit finish on top of Peña Cabarga, a far less daunting climb than Angliru but a tough one nevertheless and one that Cobo was expected to win with ease. 1km from the finish line, Froome attacked - Cobo was on his case immediately and got in front of him with 300m to go, apparently securing the win. However, Froome hung on, refusing to let go of his rival's back wheel and then, when Cobo looked around to see if he'd shaken him off yet, he sneaked past on the other side and put the power down, winning the stage by 1". With the bonuses awarded, Cobo's overall lead was reduced to 13". By keeping himself out of danger and continuing to ride well in the next stages, he was able to keep 2nd place in the General Classification through to the end of the race four days later - and thus equalled Robert Millar's best ever finish by a British rider in a Grand Tour.

In 2012, 75 years after Charles Holland and Bill Burl had been the first British riders to take part, Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to win. Froome, who had won Stage 7 (one of seven stages won by British riders, more than any other nation), took second place with an overall time 3'21" slower, leading to an interesting situation: Wiggins is a remarkably talented all-rounder who can win a Grand Tour through his time trial abilities, but most Grand Tours are won not in time trials but in the mountains - and Froome appears to be a better climber than Wiggins. Who, then, would lead Sky at the 2013 Grand Tours? Wiggins was chosen to be team leader at the Giro, but a few weeks before Froome's birthday team managers seem not yet to have decided who will lead at the Tour.

Giovanni Gerbi
Giovanni Gerbi, winner of the first Giro di Lombardia, was born in Piedmont on this day in 1885. Always racing in a red jersey and his dare-devil attitude earned him the nickname Il Diavolo Rosso. Considered one of the pioneers of Italian competitive cycling, he bought his first bike in 1900 with money he'd earned doing odd jobs and that very same year finished his first three races in third place, then won his fourth - the 95km, now long-defunct Asti-Moncalieri. Realising he could make a living on the bike, he moved to Milan and began racing against the likes of Carlo Galetti, who would win the second and third editions of the Giro d'Italia, supporting himself by working as a baker until 1902 when he won the amateur Coppa del Re and received an invitation to turn professional with Maino.

After winning Milan-Turin in 1903, Gerbi entered the second ever Tour de France but was one of the many riders who failed to finish. He also rode the first Giro d'Italia in 1909, but abandoned after a crash in the early stages left with an insurmountable disadvantage. He entered again in 1920, but was disqualified for riding a bike with - of all things - a sidecar attached to it.

A few years after his retirement, Gerbi returned in veteran competition and continued winning races, including two editions of La Coppa Guerra, and set a veteran's hour record at the Vigorelli velodrome. According to legend, he was once mistaken during a race for the real devil by a priest.

Laurent Dufaux
Laurent Dufaux, born in Montreux, Switzerland on this day in 1969, became National Road Race Champion in 1991won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1993 and 1994, was twice fourth overall at the Tour de France (1996 and 1999, he was also ninth overall in 1997) and second overall at the 1996 Vuelta a Espana.

Noted as an excellent climber, Dufaux rode alongside Richard Virenque with Festina; the two men forming a highly-effective partnership in the high mountains of the Grand Tours. He doped alongside Virenque, too, but whereas Virenque first denied the charges and then tearfully blamed everyone and everything but himself, Dufaux had the good sense to know when the game was up and confessed to using EPO. As a result, Virenque's case span out for more than two years until he was eventually banned, fined and then had enormous difficulty in finding a team that would have anything to do with him (Domo-Farm Frites would, but only when Eddy Merckx promised to provide a big chunk of cash towards his keep), whereas Dufaux served a relatively light six-month suspension and was racing with Saeco early in the following season.


Katie Cullen, born in Edinburgh on this day in 1977, had no interest in cycling until she was assigned the task of producing a velodrome blueprint while she studied for her architecture degree. Visiting the example in Manchester to investigate which features a velodrome should have, she found that she was becoming fascinated  by the racing - and became hooked when she was given a chance to ride around the track. In 2005, she won the first of her four National Championship titles.

Other births: Marco van der Hulst (Netherlands, 1963); Michael Allen (USA, 1935); Armando Latini (Italy, 1913); Robert Karśnicki (Poland, 1972); Gintautas Umaras (USSR, 1963); Robert Bouloux (France*, 1947); Norman Webster (Canada, 1896, died 1967); Noé Medina (Ecuador, 1943); Andreas Walzer (Germany, 1970); René Bianchi (France, 1934); Wiesław Podobas (Poland, 1936); Armando Castillo (Guatemala, 1932, died 2006); Lado Fumic (West Germany, 1976); Imants Bodnieks (USSR, 1941).

*Fortunately, for him. You would not want to go through the British school system with that surname.

Daily Cycling Facts 20.05.2013

The Giro d'Italia started on this day six times: 1961, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1977 and 1978. Jacques Anquetil, who had become the first Frenchman to win a Giro the year before, went to the race as the favourite in 1961; but he faced stiff competition from Arnaldo Pambianco who had finished in 7th place at the 1960 Tour de France. He fought hard to leave him behind and took the General Classification leadership in Stage 10 but, somehow, Pambianco stayed with him all the way until Stage 14 - where the Italian dropped him on the Passo del Magulione. From that point onwards, the tables were turned and Anquetil never got a look in, taking second place after 21 stages and 4,002km with a 3'45" deficit on Pambianco's time of 111h25'28".

Anquetil was widely expected to win 1967, too; especially since Italy's best hope Felice Gimondi was racked with bronchitis on the start line - and the tifosi all but forgot their dreams as he failed to keep up with the high pace in the first few stages. Yet, he kept going and in time began to feel a little better, then won Stage 19. - although there had been such blatant, widespread cheating with fans pushing the Italian riders (including Gimondi) up the mountains that even the notoriously patriotic judges agreed they would have to disallow the results and annul the stage. Realising, perhaps, that he now had a serious rival, Anquetil pulled out all the stops the next day and took over the General Classification. Now, however, Gimondi was fully recovered and determined to win; with superhuman effort, he clawed his way to the top and took the leadership, then retained it to overall victory three stages later in Milan, 3,572km from the start line. For the first time that year, the leader of the Points competition was awarded a red jersey. It was a change that can be seen as symbolic of greater changes in cycling, because a new era was just beginning - both Anquetil and Gimondi couldn't fail to notice that two of the 23  stages and 9th place overall had gone to a rider who was taking part for the very first time that year, a young Belgian named Eddy Merckx.

Gösta Pettersson, the only Swede to
have won a Giro

Gimondi would play an instrumental part in the outcome of the 1971 - but not in the way he'd hoped. Looking to win Stage 18, he teamed up with Francisco Galdos, Herman can Springel and Gösta Pettersson to make a four-man break which successfully escaped the peloton and led the race to the finish line, where he won the stage. Unfortunately for him, the plan had worked better than he thought - they finished so quickly that Petterson moved into the General Classification lead, followed by van Springel in second place. So great was their unexpected advantage that they remained thus through to the end when, after 23 stages and 3,567km, Petterson became the first 9and at the time of writing, only) Swedish rider to win a Giro. Gimondi was 7th.

1977 saw the Belgian Freddy Maertens lead the General Classification for the first six stages and win seven in total, which some fans (especially Belgian ones) apparently considered a more impressive achievement than the overall victory - he'd almost certainly have won the Points competition as a result, but a crash 100m from the finish line in Stage 8b forced him to abandon. Francesco Moser was a favourite for the GC and his success seemed all but inevitable after he took the race leadership in Stage 5 and kept it until Stage 17, when Michel Pollentier (another Belgian) wrested it away from him. However, Italy didn't worry unduly: the 29km time trial at Binago (Stage 21) may as well have been specifically in order that Moser could thrash his rivals, so ideally did the parcours suit his skills. Everybody knew that he was going to win it by an enormous margin. Of course, irony stepped in at this point and saw to it that it was in fact Pollentier who won the stage, and the General Classification. One year later, Pollentier's reputation and career were in tatters after he became the second rider to be caught using a pipe connected to a condom containing somebody else's urine that he had hidden under his armpit, which allowed him to produce a sample of "clean" urine at the anti-doping control (he was caught through sheer bad luck, in fact: the rider just before him had an identical system, but it became blocked, possibly as a result of sabotage, and the doctor, having spotted the pipe as he fiddled with it, demanded that Pollentier pull up his jersey to see if he had one too), so we can probably assume that irony was not the only factor in his time trial win. It's perhaps not quite as unfair as it first seems, meanwhile - if Moser was riding clean that day, it was probably the only race of his professional career in which he did so.

Felice Gimondi was still racing in 1978, though it would be his final Giro - now 36 years old, his 11th place overall was very respectable. The Belgian Rik van Linden held the General Classification leadership through Stages 1 and 2, fighting off savage attacks from Francesco Moser and Giuseppe Saronni. However, in Stage 3 he lost it to another Belgian, Johan de Muynck, who then defended it all the way through the remaining 18 stages and finished the race with a time of 101h31'22" - 59" faster than second place Gianbattista Baronchelli.

Isaac Gálvez
Road and track cyclist Isaac Gálvez, who was born in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain on this day in 1975, was twice World Madison Champion(1999 and 2006) and won numerous stages in road races including the Volta a Catalunya and Critérium International.

During the Six Days of Ghent in 2006, Gálvez was involved in a collision with the Belgian rider Dimitri de Fauw which sent him into the railings, hitting them hard enough to suffer massive internal bleeding that killed him early the next day. He was 31 and had been married for three weeks. Following his death, de Fauw suffered deep depression and, three weeks before the second anniversary of the incident, committed suicide.

Chris Froome
Born in Nairobi, Kenya on this day in 1985, Chris Froome moved to South Africa as a teenager and became interested in mountain biking, then road racing and began to show talent as a climber and time trial rider which led to his selection for the Kenyan team at the 2006 World Championships (where he got himself known by colliding with a UCI course official). He turned professional with the South Africa-registered Team Konica Minolta a year later but was then invited to join Barloworld in 2008, racing with a British licence as his father was born in Britain. With them, he entered his first Tour de France in 2009 and came 84th overall but 12th in the Youth Classification, indication that he had great potential, then in 2009 he was 36th overall and 7th in the Youth at the Giro d'Italia. Froome was one of the first riders to be announced for the new Team Sky in 2009 - he is still with them at the time of writing.

Chris Froome

In the 2011 Vuelta a Espana, Froome was selected by the team to act as a domestique for Bradley Wiggins and did an admirable job in assisting his leader to 4th place in Stage 9. The next day, meanwhile, he completely out-rode Wiggins in the time trial, finishing the stage in 2nd place behind Tony Martin. Over the next few stages he was notably weaker and concentrated on his domestique duties until Stage 15, which featured an ascent of Alto de l'Angliru - a mountain so steep that in the past team cars have been unable to follow their riders to the summit. After Stage 10, he'd taken 2nd place in the General Classification; this time he was the second fastest up the mountain behind Juan José Cobo - and while he got to the top 48" after Cobo, it was good enough to keep his GC place. Stage 17 featured a summit finish on top of Peña Cabarga, a far less daunting climb than Angliru but a tough one nevertheless and one that Cobo was expected to win with ease. 1km from the finish line, Froome attacked - Cobo was on his case immediately and got in front of him with 300m to go, apparently securing the win. However, Froome hung on, refusing to let go of his rival's back wheel and then, when Cobo looked around to see if he'd shaken him off yet, he sneaked past on the other side and put the power down, winning the stage by 1". With the bonuses awarded, Cobo's overall lead was reduced to 13". By keeping himself out of danger and continuing to ride well in the next stages, he was able to keep 2nd place in the General Classification through to the end of the race four days later - and thus equalled Robert Millar's best ever finish by a British rider in a Grand Tour.

In 2012, 75 years after Charles Holland and Bill Burl had been the first British riders to take part, Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to win. Froome, who had won Stage 7 (one of seven stages won by British riders, more than any other nation), took second place with an overall time 3'21" slower, leading to an interesting situation: Wiggins is a remarkably talented all-rounder who can win a Grand Tour through his time trial abilities, but most Grand Tours are won not in time trials but in the mountains - and Froome appears to be a better climber than Wiggins. Who, then, would lead Sky at the 2013 Grand Tours? Wiggins was chosen to be team leader at the Giro, but a few weeks before Froome's birthday team managers seem not yet to have decided who will lead at the Tour.

Giovanni Gerbi
Giovanni Gerbi, winner of the first Giro di Lombardia, was born in Piedmont on this day in 1885. Always racing in a red jersey and his dare-devil attitude earned him the nickname Il Diavolo Rosso. Considered one of the pioneers of Italian competitive cycling, he bought his first bike in 1900 with money he'd earned doing odd jobs and that very same year finished his first three races in third place, then won his fourth - the 95km, now long-defunct Asti-Moncalieri. Realising he could make a living on the bike, he moved to Milan and began racing against the likes of Carlo Galetti, who would win the second and third editions of the Giro d'Italia, supporting himself by working as a baker until 1902 when he won the amateur Coppa del Re and received an invitation to turn professional with Maino.

After winning Milan-Turin in 1903, Gerbi entered the second ever Tour de France but was one of the many riders who failed to finish. He also rode the first Giro d'Italia in 1909, but abandoned after a crash in the early stages left with an insurmountable disadvantage. He entered again in 1920, but was disqualified for riding a bike with - of all things - a sidecar attached to it.

A few years after his retirement, Gerbi returned in veteran competition and continued winning races, including two editions of La Coppa Guerra, and set a veteran's hour record at the Vigorelli velodrome. According to legend, he was once mistaken during a race for the real devil by a priest.

Laurent Dufaux
Laurent Dufaux, born in Montreux, Switzerland on this day in 1969, became National Road Race Champion in 1991won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1993 and 1994, was twice fourth overall at the Tour de France (1996 and 1999, he was also ninth overall in 1997) and second overall at the 1996 Vuelta a Espana.

Noted as an excellent climber, Dufaux rode alongside Richard Virenque with Festina; the two men forming a highly-effective partnership in the high mountains of the Grand Tours. He doped alongside Virenque, too, but whereas Virenque first denied the charges and then tearfully blamed everyone and everything but himself, Dufaux had the good sense to know when the game was up and confessed to using EPO. As a result, Virenque's case span out for more than two years until he was eventually banned, fined and then had enormous difficulty in finding a team that would have anything to do with him (Domo-Farm Frites would, but only when Eddy Merckx promised to provide a big chunk of cash towards his keep), whereas Dufaux served a relatively light six-month suspension and was racing with Saeco early in the following season.


Katie Cullen, born in Edinburgh on this day in 1977, had no interest in cycling until she was assigned the task of producing a velodrome blueprint while she studied for her architecture degree. Visiting the example in Manchester to investigate which features a velodrome should have, she found that she was becoming fascinated  by the racing - and became hooked when she was given a chance to ride around the track. In 2005, she won the first of her four National Championship titles.

Other births: Marco van der Hulst (Netherlands, 1963); Michael Allen (USA, 1935); Armando Latini (Italy, 1913); Robert Karśnicki (Poland, 1972); Gintautas Umaras (USSR, 1963); Robert Bouloux (France*, 1947); Norman Webster (Canada, 1896, died 1967); Noé Medina (Ecuador, 1943); Andreas Walzer (Germany, 1970); René Bianchi (France, 1934); Wiesław Podobas (Poland, 1936); Armando Castillo (Guatemala, 1932, died 2006); Lado Fumic (West Germany, 1976); Imants Bodnieks (USSR, 1941).

*Fortunately, for him. You would not want to go through the British school system with that surname.

Daily Cycling Facts 20.05.2012

The Giro d'Italia started on this day six times: 1961, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1977 and 1978. Jacques Anquetil, who had become the first Frenchman to win a Giro the year before, went to the race as the favourite in 1961; but he faced stiff competition from Arnaldo Pambianco who had finished in 7th place at the 1960 Tour de France. He fought hard to leave him behind and took the General Classification leadership in Stage 10 but, somehow, Pambianco stayed with him all the way until Stage 14 - where the Italian dropped him on the Passo del Magulione. From that point onwards, the tables were turned and Anquetil never got a look in, taking second place after 21 stages and 4,002km with a 3'45" deficit on Pambianco's time of 111h25'28".

Anquetil was widely expected to win 1967, too; especially since Italy's best hope Felice Gimondi was racked with bronchitis on the start line - and the tifosi all but forgot their dreams as he failed to keep up with the high pace in the first few stages. Yet, he kept going and in time began to feel a little better, then won Stage 19. - although there had been such blatant, widespread cheating with fans pushing the Italian riders (including Gimondi) up the mountains that even the notoriously patriotic judges agreed they would have to disallow the results and annul the stage. Realising, perhaps, that he now had a serious rival, Anquetil pulled out all the stops the next day and took over the General Classification. Now, however, Gimondi was fully recovered and determined to win; with superhuman effort, he clawed his way to the top and took the leadership, then retained it to overall victory three stages later in Milan, 3,572km from the start line. For the first time that year, the leader of the Points competition was awarded a red jersey. It was a change that can be seen as symbolic of greater changes in cycling, because a new era was just beginning - both Anquetil and Gimondi couldn't fail to notice that two of the 23  stages and 9th place overall had gone to a rider who was taking part for the very first time that year, a young Belgian named Eddy Merckx.

Gösta Pettersson, the only Swede to
have won a Giro

Gimondi would play an instrumental part in the outcome of the 1971 - but not in the way he'd hoped. Looking to win Stage 18, he teamed up with Francisco Galdos, Herman can Springel and Gösta Pettersson to make a four-man break which successfully escaped the peloton and led the race to the finish line, where he won the stage. Unfortunately for him, the plan had worked better than he thought - they finished so quickly that Petterson moved into the General Classification lead, followed by van Springel in second place. So great was their unexpected advantage that they remained thus through to the end when, after 23 stages and 3,567km, Petterson became the first 9and at the time of writing, only) Swedish rider to win a Giro. Gimondi was 7th.

1977 saw the Belgian Freddy Maertens lead the General Classification for the first six stages and win seven in total, which some fans (especially Belgian ones) apparently considered a more impressive achievement than the overall victory - he'd almost certainly have won the Points competition as a result, but a crash 100m from the finish line in Stage 8b forced him to abandon. Francesco Moser was a favourite for the GC and his success seemed all but inevitable after he took the race leadership in Stage 5 and kept it until Stage 17, when Michel Pollentier (another Belgian) wrested it away from him. However, Italy didn't worry unduly: the 29km time trial at Binago (Stage 21) may as well have been specifically in order that Moser could thrash his rivals, so ideally did the parcours suit his skills. Everybody knew that he was going to win it by an enormous margin. Of course, irony stepped in at this point and saw to it that it was in fact Pollentier who won the stage, and the General Classification. One year later, Pollentier's reputation and career were in tatters after he became the second rider to be caught using a pipe connected to a condom containing somebody else's urine that he had hidden under his armpit, which allowed him to produce a sample of "clean" urine at the anti-doping control (he was caught through sheer bad luck, in fact: the rider just before him had an identical system, but it became blocked, possibly as a result of sabotage, and the doctor, having spotted the pipe as he fiddled with it, demanded that Pollentier pull up his jersey to see if he had one too), so we can probably assume that irony was not the only factor in his time trial win. It's perhaps not quite as unfair as it first seems, meanwhile - if Moser was riding clean that day, it was probably the only race of his professional career in which he did so.

Felice Gimondi was still racing in 1978, though it would be his final Giro - now 36 years old, his 11th place overall was very respectable. The Belgian Rik van Linden held the General Classification leadership through Stages 1 and 2, fighting off savage attacks from Francesco Moser and Giuseppe Saronni. However, in Stage 3 he lost it to another Belgian, Johan de Muynck, who then defended it all the way through the remaining 18 stages and finished the race with a time of 101h31'22" - 59" faster than second place Gianbattista Baronchelli.

Isaac Gálvez
Road and track cyclist Isaac Gálvez, who was born in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain on this day in 1975, was twice World Madison Champion(1999 and 2006) and won numerous stages in road races including the Volta a Catalunya and Critérium International.

During the Six Days of Ghent in 2006, Gálvez was involved in a collision with the Belgian rider Dimitri de Fauw which sent him into the railings, hitting them hard enough to suffer massive internal bleeding that killed him early the next day. He was 31 and had been married for three weeks. Following his death, de Fauw suffered deep depression and, three weeks before the second anniversary of the incident, committed suicide.

Chris Froome
Born in Nairobi, Kenya on this day in 1985, Chris Froome moved to South Africa as a teenager and became interested in mountain biking, then road racing and began to show talent as a climber and time trial rider which led to his selection for the Kenyan team at the 2006 World Championships (where he got himself known by colliding with a UCI course official). He turned professional with the South Africa-registered Team Konica Minolta a year later but was then invited to join Barloworld in 2008, racing with a British licence as his father was born in Britain. With them, he entered his first Tour de France in 2009 and came 84th overall but 12th in the Youth Classification, indication that he had great potential, then in 2009 he was 36th overall and 7th in the Youth at the Giro d'Italia. Froome was one of the first riders to be announced for the new Team Sky in 2009 - he is still with them at the time of writing.

Chris Froome

In the 2011 Vuelta a Espana, Froome was selected by the team to act as a domestique for Bradley Wiggins and did an admirable job in assisting his leader to 4th place in Stage 9. The next day, meanwhile, he completely out-rode Wiggins in the time trial, finishing the stage in 2nd place behind Tony Martin. Over the next few stages he was notably weaker and concentrated on his domestique duties until Stage 15, which featured an ascent of Alto de l'Angliru - a mountain so steep that in the past team cars have been unable to follow their riders to the summit. After Stage 10, he'd taken 2nd place in the General Classification; this time he was the second fastest up the mountain behind Juan José Cobo - and while he got to the top 48" after Cobo, it was good enough to keep his GC place. Stage 17 featured a summit finish on top of Peña Cabarga, a far less daunting climb than Angliru but a tough one nevertheless and one that Cobo was expected to win with ease. 1km from the finish line, Froome attacked - Cobo was on his case immediately and got in front of him with 300m to go, apparently securing the win. However, Froome hung on, refusing to let go of his rival's back wheel and then, when Cobo looked around to see if he'd shaken him off yet, he sneaked past on the other side and put the power down, winning the stage by 1". With the bonuses awarded, Cobo's overall lead was reduced to 13". By keeping himself out of danger and continuing to ride well in the next stages, he was able to keep 2nd place in the General Classification through to the end of the race four days later - and thus equalled Robert Millar's best ever finish by a British rider in a Grand Tour.

Giovanni Gerbi
Giovanni Gerbi, winner of the first Giro di Lombardia, was born in Piedmont on this day in 1885. Always racing in a red jersey and his dare-devil attitude earned him the nickname Il Diavolo Rosso. Considered one of the pioneers of Italian competitive cycling, he bought his first bike in 1900 with money he'd earned doing odd jobs and that very same year finished his first three races in third place, then won his fourth - the 95km, now long-defunct Asti-Moncalieri. Realising he could make a living on the bike, he moved to Milan and began racing against the likes of Carlo Galetti, who would win the second and third editions of the Giro d'Italia, supporting himself by working as a baker until 1902 when he won the amateur Coppa del Re and received an invitation to turn professional with Maino.

After winning Milan-Turin in 1903, Gerbi entered the second ever Tour de France but was one of the many riders who failed to finish. He also rode the first Giro d'Italia in 1909, but abandoned after a crash in the early stages left with an insurmountable disadvantage. He entered again in 1920, but was disqualified for riding a bike with - of all things - a sidecar attached to it.

A few years after his retirement, Gerbi returned in veteran competition and continued winning races, including two editions of La Coppa Guerra, and set a veteran's hour record at the Vigorelli velodrome. According to legend, he was once mistaken during a race for the real devil by a priest.

Laurent Dufaux
Laurent Dufaux, born in Montreux, Switzerland on this day in 1969, became National Road Race Champion in 1991won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1993 and 1994, was twice fourth overall at the Tour de France (1996 and 1999, he was also ninth overall in 1997) and second overall at the 1996 Vuelta a Espana.

Noted as an excellent climber, Dufaux rode alongside Richard Virenque with Festina; the two men forming a highly-effective partnership in the high mountains of the Grand Tours. He doped alongside Virenque, too, but whereas Virenque first denied the charges and then tearfully blamed everyone and everything but himself, Dufaux had the good sense to know when the game was up and confessed to using EPO. As a result, Virenque's case span out for more than two years until he was eventually banned, fined and then had enormous difficulty in finding a team that would have anything to do with him (Domo-Farm Frites would, but only when Eddy Merckx promised to provide a big chunk of cash towards his keep), whereas Dufaux served a relatively light six-month suspension and was racing with Saeco early in the following season.


Katie Cullen, born in Edinburgh on this day in 1977, had no interest in cycling until she was assigned the task of producing a velodrome blueprint while she studied for her architecture degree. Visiting the example in Manchester to investigate which features a velodrome should have, she found that she was becoming fascinated  by the racing - and became hooked when she was given a chance to ride around the track. In 2005, she won the first of her four National Championship titles.

Other births: Marco van der Hulst (Netherlands, 1963); Michael Allen (USA, 1935); Armando Latini (Italy, 1913); Robert Karśnicki (Poland, 1972); Gintautas Umaras (USSR, 1963); Robert Bouloux (France*, 1947); Norman Webster (Canada, 1896, died 1967); Noé Medina (Ecuador, 1943); Andreas Walzer (Germany, 1970); René Bianchi (France, 1934); Wiesław Podobas (Poland, 1936); Armando Castillo (Guatemala, 1932, died 2006); Lado Fumic (West Germany, 1976); Imants Bodnieks (USSR, 1941).

*Fortunately, for him. You would not want to go through the British school system with that surname.

Cycling Evening News 25.04.12

Tour de Romandie - Tour of Turkey - Van Dijk wins Gracia prologue - Froome still has bilharzia - Minougou Noufou triumphs in Tour of Togo - 2012 Tour de Pologne biggest ever - Maxifuel partners Tour of Britain - Another blow for women's cycling as Tour du Languedoc-Roussilon cancelled - Kathryn Bertine on racing - Korean stage cancelled - Bus driver who forced student off road may face action - Manchester to benefit from "bike hub" - Geraint Thomas, ambassador for dubious alternative medicine gadget - Newswire

Racing
Tour de Romandie

If Wiggo does at the Tour de France
what he did today...

Stage 1 saw the riders ace a 184.5km parcours beginning at Morges, flat for the initial 70km and then swinging  sharply upwards for a climb to Rochefort at 750m above sea level before reaching Category 2 Les Bugnenets after 90km (1,116m), Cat 2 Haut de la Cote at 156km (1,035m) and Cat 3 Le Communal de la Sagne at 171km (1,158m). Sky's Geraint Thomas set out in the yellow jersey after achieving the best time of 3'29" for the prologue time trial, but did so with a lead insufficient to guarantee he'd keep it at the end of the stage; especially as - with a flat final section on the way to the finish line at La Chaux-de-Fonds, this one looked like being a day for the sprinters.

It wasn't, however, because Sky's Bradley Wiggins (with a little help from the weather, to be fair, because the sprinters won't have enjoyed the wind) decided today was the day he was going to show the world what he plans to do in the Tour de France - and if he does there what he did today, British cycling might just get the winner they've been hoping for ever since Tom Simpson died in the witches' cauldron of Mont Ventoux. Mark Cavendish, who on paper looked to be the team's best hope today, once again came off worse in a battle with a climb and was irretrievably dropped 30km from the finish line on the Haut de la Cote, as was team mate Geraint Thomas, leaving Sky's chances looking distinctly shaky when as the race entered the final 20km.

When Wiggins got into mechanical difficulties and had to be helped back to the front, it looked like it was all over - but Wiggins has the one ability that sets the greatest all-rounders apart from the rest, and that's the power of speedy recovery. Entering the final sprint, he found an untapped reserve of strength and literally catapulted himself past the bunch to cross the line solo with a lead of seven seconds; and while there will be those who rapidly point out that it was a sprint free of the real Points competition specialists (they're right, and Wiggo will be under no illusions that had the weather have been more to their liking this stage would not have been his) it remains a very impressive win.

Team mate Michael Rogers took second place, Rabobank's Bauke Mollema and Stef Clements were two seconds behind Rogers. The rest? Er - who?

Top Ten
  1.  Bradley Wiggins Sky 4h53'51"
  2.  Michael Rogers Sky +7"
  3.  Bauke Mollema Rabobank +9"
  4.  Stef Clement Rabobank ST
  5.  Andrew Talansky Garmin-Barracuda 0+11"
  6.  Wilco Kelderman Rabobank ST
  7.  David Zabriskie Garmin-Barracuda +12"
  8.  Simon Spilak Katusha ST
  9.  Ruben Plaza Molina Movistar ST
  10.  Tiago Machado RadioShack-Nissan +13" 
  Denis Menchov (Katusha) and Sergey Lagutin (Vacansoleil-DCM) did not finish. (Full results and GC)

Tomorrow, the race moves over the border and into France to start at Montbéliard (with a castle that should not be missed), then covers 134.6km across Cat 3 Bourrignon (876m), Cat 2 Les Ecorcheresseses (920m) and and Cat 2 La Caquerelle/Col del Rangieres (856m) before ending with a 14.5km uphill drag to Moutier in the Swiss Jura.

Tour of Turkey
Stage 4 pitted the riders against one another on  parcours along the craggy south-western coast of Muğla Province. As a complete contrast to Stage 2's 1,850m ascent of the Göğübeli Mountain Pass, the highest climb, located at Göcek, was only 300m - Göcek, according to legend, is the place that Icaraus fell into the sea and drowned after flying too close to the sun; with a steady gradient of 10% this climb, though not high, is equally capable of ending the dreams of inexperienced would-be high-flyers. No fewer than seven similarly steep climbs of varying length were spaced evenly across the 132km route with the second biggest of the day, rising to around 260m, coming in the last 20km before a steep descent and arrival at Marmaris an the finish.

Mark Renshaw

Mark Renshaw proved that Rabobank knew exactly what they were doing when they signed him up for 2012, despite the nay-sayers who claimed he was no good for anything other leading out Mark Cavendish, crossing the line with a lead no greater than a spoke's thickness ahead of fellow Australian Matthew Goss (GreenEDGE) - and since Goss is one of the fastest sprinters of the current crop, it was a victory that leaves no doubt that Renshaw has more than one string to his bow.

Top Ten
  1.  Mark Renshaw Rabobank 3h14'01"
  2.  Matthew Goss GreenEDGE ST
  3.  Daniele Colli Team Type 1-Sanofi ST
  4.  Boy Van Poppel UnitedHealthcare Presented By Maxxis ST
  5.  Davide Vigano Lampre_ISD ST
  6.  Alexey Tsatevitch Katusha ST
  7.  Florian Vachon Bretagne Schuller ST
  8.  James Vanlandschoot Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda’s ST
  9.  Lucas Sebastian Haedo SaxoBank ST
  10.  Sébastien Turgot Europcar ST
Coen Vermeltfoort (Rabobank), Michael Schwarzmann (NetApp) and Javier Francisco Aramendia Lorente (Caja Rural) did not finish. Muhammet Atalay (Konya Torku Sekersport) did not start. (Full results and GC)

Stage 5 begins at Marmaris, heads across country and then continues along the coastline before heading north across the Bodrum peninsula to the medieval city of Beçin where the riders turn west to Turgutreis. The 177.8km parcours features numerous steep climbs right from the start, rising to 400m at the highest point.

Brits do well in Gracia Orlova as Van Dijk wins prologue

Ellen van Dijk, now with Specialized-Lululemon

The Gracia Orlova began with a 2.2km individual time trial in the Czech city Havířov; the long straight off the start line leading into a short twisty section with a fairly steep climb before a lightning-fast straight back the way the riders came apparently suiting Specialized-Lululemon's Ellen van Dijk very well indeed as she blazed around the course to finish in 2'47". Team mate Trixi Worrack finished only a second slower while GreenEDGE's Melissa Hoskings was 3" down.

It proved a good day for the British riders, too, with Laura Trott (Ibis) taking fourth place, also +3", followed by Katie Colclough (Specialized-Lululemon) in fifth at +5". Sharon Laws (AA Drink-Leontien.nl was 13th with +10" and Laura's older sister Emma Trott (Dolmans-Boels) was 18th, also +10".

Top Ten
  1.  Ellen Van Dijk Specialized-Lululemon 2'47"
  2.  Trixi Worrack Specialized-Lululemon +1"
  3.  Melissa Hoskins GreenEDGE +3"
  4.  Evelyn Stevens Specialized-Lululemon ST
  5.  Laura Trott Ibis ST
  6.  Katie Colclough Specialized-Lululemon +5"
  7.  Marijn De Vries AA Drink-Leontien.nl +7"
  8.  Alexandra Burchenkova S.C. Michela Fanini Rox +8"
  9.  Laura Van Der Kamp Dolmans-Boels ST
  10.  Isabelle Soderberg AA Drink-Leontien.nl +9" (Full results when available)

Froome still has bilharzia
Team Sky's Chris Froome is still suffering from bilharzia, the tropical disease that affected his 2011 season and from he thought he'd recovered. Also known as schistosomiasis, the condition is caused by a parasitic trematode worm that enters the body usually via contact with infected water inhabited by snails that carry the parasite. Symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, fatigue, genital lesions and a high white blood cell count as the worms feed on red cells while in the liver.

A chest infection that lasted longer than expected prevented Froome from taking part in Paris-Nice this year. On his website, the rider says that tests "revealed active bilharzia parasites in my system, which I have been trying to get rid of for the past 18 months. This would explain why the chest infection affected me so severely and it took me so long to get over.”

Minougou Noufou triumphs in Tour of Togo
Minougou Noufou won the 21st International Tour of Togo yesterday (Tuesday) after leading the General Classification since the second stage, while his Burkina Faso squad won the Teams Category against competitors from Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, France, Nigeria and Togo. It's the third Togo victory for the 24-year-old rider as he also won in 2010 and 2011.

Biggest Tour de Pologne ever
25 teams will take part in this year's Tour de Pologne - the most in the 84 year history of the race, which was held sporadically after 1928 before becoming an annual event in 1952.

The race has been scheduled three weeks earlier than its usual late July/early August start this year to avoid clashes with the Olympics. All 18 ProTour teams - Ag2r-La Mondiale, Astana, BMC, Euskaltel-Euskadi, FDJ-BigMat, Garmin-Barracuda, GreenEDGE, Katusha, Lampre-ISD, Liquigas-Cannondale, Lotto-Belisol, Movistar, Omega Pharma-QuickStep, Rabobank, RadioShack-Nissan, Sk, Team SaxoBank and Vacansoleil-DCM - will attend, as will wildcards the Polish National team, Argos-Shimano, Caja Rural, Colnago-CSF Inox, Farnese Vini-Selle Italia, Team Type1-Sanofi and Utensilnord Named.

Originally oganised as an amateur event and entered chiefly by Polish riders, the Tour has attracted an international field ever since 1993 when it was opened up to professionals and has grown into one of Europe's most anticipated stage races, becoming part of the UCI's ProTour in 2005 with results counted towards the World Ranking since 2009.

"We received many inquiries about the possibility of taking part in this year's Tour of Poland. We're very happy about this, because it shows that the race is growing every year," says race director Czeslaw Lang.

Maxifuel partners Tour of Britain
Maxifuel - "the UK’s preferred endurance brand from sport nutrition experts Maxinutrition," according to the official press release (I rely on tea and cakes personally, but there you have it) - has announced that it will be the new sports nutrition partner to the Tour of Britain and the Halfords Tour Series. Financial details have not been revealed, but the manufacturer "will provide amateur riders with individually-tailored nutritional support to complement their lifestyle, training and racing schedules as well as support professional participants and race enthusiasts through sampling opportunities at the various events."

"I’d like to welcome Maxifuel to The Tour family of events, and we look forward to working together in what is a very important year for British sport," says Tour director Mick Bennet. "I am sure spectators and our Tour Ride participants will be looking forward to exploring Maxifuel’s range of products with the aim of helping them to improve their performance."

Other News
The 2012 Women's Tour du Languedoc-Roussilon has been cancelled, further evidence that while the UCI are busily slapping each other's blue-blazered backs over the financial health of men's cycling the women's sport continues to suffer.

"That's bike racing? Really?" (Kathryn Bertine on racing and the Energiwacht Tour, ESPN-W)

Stage 4 at the Tour of Korea was cancelled today (Wednesday) due to torrential rainstorms. Organisers issued a press release shortly after the announcement, stating the following: "Due to adverse weather conditions, Tour de Korea race officials made the difficult decision to cancel today’s fourth stage from Yeosu to Geochang shortly after the race left the neutralized zone."

Cycling
Bus forces Leicester cyclist off the road
A Leicester student, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he was cycling on the city's Belvoir Street when a bus overtook him at a narrow "traffic calming" point and forced him onto the pavement - and the driver then stopped the vehicle, got out and started shouting at him for riding in the middle of the road.

The incident was captured on the rider's helmet-mounted camera and the driver could now face disciplinary action.

Manchester to benefit from "bike hub"
Manchester is to spend part of a £4.9 million grant awarded to promote sustainable transport on the construction of a 200-space "bike hub" in the basement of the city's Piccadilly Gardens - the first of thirteen planned bike hubs throughout the city.

The facility will be accessible to cyclists who pay for a smart card and will include secure cycle parking, a changing area and a bike shop which will also offer repairs - and it could be open as early as this summer. (more from the Manchester Evening News)

Geraint Thomas, Bioflow ambassador

Geraint Thomas, star cyclist and hippy

Sky and Team GB's Welsh star Geraint Thomas says he's "delighted to be teaming up with Bioflow and joining their stable of elite athletes" and adds, "I wore my Bioflow Sport wristband for the first time when I was out in Melbourne and we broke the World record and won gold! I‟m looking forward to enjoying more success with them as well as the long-term benefits Bioflow's magnotherapy technology has to offer."

Magnotherapy, for those who remain ignorant of its supposed benefits, is a pseudoscientific "alternative medicine." Practitioners claim a range of desirable effects including pain relief and even cancer management, but there is no reliable, peer-reviewed scientific evidence that it has any effect whatsoever - which is why most countries ban practitioners from calling it medicine.

Newswire
Britain: Halfords, Britain's biggest bike retailer, has announced a 5.7% increase in sales of bikes and bike accessories during the final quarter of the last financial year. Meanwhile, overall sales - which includes car parts and motoring accessories - fell by 2.7%. (More from Bike Europe)

Britain: Revealed: the country’s worst roads for cyclists (The Times)

Britain: Don Maclean (34) from Liverpool is to be part of a team of 8 wounded personnel who will compete in the 3,051 mile cycle Race Across America (RAAM) this June (Click Liverpool)

Pakistan: Punjab University dominate second day at Women's Cycling Championship (Daily Times)

Tibet: Explore Tibet, a sustainable Tibetan-run travel company based in Lhasa, introduces a 20-day cycling and camping tour across the most scenic landscape in the world (SFGate)

USA: National and international professional cycling returns to St. Louis May 11-13 with the Missouri Professional Cycling Series (West End Word)

USA: Share the road with cyclists (Times-Standard)