Daily Cycling Facts 02.2014

Pascale Jeuland

Jeuland (dark blue) and Giorgia Bronzini

Pascale Jeuland, born in Rennes on this day in 1987, is one of France's best-known female road and track cyclists and has spent her entire professional career to date with the Vienne Futurscope team (renamed Poitou-Charentes.Futuroscope.86 in 2014). Her first notable successes came in 2004 when she won the National Junior Pursuit Championship, then retained it and added the Points the following year, a well as winning two silver medals and a bronze at the European Championships. In 2006, she moved up into the Elite class and won bronze for the 500m and silver for the pursuit at the Nationals.

In 2007, Jeuland became Elite National Points Champion, a title she won again in 2008 and 2009, and made her first mark in road racing with second place in the Calan criterium (won by team mate and older sister Nathalie). A silver medal in the Under-23 European Championships and third place in the Gran Prix de France International Féminin road race came in 2008, then gold at the National Pursuit  and World Scatch Championships in 2010 along with good results at the Tour of Qatar and GP Ciudad de Valladolid. In 2011, she concentrated on track but was 6th at Tielt-Winge, beating Amy Pieters, Liesbet de Vocht, Elisa Longo Borghini and several other names from the very top level of women's cycling, and in 2012 she took second place at the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire when she beat Emilie Moberg, Maaike Polspoel and 31 others in a final sprint.

In 2013 and 2014, Jeuland has concentrated on road racing. She was tenth on Stage 4 at the Tour of Qatar, ninth on Stage 1 and eighth on Stage 3 at the Tour of Chongming Island, fifth on Stages 3 and 4 and then fourth on Stage 5 and tenth on Stage 6 at the Route de France in 2013; then sixth on Stage 1 and seventh on Stage 4 at the Tour of Qatar in 2014.

Tyler Farrar
Born in Wenatchee, USA on this day in 1984, Tyler Farrar began racing at the age of 13 and showed enormous potential whilst still a young amateur, winning the Junior National Championship titles for Individual Pursuit, Team Pursuit and Olympic Sprint, the Tour L-Abitibi (along with Stage 4) and the Three Days of Axel in 2002. Unsurprisingly, these victories showed up on team radar and he turned professional with Jelly Belly for 2003, repaying them by winning the Four Bridges of Albin and a Madison world cup qualification round.

Tyler Farrar, 2011

In 2004, he signed to HealthNet-Maxxis and won Stage 7 at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race designed to reveal young riders who have may have the potential to distinguish themselves in the Grand Tours - which he confirmed when he won Stage 2 the next year, also becoming National Criterium Champion and earning an invitation to move up a gear and ride with Cofidis. As is often the case when a rider makes the jump to the top level (Cofidis, since relegated to Pro Continental status, were then a Pro Tour team), his first year with them was quiet and passed without wins while he concentrated on upping his performance; then in 2007 he won a stage at the GP CTT Correios de Portugal before leaving for Slipstream-Chipotle, the team that would become Garmin-Barracuda and where he remains to the present day.

With Garmin, Farrar has developed from a promising hopeful to one of the most successful sprinters of his generation with a number of Grand Tour stage wins and excellent results in other races to his name. The first of those came in 2009 when he won the Vattenfall Cyclassics, Stages 1, 2 and 4 at the Eneco Tour, Stage 3 at Tirreno-Adriatico, Stages 1, 2 and the Points competition at the Circuit Franco-Belge, the prologue, Points competition, Young Rider category and General Classification at the Delta Tour Zeeland, six top five finishes at the Tour de France and - the icing on a very satisfactory cake - Stage 11 at the Vuelta a Espana. 2010 brought more Grand Tour victories - this time, he added first place for Stages 5 and 21 at the Vuelta to the Stages 2 and 10 he'd won at the Giro d'Italia earlier in the year, as well as revealing himself to have what it takes for the Classics when he was fifth in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. In 2011, Farrar decided to join Leopard Trek in withdrawing from the Giro following the death of his friend Wouter Weylandt. Later, Garmin won the Stage 2 team time trial at the Tour, then he won Stage 3 as well before adding three more top five places.

Farrar in 2008

There is little doubt that, had Farrar have been born in any other era, he'd almost certainly have been hailed as the fastest man in the peloton and would have dominated sprint finishes - however, his career has coincided with that of Mark Cavendish, perhaps the only man in the history of cycling with an ability to consistently sprint ever faster. It's little surprise, then, that the two have not always seen eye-to-eye - after Stage 15 at the 2011 Tour, Farrar seemed dubious (in front of US TV news cameras) if Cav's powers of recovery might be down to something other than natural talent, but later said "I should have kept my mouth shut."

In 2012, Farrar was second at Scheldeprijs - another excellent Flanders Classic result that, combined with his friendship with and respect for Weylandt, his fluent Dutch and decision to make his home in Ghent has won him the love of the Flemish fans. He won Stage 4 at the Tour of California in 2013 and managed four top five places at the Vuelta a Espana, including second place on Stage 21, but was 124th overall due to his typical sprinter tendency to suffer in the mountains, but later in the season won Stage 3 and was third overall at the Circuit Franco-Belge. In 2014 he further delighted his Belgian fans with second place at the Dwars door Vlaanderen, eighth at the E3 Harelbeke and second at Scheldeprijs, then went to the Giro d'Italia where, at the time of writing, he had managed four top ten finishes. The race would finish the day before his birthday.

Early days with Vibor

Roberto Visentini
Born in Gardone Rivera on this day in 1957, made it clear while he was still a teenager that he was going to be a great cyclist when he  won the Junior National and World Championships in 1975. Two years later, he was third overall at the Tour de l'Avenir, and the year after that - his first as a professional, riding for Vibor - he took second place for three stages and was 15th overall at the Giro d'Italia, which also earned him the Young Rider victory.

In 1979, having moved onto the CBM Fast team that would last just one season Visentini was 10th overall at the Giro and won the Elite National Pursuit Championship on the track, then in 1980 he was 9th at the Giro and won the Prologue and Stage 16 at the Vuelta a Espana and a year later upped his Giro performance to 6th, making it apparent that, sooner or later, he was probably going to win a Grand Tour - as would have been the case in 1983 had Giuseppe Saronni not pulled out all the stops and ridden the race of his life to take first. In 1984, he won another stage at the Giro, then abandoned so as not to ruin his chances in his first Tour de France, where he seemed to find himself out of his depth, finishing Stage 7 in 7th place and snatching a handful of other good placings, but in general finishing outside the top 50 before abandoning in Stage 14. The 1985 Giro got off to a better start with second place in the Prologue, but then fell ill and abandoned: a crushing blow, as he had promised the tifosi he'd win - but less crushing than the defeat he'd almost certainly have suffered at the hands of Bernard Hinault, who won. Later that year, he once again found that the Tour operates on an entirely different level to all other races and could only manage 49th overall.

1986 was his year. The competition at the Giro was tough, with Saronni, Francesco Moser and Greg Lemond all in absolute peak physical condition, each of them also displaying that mysterious related-yet-other quality excellent form too - especially Lemond, who had come second at the Tour the previous year and was the easy favourite to win this race. Luck was on Visentini's side, however; Lemond and Moser lost time in crashes and, while Saronni took the lead in Stage 6 and kept it to Stage 15, gradually things came together for Visentini and he crept up the leadership tables, then donned the maglia rosa for Stage 16. From that point onwards, he rode intelligently and without unnecessary risk, making sure he retained a sufficient lead to not lose everything in the Stage 18 individual time trial where he knew Moser would beat him.

Visentini in 1987, the year of the infamous
Marmalade Massacre

Visentini might have won a second Giro in 1987, had he not have become involved in a clash of personalities with team mate Stephen Roche - a clash that led to one of the most notorious incidents in the history of professional cycling, the Marmalade Massacre. Visentini arrived at the race with every intention of winning and looked more than capable of doing so in the Prologue and Stage 1a, but Roche beat him the Stage 1b individual time trial and then took the leadership when their Carrera Jeans-Vagabond won the Stage 3 team time trial. In Stage 13, by which time Visentini was again in the lead, Roche was ordered to ride for him by team management, but chose to ignore it. Instead, he attacked his leader throughout the stage, the savage onslaught regaining him the GC leadership.

Roche incurred the wrath of the tifosi for ever more, but earned the eternal friendship of many others - especially as he'd pulled off the Massacre with virtually no support, Eddy Schepers being the only team member who took his side against Visentini. Instead, he enlisted the aid of old friends Millar and Phil Anderson (both with Panasonic-Isostar, but with whom he had ridden when the trio were first trying to break into European cycling with the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt). Millar and Anderson broke ranks and joined forces with Schepers, then encircled Roche on the ascent of Marmaloda, protecting him from attacks and ensuring that he finished with a time sufficient to guarantee his victory. A few days later, Visentini crashed. His injuries were not major, but with his spirit crushed he abandoned the race


Michał Kwiatkowski
Born in Poland on this day in 1990, Michal Kwiatkowski turned professional in 2009 for MG Kvis-Norda Pacific after winning the European Junior TT Championship in 2008, then joined Caja Rural for 2010 (and was third place overall at the 2010 Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen) before he made his way into the upper echelons with RadioShack in 2011. At the end of that season, he was one of the riders whose contracts were not renewed to make room for those from Leopard Trek when the two teams merged to form RadioShack-Nissan and he moved on to Omega Pharma-QuickStep.

Kwiatkowski won the prologue at the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen in 2011 and again in 2012, when he also finished 10th on Stage 6 at the Giro d'Italia before taking a string of impressive second place results at home in Poland - in the National Individual Time Trial Championship and on Stage 2 (along with fourth on Stage 3, sixth on Stage 5 and third on Stage 6), in the General Classification and in the Points Competition at the Tour of Poland. In 2013, Kwiatkowski was second at the Volta ao Algarve and fourth overall at Tirreno-Adriatico, then enjoyed considerable success in the Spring Classics with fourth place in the Amstel Gold Race and fifth in the Flèche Wallonne before coming second at the National Individual Time Trial Championship and winning the National Road Race Championship. At the Tour de France he was third on Stage 2, fourth on Stage 3 and second on Stage 4, then fourth on Stage 7, third on Stage 9, fifth on Stage 11 and seventh on Stage 17 - he was 11th overall and third in the Youth category after losing time in the brutal, mountainous third week to the Colombian pure climber Nairo Quintana and the American all-rounder Andrew Talansky; a stunning result for a rider in his first Tour. Late in the season, his team won the World Team Time Trial Championship.

In 2014, he won the Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana and dominated the Volta ao Algarve when he won Stages 2 and 3 and the General Classification. He also won Strade Bianche, a race that partially takes place on rough gravel tracks and has become known as Italy's answer to the infamously dangerous Paris-Roubaix, then won the Points competition and was second overall after four third place finishes at the Tour of the Basque Country, was fifth at the Amsteal Gold Race, third at the Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège and won the Prologue at the Tour de Romandie.

Now 24, Kwiatkowski is a very talented all-rounder who, unusually, can hold his own in the mountains as well as in the sprints - a combination that in the future might very well see him win a Grand Tour.


Kurt Hovelijnck, born in Eeklo, Belgium on this day in 1981, achieved numerous good results in races at home and in France between 1999 and 2007, when he took third place in Stage 6 at the Tour of Britain. 2008 and 2009 were quieter, then his career was nearly brought to an end when his rear wheel collapsed during a training run and left him critically ill with a fractured skull. Fortunately, he made a full recovery and returned to racing the following year; then once again began achieving excellent results.

Daily Cycling Facts 21.05.2014

The Giro d'Italia began on this date six times - in 1919, 1949, 1954, 1972, 1976 and 1987. 1919 covered 2,984km in ten stages and saw an example of one of the greatest dominations by a single rider over any Grand Tour - Costante Girardengo led the General Classification throughout and won seven stages. Oscar Egg became the first Swiss rider to win a stage, the Belgian Marcel Buysse became the first non-Italian to stand on the podium when he took third place overall and Gaetano Belloni won a stage for the first time (Belloni would become known as Eterno Secondo, the implication being that he'd never beat Girardengo. However, he seems to have been happy enough with the races he did win - including the 1920 Giro, three editions of the Giro di Lombardia and a Milan-San Remo - and the two men were close friends). It was the first edition of the race since the First World War and was used to make a political point when it visited Trieste and Trento, annexed by Italy from the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it collapsed at the end of the conflict.

1949 brought Fausto Coppi's third win and saw him hammer home his status as the new master of Italian cycling when he score a spectacular victory after an extremely difficult Stage 17 that included Maddalena Pass, the Col de Vars, the Col d'Izoard, the Col de Montgenèvre and Sestriere - having escaped the peloton, he rode on alone over the mountains and finished the stage with an 11'52" lead on Gino Bartali. At the end of the race, after 19 stages and 4,088km, Coppi's advantage over his aging rival was 23'47". A new era, represented by Coppi, had begun when he won his first Giro back in 1940. Now the preceding one, represented by Bartali, finally came to an end.

Carlo Clerici

There seems to be some confusion as to how long it actually was (4,331, 4,337 and 4,396km are all commonly given figures), but 1954 is likely to forever be remembered as the longest edition ever - like the other Grand Tours, the trend for many years has been for total distance to equal around 3,500km. The surprise winner was the Swiss Carlo Clerici, who made full use of a serious tactical error by the favourites which allowed him and the Italian Nino Assirelli to finish Stage 6 with a 25' advantage, then the race with 24'16" over his nearest rival. "They never should have been allowed such a lead," said Fausto Coppi. "But, after that stage, the race was over." Assirelli soon tired and couldn't keep up with Clerici, finishing 26'28" behind him - still good enough for third and,more impressively, one place up on Coppi. Another Swiss, Hugo Koblet, was 2'12" faster than Assirelli; completing the parcours in 129h37'23" - had it not have been for Clerici's good fortune, it's probably safe to assume Koblet would have won a third Grand Tour.

Having stayed out of the 1971 edition as he concentrated on winning a third Tour de France, Eddy Merckx came back in 1972 and, being Eddy Merckx, thrashed the competition. Marino Basso started off with the General Classification leadership and held it for the first two stages, then passed it on to Ugo Colombo for Stage 3 before José Manuel Fuente took it for the next four stages. In Stage 7, Merckx joined forces with the previous year's winner Gösta Pettersson, who apparently had no illusions that he could beat Merckx and was happy to take the stage win - a rather uncharacteristic gesture of gratitude by The Cannibal. From that point onwards, the race was as good as won: Fuente attacked again and again and on every single climb but he couldn't even dent the surpremacy of Merckx, who led all the way to the end and finished the 23 stages (two split) and 3,725km with a 5'30" advantage.

1976 saw another record; set by the Spaniard Antonio Menendez Gonzalez, a lowly domestique riding with KAS-Campagnolo, broke away from the peloton the moment Stage 11 got underway in Terni and then rode solo all the way to victory in Gabbice Mare 222km away - the longest solo break in the history of the race. Whilst the middle of the race was dominated by Felice Gimondi, GC leader between Stages 8 and18, the final part broke down into a nervous duel between him and the Belgian Johan de Muynck who had taken the lead in Stage 19 and kept it until Gimondi got the better of him in Stage 22a, a 28km individual time trial and a discipline in which the Italian easily outclassed the Belgian. The race included 24 stages (two split) and covered 4,161km, Gimondi's winning time being 119h58'15" and de Muynck's 19" slower.

Giro 1987 - the Marmalade Massacre
1987 was a superb year from a Celtic point of view: Stephen Roche became the first (and to date, only) Irishman to win a Giro when he finished the 24 stages and 3,915km in 105h39'42" (he'd also win the Tour de France that year, then the World Championships; making him one of only two men to have won the fabled Triple Crown - cycling's most prestigious and entirely unofficial prize, for which there is no trophy) and the Scotsman Robert Millar was second - for many years, the best ever Grand Tour result by a British rider until Chris Froome equalled it at the 2011 Vuelta a Espana.

Stephen Roche

It was the year of one of the most vicious battles in the history of the race - the one that broke out between team mates Roche and Roberto Visentini, the 1986 winner and team leader.  Visentini arrived at the race with every intention of taking a second victory and looked more than capable of doing so in the Prologue and Stage 1a, but Roche beat him the Stage 1b individual time trial and then took the leadership when their Carrera Jeans-Vagabond won the Stage 3 team time trial. In Stage 13, by which time Visentini was again in the lead, Roche ignored an order from team management and attacked his leader to win back the GC.

He incurred the wrath of the tifosi for ever more, but earned the eternal friendship of many others - especially as he'd done so with virtually no support, Eddy Schepers being the only team member whom he could trust. Instead, he enlisted the aid of old friends Millar and Phil Anderson (both with Panasonic-Isostar, but with whom he had ridden when the trio were first trying to break into European cycling with the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt. Schepers, Millar and Anderson broke ranks and encircled Roche on the ascent of Marmaloda, protecting him from attacks and ensuring that he finished with a time sufficient to guarantee his victory. The event, one of the most remarkable in Giro history, has become known as the Marmalade Massacre.

Mark Cavendish

Born in Douglas on the Isle of Man on this day in 1925, Mark Cavendish fell in love with cycling during childhood and immediately became involved racing - though by his own admission, BMX was not his area of excellence: "I was always riding a bike, getting dropped in little races," he says. After badgering his parents, he got a mountain bike for his 13th birthday and the next day was unable to find anyone capable of beating him.

As a young teenager Cav met David Millar who was then the great hope of British cycling, in the years before his arrest, disgrace and eventual rise to become one of the peloton's most trusted elder statesmen. Millar inspired him, bringing him to a realisation that if he trained hard enough his juvenile talent might prove to be the foundation upon which a professional cycling career could be built. When he left school, he found a job in a bank and stuck it out for two years, saving the money he knew he'd need in the future.

With his naturally compact yet powerful physique, Cav soon found a contract with the British Cycling Track Team and frequently rode Madisons with Rob Hayles; the two of them winning gold at the UCI World Championships in 2005, the same year that Cav became European Points Race Champion. Both would prove relatively unimportant when compared to a pivotal decision he made that year, however - to start road racing, which he did with Sparkasse at the Tours of Berlin and Britain. In 2006, Cav started to get fast. Seriously, blisteringly fast, as he proved when he won two stages and the Points competition at the Tour of Berlin and lapped Ashley Hutchinson, James McCallum and his old mate Rob Hayles at the Commonwealth Games. Sparkasse acted as a feeder squad for the legendary T-Mobile team and he was offered a trainee contract with them in August, which he accepted before going on to win the Points competition at the Tour of Britain - in 2007, he was a fully-professional member of the team and repaid the gesture by winning the Scheldeprijs Classic.

2008 was his real breakthrough year. In addition to winning the World Madison Championship with Bradley Wiggins, Cav won his first Grand Tour stage - Stage 4 at the Giro d'Italia. Then he won Stage 13 too; and then Stages 5, 8, 12 and 13 at the Tour de France. British fans began to hope that he might one day be a Tour winner, but Cav has never been under any illusion that he could be: "I'm an old-school sprinter," he says. "I can't climb a mountain but if I am in front with 200 metres to go then there's nobody who can beat me."

When HTC-Highroad came to an end at the close of the 2011 season, many people felt that Cav would not be able to continue his success without his lead-out man Mark Renshaw and predicted that the wins would dry up if they went separate ways; as indeed turned out to be the case when Cav - after much petty intrigue - went as everyone always knew he would to Sky and Renshaw went to Rabobank. However,  because the pair won so many races when they working together, people tend to forget that Cav was winning races long before riding with Renshaw - it wasn't until 2009 that the partnership was formed. Nevertheless, it would prove devastatingly effective and at the Tour that summer Cav won six stages; in doing so becoming the first British rider to wear the green jersey for two days in a row and equalled, then beat Barry Hoban's British record of eight stage wins in total.

Problems with his teeth caused a less than satisfactory start to 2010 and his growing number of detractors started to whisper that his career so far had been lucky, that his glory days were still over, which is why he famously stuck two fingers up as he won Stage 2 at the Tour de Romandie that year (in Britain, the gesture can be politely described as meaning "I disagree with what you have said, and disapprove of you in general" - or, more accurately, as "Fuck you!"). The UCI, with their customary tolerance, were less than impressed and the team were forced to withdraw him from the race. It would not be the last time he got in trouble - a common accusation is that he's uncouth and arrogant. Those who know him disagree: Cav is a rough diamond, they say (and many find his outspokeness and "passionate" language refreshing), and explain his supposed arrogance as being simply an awareness that he's the best in the world at was he does.

Cav still can't climb - he was twice docked points at the 2011 Tour when he finished outside the time limit for Stages 18 and 19 (escaping disqualification as both stages were mountainous, causing organisers to extend the original limits when 50% of the peloton also finished outside the allotted time) - and he never will be able to, but for a sprint specialist such as him the race is about the Points competition rather than the General Classification, and it was that year that he became the first British rider to have won it; in addition to winning five stages (for a total of 20 in his career, making him the most successful British Tour rider by some way) and  becoming the second man to have won the Tour's final stage for three years in a row. The only other rider to have done so was Eddy Merckx, widely considered the greatest cyclist to have ever lived.

He wasn't finished yet, though. When the Grand Tours were over, the World Championships took place in Copenhagen. The British team worked hard to retain control of the Road Race from start to finish, then succeeded in getting Cav to an ideal position within a few hundred metres of the finish line before they lit the blue touch paper and retired to await the inevitable... and Mark Cavendish became the first British World Road Racing Champion since Tom Simpson almost half a century earlier.

Mark Cavendish, World Champion 2011

As 2011 drew to a close, there was much discussion as to which team Cav would ride for in 2012, with Cav himself upping his profile by playing the media and refusing to reveal who he'd chosen. Despite several spurious rumours that appeared to confirm it definitely wouldn't be Sky, few people were surprised when it turned out he would be joining the British team after all, even though with Bradley Wiggins being hotly tipped to win the Tour de France that year (as he did, becoming the first ever British winner) it wasn't clear who'd be supporting Cav as he went for stage wins and the Points classification due to the rest of the team being geared up to support their leader. Nevertheless, he won three of the seven stages won by British riders, making him the joint most successful stage winner. He shared that claim with Peter Sagan but, having enjoyed the full support of Liquigas-Cannondale, Sagan amassed a total of 421 points and won the Points classification; Cav, who had won it with 334 in 2011, finished with 220 and had to settle for fourth place. Knowing that Sky would be supporting either Wiggins or Chris Froome (who had been second in the General Classification) in 2013, he decided to move on and was eagerly snapped up by Omega Pharma-QuickStep, making his debut for them at the Tour de San Luis in January where he won Stage 1. The following month he picked up a rare General Classification victory when he won four of six stages at the Tour of Qatar (only the first stage was won by another rider, Brent Bookwalter; with Stage 2 being a team time trial won by BMC). In April he began Scheldeprijs, a race he had already won three times, as a favourite but was beaten by Marcel Kittel of Argos-Shimano; nevertheless, Omega's superb if ultimately unsuccessful attempt to catch Kittel's break must have told Cav all he needed to know regarding the sort of support his new team mates were willing to give him.

Jean Stablinski
Born Jean Stablewski to Polish immigrant parents on this day, 1932, in Thun-Saint-Amand, France (in a region so close to Belgium that some inhabitants to this day speak French Flemish as their first language), Jean Stablinski was forced to find work in the coal mines to support his family when he was 14 after his father died. That same year, he won a bicycle when he came first in an accordion competition and fell so in love with it that his mother worried he'd skip work to ride it, so she vandalised it. He was not discouraged.

Jean Stablinski

She couldn't know, of course, that her son was destined for greatness and would earn a far better living from cycling than he ever could have done as a miner. When he was 16, he took French citizenship and began entering official amateur races, including the Peace Race - it was there that a journalist mis-spelled his surname, rendering it as Stablinski and creating the name by which he would become world famous. At the age if 21 he turned professional with Gitane-Hutchinson and remained with them for three seasons before departing for Helyet-Potin for a year, then Essor-Leroux for four years. In 1960, the team merged with Helyet-Fynsec to become Helyett-Leroux-Fynsec-Hutchinson-A.C.B.B and Stablinski found himself riding as a domestique for Jacques Anquetil. He was arguably wasted in this role - after all, he won four National Championships and took silver medals at two more in a six-year period, an achievement that remains unmatched, but by all accounts he seems to have been happy with the arrangement. Until, that is, Anquetil wrote a series of critical newspaper articles that appeared to target his team mates - Stablinski was not alone in believing that some of the worst attacks were directed specifically at him and in 1968 he left to join Mercier-BP-Hutchinson while Anquetil remained with Bic, but he retired from competition at the end of the year.

Stablinski was, it has to be said, far from the most graceful rider to have ever swung his leg over a bike. In fact, if anyone were to watch a video of him in action without knowing who he was nor what he achieved, they could be forgiven for thinking him a rank amateur and quite possibly a little drunk. However, he had a sharp mind and intuitively make detailed race plans, changing them on the road as necessary; and he displayed an almost supernatural knack of knowing which breakaway was going to survive to the end of a race, then attaching himself to it. He was, therefore, prime manager material and it was he in his role as Sonolor-Lejeune who recognised that two unknown young riders named Lucien van Impe and Bernard Hinault were worth signing up.

Unlike Hinault, who claims not to have ridden a bike since he retired, Stablinski never fell out of love with the simple joy of non-competitive cycling and continued to ride until the last days of his life. He had spent so many years riding flat out with his head down, he explained on French television, that he'd not had as much opportunity to view the countryide and enjoy riding for the sake of riding as he would have liked during his youth. Like all cyclists, a major contributing factor to his enjoyment of these rides was the cafes he found along the way and more than one unsuspecting stranger was surprised to find themselves in conversation with a four-time World Champion. He also became involved with Les Amis de Paris–Roubaix, the "friends" of the race who restore and repair the cobbled sections that have made it the most famous of the Monuments. It was he that alerted them to the existence of a road running through the forest over the mines he'd worked in all those years before; a harsh, dead-straight road that has come to symbolise the entire race - the Trouée d'Arenberg.

Stablinski died after a long illness on the 22nd of July, 2007.

Nicole Freedman is now a "bike czar,"
assisting architects and urban planners
in producing cycling-friendly town plans

Sprinter Nicole Freedman, born in Massachusetts on this day in 1972, discovered cycling whilst at university (she went to MIT and Stanford) as has been the case with many great female cyclists. She won numerous stages in North American races between 1999 and 2005, also taking one at the 2005 Tour of New Zealand and coming second on Stage 7 of the 2003 Holland Ladies' Tour. In 2000, she won the National Road Race and a year the National Criterium title. After being invited to compete for Israel and awarded dual citizenship, she won the silver medal in the Israeli National Championships in 2003.

Pierre Molinéris, who was born in Nice on this day in 1920, won the Boucles de Sospel and 30 other races including Stage 4 at the 1952 Tour de France before he retired in 1955. At the time of writing, he's 91 and very much alive.

Other cyclists born on this day: Lori-Ann Muenzer (Canada, 1966); Stephen Fairless (Australia, 1962); Martin Penc (Czechoslovakia, 1957); Evert Grift (Netherlands, 1922, died 2009); Mehari Okubamicael (Ethiopia, 1945); Roger Young (USA, 1953); Gianni Ghidini (Italy, 1930, died 1995); Mino de Rossi (Italy, 1931).

Daily Cycling Facts 02.06.2013

Pascale Jeuland

Jeuland at the French Interregional
Championships 2008 (image:
CJeuland Photographie, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Pascale Jeuland, born in Rennes on this day in 1987, is one of France's best-known female road and track cyclists and has spent her entire professional career to date with the Vienne Futurscope/Poitou-Charentes.Futurscope.86 team. Her first notable successes came in 2004 when she won the National Junior Pursuit Championship, then retained it and added the Points the following year, a well as winning two silver medals and a bronze at the European Championships. In 2006, she moved up into the Elite class and won bronze for the 500m and silver for the pursuit at the Nationals.

In 2007, Jeuland became Elite National Points Champion and made her first mark in road racing with second place in the Calan criterium, before winning both titles again in 2008 and 2009. A silver medal in the Under-23 European Championships and third place in the Gran Prix de France International Féminin road race came in 2008, then gold at the National Pursuit  and World Scatch Championships in 2010 along with good results at the Tour of Qatar and GP Ciudad de Valladolid. In 2011, she concentrated on track but was 6th at Tielt-Winge, beating Amy Pieters, Liesbet de Vocht, Elisa Longo Borghini and several other names from the very top level of women's cycling, and in 2012 she took second place at the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire when she beat Emilie Moberg, Maaike Polspoel and 31 others in a final sprint.

In more recent years, Jeuland has achieved top ten stage finishes at the Tour of Qatar, Tour of Chongming Island, the Route de France and Trophee d'Or, became National Champion for Scratch and Team Pursuit in 2014, was third at the GP International Dottignies in 2015 and second in Stage 1 at the Tour of Zhoushan Island in 2016.

Pascale's older sister Nathalie is also a professional cyclist - she won the Calan criterium in 2007, and Stage 5 at the Trophee d'Or in 2014.

Tyler Farrar
Born in Wenatchee, USA on this day in 1984, Tyler Farrar began racing at the age of 13 and showed enormous potential whilst still a young amateur, winning the Junior National Championship titles for Individual Pursuit, Team Pursuit and Olympic Sprint, the Tour L-Abitibi (along with Stage 4) and the Three Days of Axel in 2002. Unsurprisingly, these victories showed up on team radar and he turned professional with Jelly Belly for 2003, repaying them by winning the Four Bridges of Albin and a Madison world cup qualification round.

Tyler Farrar, 2011

In 2004, he signed to HealthNet-Maxxis and won Stage 7 at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race designed to reveal young riders who have may have the potential to distinguish themselves in the Grand Tours - which he confirmed when he won Stage 2 the next year, also becoming National Criterium Champion and earning an invitation to move up a gear and ride with Cofidis. As is often the case when a rider makes the jump to the top level (Cofidis, since relegated to Pro Continental status, were then a Pro Tour team), his first year with them was quiet and passed without wins while he concentrated on upping his performance; then in 2007 he won a stage at the GP CTT Correios de Portugal before leaving for Slipstream-Chipotle, the team that would become Garmin-Barracuda and where he remains to the present day.

With Garmin, Farrar has developed from a promising hopeful to one of the most successful sprinters of his generation with a number of Grand Tour stage wins and excellent results in other races to his name. The first of those came in 2009 when he won the Vattenfall Cyclassics, Stages 1, 2 and 4 at the Eneco Tour, Stage 3 at Tirreno-Adriatico, Stages 1, 2 and the Points competition at the Circuit Franco-Belge, the prologue, Points competition, Young Rider category and General Classification at the Delta Tour Zeeland, six top five finishes at the Tour de France and - the icing on a very satisfactory cake - Stage 11 at the Vuelta a Espana. 2010 brought more Grand Tour victories - this time, he added first place for Stages 5 and 21 at the Vuelta to the Stages 2 and 10 he'd won at the Giro d'Italia earlier in the year, as well as revealing himself to have what it takes for the Classics when he was fifth in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. In 2011, Farrar decided to join Leopard Trek in withdrawing from the Giro following the death of his friend Wouter Weylandt. Later, Garmin won the Stage 2 team time trial at the Tour, then he won Stage 3 as well before adding three more top five places.

Farrar in 2008

There is little doubt that, had Farrar have been born in any other era, he'd almost certainly have been hailed as the fastest man in the peloton and would have dominated sprint finishes - however, his career has coincided with that of Mark Cavendish, perhaps the only man in the history of cycling with an ability to consistently sprint ever faster. It's little surprise, then, that the two have not always seen eye-to-eye - after Stage 15 at the 2011 Tour, Farrar seemed dubious (in front of US TV news cameras) if Cav's powers of recovery might be down to something other than natural talent, but later said "I should have kept my mouth shut."

In 2012, Farrar was second at Scheldeprijs - another excellent Flanders Classic result that, combined with his friendship with and respect for Weylandt, his fluent Dutch and decision to make his home in Ghent has won him the love of the Flemish fans.

Early days with Vibor

Roberto Visentini
Born in Gardone Rivera on this day in 1957, made it clear while he was still a teenager that he was going to be a great cyclist when he  won the Junior National and World Championships in 1975. Two years later, he was third overall at the Tour de l'Avenir, and the year after that - his first as a professional, riding for Vibor - he took second place for three stages and was 15th overall at the Giro d'Italia, which also earned him the Young Rider victory.

In 1979, having moved onto the CBM Fast team that would last just one season Visentini was 10th overall at the Giro and won the Elite National Pursuit Championship on the track, then in 1980 he was 9th at the Giro and won the Prologue and Stage 16 at the Vuelta a Espana and a year later upped his Giro performance to 6th, making it apparent that, sooner or later, he was probably going to win a Grand Tour - as would have been the case in 1983 had Giuseppe Saronni not pulled out all the stops and ridden the race of his life to take first. In 1984, he won another stage at the Giro, then abandoned so as not to ruin his chances in his first Tour de France, where he seemed to find himself out of his depth, finishing Stage 7 in 7th place and snatching a handful of other good placings, but in general finishing outside the top 50 before abandoning in Stage 14. The 1985 Giro got off to a better start with second place in the Prologue, but then fell ill and abandoned: a crushing blow, as he had promised the tifosi he'd win - but less crushing than the defeat he'd almost certainly have suffered at the hands of Bernard Hinault, who won. Later that year, he once again found that the Tour operates on an entirely different level to all other races and could only manage 49th overall.

1986 was his year. The competition at the Giro was tough, with Saronni, Francesco Moser and Greg Lemond all in absolute peak physical condition, each of them also displaying that mysterious related-yet-other quality excellent form too - especially Lemond, who had come second at the Tour the previous year and was the easy favourite to win this race. Luck was on Visentini's side, however; Lemond and Moser lost time in crashes and, while Saronni took the lead in Stage 6 and kept it to Stage 15, gradually things came together for Visentini and he crept up the leadership tables, then donned the maglia rosa for Stage 16. From that point onwards, he rode intelligently and without unnecessary risk, making sure he retained a sufficient lead to not lose everything in the Stage 18 individual time trial where he knew Moser would beat him.

Visentini in 1987, the year of the infamous
Marmalade Massacre

Visentini might have won a second Giro in 1987, had he not have become involved in a clash of personalities with team mate Stephen Roche - a clash that led to one of the most notorious incidents in the history of professional cycling, the Marmalade Massacre. Visentini arrived at the race with every intention of winning and looked more than capable of doing so in the Prologue and Stage 1a, but Roche beat him the Stage 1b individual time trial and then took the leadership when their Carrera Jeans-Vagabond won the Stage 3 team time trial. In Stage 13, by which time Visentini was again in the lead, Roche was ordered to ride for him by team management, but chose to ignore it. Instead, he attacked his leader throughout the stage, the savage onslaught regaining him the GC leadership.

Roche incurred the wrath of the tifosi for ever more, but earned the eternal friendship of many others - especially as he'd pulled off the Massacre with virtually no support, Eddy Schepers being the only team member who took his side against Visentini. Instead, he enlisted the aid of old friends Millar and Phil Anderson (both with Panasonic-Isostar, but with whom he had ridden when the trio were first trying to break into European cycling with the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt). Millar and Anderson broke ranks and joined forces with Schepers, then encircled Roche on the ascent of Marmaloda, protecting him from attacks and ensuring that he finished with a time sufficient to guarantee his victory. A few days later, Visentini crashed. His injuries were not major, but with his spirit crushed he abandoned the race


Michał Kwiatkowski, born in Poland on this day in 1990, turned professional in 2009 for MG Kvis-Norda Pacific after winning the European Junior TT Championship in 2008, then joined Caja Rural for 2010 and made his way into the upper echelons with RadioShack in 2011. At the end of that season, he was one of the riders whose contracts were not renewed to make room for those from Leopard Trek when the two teams merged to form RadioShack-Nissan and he moved on to Omega Pharma-QuickStep. Kwiatkowski's best professional result to date was third place overall at the 2010 Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen - he won the prologue at the same race in 2011 and again in 2012, when he also finished 10th on Stage 6 at the Giro d'Italia.

Kurt Hovelijnck, born in Eeklo, Belgium on this day in 1981, achieved numerous good results in races at home and in France between 1999 and 2007, when he took third place in Stage 6 at the Tour of Britain. 2008 and 2009 were quieter, then his career was nearly brought to an end when his rear wheel collapsed during a training run and left him critically ill with a fractured skull. Fortunately, he made a full recovery and returned to racing the following year; then once again began achieving excellent results.

Janez Zakotnik, born in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia on this day in 1950, won the Istrian Spring Trophy a record four times - 1971, 1971, 1974 and 1977. Now a UCI 2.2 race that attracts an international field, when Zakotnik won it was a small, regional race reserved for local riders and little-known on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Other cyclists born on this day: Wojciech Matusiak (Poland, 1945 - winner of the 1969 Tour of Poland); Lee Seon-Bae (South Korea, 1939); Aleksandr Perov (USSR, 1955); Rino De Candido (Italy, 1954); Rostislav Vargashkin (USSR, 1933); Manuel Riquelme (Chile, 1912); Xavier Isasa (Spain, 1966); Csaba Pálinkás (Hungary, 1959); Bohdan Bondarev (USSR, 1974).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.05.2013

The Giro d'Italia began on this date six times - in 1919, 1949, 1954, 1972, 1976 and 1987. 1919 covered 2,984km in ten stages and saw an example of one of the greatest dominations by a single rider over any Grand Tour - Costante Girardengo led the General Classification throughout and won seven stages. Oscar Egg became the first Swiss rider to win a stage, the Belgian Marcel Buysse became the first non-Italian to stand on the podium when he took third place overall and Gaetano Belloni won a stage for the first time (Belloni would become known as Eterno Secondo, the implication being that he'd never beat Girardengo. However, he seems to have been happy enough with the races he did win - including the 1920 Giro, three editions of the Giro di Lombardia and a Milan-San Remo - and the two men were close friends). It was the first edition of the race since the First World War and was used to make a political point when it visited Trieste and Trento, annexed by Italy from the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it collapsed at the end of the conflict.

1949 brought Fausto Coppi's third win and saw him hammer home his status as the new master of Italian cycling when he score a spectacular victory after an extremely difficult Stage 17 that included Maddalena Pass, the Col de Vars, the Col d'Izoard, the Col de Montgenèvre and Sestriere - having escaped the peloton, he rode on alone over the mountains and finished the stage with an 11'52" lead on Gino Bartali. At the end of the race, after 19 stages and 4,088km, Coppi's advantage over his aging rival was 23'47". A new era, represented by Coppi, had begun when he won his first Giro back in 1940. Now the preceding one, represented by Bartali, finally came to an end.

Carlo Clerici

There seems to be some confusion as to how long it actually was (4,331, 4,337 and 4,396km are all commonly given figures), but 1954 is likely to forever be remembered as the longest edition ever - like the other Grand Tours, the trend for many years has been for total distance to equal around 3,500km. The surprise winner was the Swiss Carlo Clerici, who made full use of a serious tactical error by the favourites which allowed him and the Italian Nino Assirelli to finish Stage 6 with a 25' advantage, then the race with 24'16" over his nearest rival. "They never should have been allowed such a lead," said Fausto Coppi. "But, after that stage, the race was over." Assirelli soon tired and couldn't keep up with Clerici, finishing 26'28" behind him - still good enough for third and,more impressively, one place up on Coppi. Another Swiss, Hugo Koblet, was 2'12" faster than Assirelli; completing the parcours in 129h37'23" - had it not have been for Clerici's good fortune, it's probably safe to assume Koblet would have won a third Grand Tour.

Having stayed out of the 1971 edition as he concentrated on winning a third Tour de France, Eddy Merckx came back in 1972 and, being Eddy Merckx, thrashed the competition. Marino Basso started off with the General Classification leadership and held it for the first two stages, then passed it on to Ugo Colombo for Stage 3 before José Manuel Fuente took it for the next four stages. In Stage 7, Merckx joined forces with the previous year's winner Gösta Pettersson, who apparently had no illusions that he could beat Merckx and was happy to take the stage win - a rather uncharacteristic gesture of gratitude by The Cannibal. From that point onwards, the race was as good as won: Fuente attacked again and again and on every single climb but he couldn't even dent the surpremacy of Merckx, who led all the way to the end and finished the 23 stages (two split) and 3,725km with a 5'30" advantage.

1976 saw another record; set by the Spaniard Antonio Menendez Gonzalez, a lowly domestique riding with KAS-Campagnolo, broke away from the peloton the moment Stage 11 got underway in Terni and then rode solo all the way to victory in Gabbice Mare 222km away - the longest solo break in the history of the race. Whilst the middle of the race was dominated by Felice Gimondi, GC leader between Stages 8 and18, the final part broke down into a nervous duel between him and the Belgian Johan de Muynck who had taken the lead in Stage 19 and kept it until Gimondi got the better of him in Stage 22a, a 28km individual time trial and a discipline in which the Italian easily outclassed the Belgian. The race included 24 stages (two split) and covered 4,161km, Gimondi's winning time being 119h58'15" and de Muynck's 19" slower.

Giro 1987 - the Marmalade Massacre
1987 was a superb year from a Celtic point of view: Stephen Roche became the first (and to date, only) Irishman to win a Giro when he finished the 24 stages and 3,915km in 105h39'42" (he'd also win the Tour de France that year, then the World Championships; making him one of only two men to have won the fabled Triple Crown - cycling's most prestigious and entirely unofficial prize, for which there is no trophy) and the Scotsman Robert Millar was second - for many years, the best ever Grand Tour result by a British rider until Chris Froome equalled it at the 2011 Vuelta a Espana.

Stephen Roche

It was the year of one of the most vicious battles in the history of the race - the one that broke out between team mates Roche and Roberto Visentini, the 1986 winner and team leader.  Visentini arrived at the race with every intention of taking a second victory and looked more than capable of doing so in the Prologue and Stage 1a, but Roche beat him the Stage 1b individual time trial and then took the leadership when their Carrera Jeans-Vagabond won the Stage 3 team time trial. In Stage 13, by which time Visentini was again in the lead, Roche ignored an order from team management and attacked his leader to win back the GC.

He incurred the wrath of the tifosi for ever more, but earned the eternal friendship of many others - especially as he'd done so with virtually no support, Eddy Schepers being the only team member whom he could trust. Instead, he enlisted the aid of old friends Millar and Phil Anderson (both with Panasonic-Isostar, but with whom he had ridden when the trio were first trying to break into European cycling with the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt. Schepers, Millar and Anderson broke ranks and encircled Roche on the ascent of Marmaloda, protecting him from attacks and ensuring that he finished with a time sufficient to guarantee his victory. The event, one of the most remarkable in Giro history, has become known as the Marmalade Massacre.

Mark Cavendish

Born in Douglas on the Isle of Man on this day in 1925, Mark Cavendish fell in love with cycling during childhood and immediately became involved racing - though by his own admission, BMX was not his area of excellence: "I was always riding a bike, getting dropped in little races," he says. After badgering his parents, he got a mountain bike for his 13th birthday and the next day was unable to find anyone capable of beating him.

As a young teenager Cav met David Millar who was then the great hope of British cycling, in the years before his arrest, disgrace and eventual rise to become one of the peloton's most trusted elder statesmen. Millar inspired him, bringing him to a realisation that if he trained hard enough his juvenile talent might prove to be the foundation upon which a professional cycling career could be built. When he left school, he found a job in a bank and stuck it out for two years, saving the money he knew he'd need in the future.

With his naturally compact yet powerful physique, Cav soon found a contract with the British Cycling Track Team and frequently rode Madisons with Rob Hayles; the two of them winning gold at the UCI World Championships in 2005, the same year that Cav became European Points Race Champion. Both would prove relatively unimportant when compared to a pivotal decision he made that year, however - to start road racing, which he did with Sparkasse at the Tours of Berlin and Britain. In 2006, Cav started to get fast. Seriously, blisteringly fast, as he proved when he won two stages and the Points competition at the Tour of Berlin and lapped Ashley Hutchinson, James McCallum and his old mate Rob Hayles at the Commonwealth Games. Sparkasse acted as a feeder squad for the legendary T-Mobile team and he was offered a trainee contract with them in August, which he accepted before going on to win the Points competition at the Tour of Britain - in 2007, he was a fully-professional member of the team and repaid the gesture by winning the Scheldeprijs Classic.

2008 was his real breakthrough year. In addition to winning the World Madison Championship with Bradley Wiggins, Cav won his first Grand Tour stage - Stage 4 at the Giro d'Italia. Then he won Stage 13 too; and then Stages 5, 8, 12 and 13 at the Tour de France. British fans began to hope that he might one day be a Tour winner, but Cav has never been under any illusion that he could be: "I'm an old-school sprinter," he says. "I can't climb a mountain but if I am in front with 200 metres to go then there's nobody who can beat me."

When HTC-Highroad came to an end at the close of the 2011 season, many people felt that Cav would not be able to continue his success without his lead-out man Mark Renshaw and predicted that the wins would dry up if they went separate ways; as indeed turned out to be the case when Cav - after much petty intrigue - went as everyone always knew he would to Sky and Renshaw went to Rabobank. However,  because the pair won so many races when they working together, people tend to forget that Cav was winning races long before riding with Renshaw - it wasn't until 2009 that the partnership was formed. Nevertheless, it would prove devastatingly effective and at the Tour that summer Cav won six stages; in doing so becoming the first British rider to wear the green jersey for two days in a row and equalled, then beat Barry Hoban's British record of eight stage wins in total.

Problems with his teeth caused a less than satisfactory start to 2010 and his growing number of detractors started to whisper that his career so far had been lucky, that his glory days were still over, which is why he famously stuck two fingers up as he won Stage 2 at the Tour de Romandie that year (in Britain, the gesture can be politely described as meaning "I disagree with what you have said, and disapprove of you in general" - or, more accurately, as "Fuck you!"). The UCI, with their customary tolerance, were less than impressed and the team were forced to withdraw him from the race. It would not be the last time he got in trouble - a common accusation is that he's uncouth and arrogant. Those who know him disagree: Cav is a rough diamond, they say (and many find his outspokeness and "passionate" language refreshing), and explain his supposed arrogance as being simply an awareness that he's the best in the world at was he does.

Cav still can't climb - he was twice docked points at the 2011 Tour when he finished outside the time limit for Stages 18 and 19 (escaping disqualification as both stages were mountainous, causing organisers to extend the original limits when 50% of the peloton also finished outside the allotted time) - and he never will be able to, but for a sprint specialist such as him the race is about the Points competition rather than the General Classification, and it was that year that he became the first British rider to have won it; in addition to winning five stages (for a total of 20 in his career, making him the most successful British Tour rider by some way) and  becoming the second man to have won the Tour's final stage for three years in a row. The only other rider to have done so was Eddy Merckx, widely considered the greatest cyclist to have ever lived.

He wasn't finished yet, though. When the Grand Tours were over, the World Championships took place in Copenhagen. The British team worked hard to retain control of the Road Race from start to finish, then succeeded in getting Cav to an ideal position within a few hundred metres of the finish line before they lit the blue touch paper and retired to await the inevitable... and Mark Cavendish became the first British World Road Racing Champion since Tom Simpson almost half a century earlier.

Mark Cavendish, World Champion 2011

As 2011 drew to a close, there was much discussion as to which team Cav would ride for in 2012, with Cav himself upping his profile by playing the media and refusing to reveal who he'd chosen. Despite several spurious rumours that appeared to confirm it definitely wouldn't be Sky, few people were surprised when it turned out he would be joining the British team after all, even though with Bradley Wiggins being hotly tipped to win the Tour de France that year (as he did, becoming the first ever British winner) it wasn't clear who'd be supporting Cav as he went for stage wins and the Points classification due to the rest of the team being geared up to support their leader. Nevertheless, he won three of the seven stages won by British riders, making him the joint most successful stage winner. He shared that claim with Peter Sagan but, having enjoyed the full support of Liquigas-Cannondale, Sagan amassed a total of 421 points and won the Points classification; Cav, who had won it with 334 in 2011, finished with 220 and had to settle for fourth place. Knowing that Sky would be supporting either Wiggins or Chris Froome (who had been second in the General Classification) in 2013, he decided to move on and was eagerly snapped up by Omega Pharma-QuickStep, making his debut for them at the Tour de San Luis in January where he won Stage 1. The following month he picked up a rare General Classification victory when he won four of six stages at the Tour of Qatar (only the first stage was won by another rider, Brent Bookwalter; with Stage 2 being a team time trial won by BMC). In April he began Scheldeprijs, a race he had already won three times, as a favourite but was beaten by Marcel Kittel of Argos-Shimano; nevertheless, Omega's superb if ultimately unsuccessful attempt to catch Kittel's break must have told Cav all he needed to know regarding the sort of support his new team mates were willing to give him.

Jean Stablinski
Born Jean Stablewski to Polish immigrant parents on this day, 1932, in Thun-Saint-Amand, France (in a region so close to Belgium that some inhabitants to this day speak French Flemish as their first language), Jean Stablinski was forced to find work in the coal mines to support his family when he was 14 after his father died. That same year, he won a bicycle when he came first in an accordion competition and fell so in love with it that his mother worried he'd skip work to ride it, so she vandalised it. He was not discouraged.

Jean Stablinski

She couldn't know, of course, that her son was destined for greatness and would earn a far better living from cycling than he ever could have done as a miner. When he was 16, he took French citizenship and began entering official amateur races, including the Peace Race - it was there that a journalist mis-spelled his surname, rendering it as Stablinski and creating the name by which he would become world famous. At the age if 21 he turned professional with Gitane-Hutchinson and remained with them for three seasons before departing for Helyet-Potin for a year, then Essor-Leroux for four years. In 1960, the team merged with Helyet-Fynsec to become Helyett-Leroux-Fynsec-Hutchinson-A.C.B.B and Stablinski found himself riding as a domestique for Jacques Anquetil. He was arguably wasted in this role - after all, he won four National Championships and took silver medals at two more in a six-year period, an achievement that remains unmatched, but by all accounts he seems to have been happy with the arrangement. Until, that is, Anquetil wrote a series of critical newspaper articles that appeared to target his team mates - Stablinski was not alone in believing that some of the worst attacks were directed specifically at him and in 1968 he left to join Mercier-BP-Hutchinson while Anquetil remained with Bic, but he retired from competition at the end of the year.

Stablinski was, it has to be said, far from the most graceful rider to have ever swung his leg over a bike. In fact, if anyone were to watch a video of him in action without knowing who he was nor what he achieved, they could be forgiven for thinking him a rank amateur and quite possibly a little drunk. However, he had a sharp mind and intuitively make detailed race plans, changing them on the road as necessary; and he displayed an almost supernatural knack of knowing which breakaway was going to survive to the end of a race, then attaching himself to it. He was, therefore, prime manager material and it was he in his role as Sonolor-Lejeune who recognised that two unknown young riders named Lucien van Impe and Bernard Hinault were worth signing up.

Unlike Hinault, who claims not to have ridden a bike since he retired, Stablinski never fell out of love with the simple joy of non-competitive cycling and continued to ride until the last days of his life. He had spent so many years riding flat out with his head down, he explained on French television, that he'd not had as much opportunity to view the countryide and enjoy riding for the sake of riding as he would have liked during his youth. Like all cyclists, a major contributing factor to his enjoyment of these rides was the cafes he found along the way and more than one unsuspecting stranger was surprised to find themselves in conversation with a four-time World Champion. He also became involved with Les Amis de Paris–Roubaix, the "friends" of the race who restore and repair the cobbled sections that have made it the most famous of the Monuments. It was he that alerted them to the existence of a road running through the forest over the mines he'd worked in all those years before; a harsh, dead-straight road that has come to symbolise the entire race - the Trouée d'Arenberg.

Stablinski died after a long illness on the 22nd of July, 2007.

Nicole Freedman is now a "bike czar,"
assisting architects and urban planners
in producing cycling-friendly town plans

Sprinter Nicole Freedman, born in Massachusetts on this day in 1972, discovered cycling whilst at university (she went to MIT and Stanford) as has been the case with many great female cyclists. She won numerous stages in North American races between 1999 and 2005, also taking one at the 2005 Tour of New Zealand and coming second on Stage 7 of the 2003 Holland Ladies' Tour. In 2000, she won the National Road Race and a year the National Criterium title. After being invited to compete for Israel and awarded dual citizenship, she won the silver medal in the Israeli National Championships in 2003.

Pierre Molinéris, who was born in Nice on this day in 1920, won the Boucles de Sospel and 30 other races including Stage 4 at the 1952 Tour de France before he retired in 1955. At the time of writing, he's 91 and very much alive.

Other cyclists born on this day: Lori-Ann Muenzer (Canada, 1966); Stephen Fairless (Australia, 1962); Martin Penc (Czechoslovakia, 1957); Evert Grift (Netherlands, 1922, died 2009); Mehari Okubamicael (Ethiopia, 1945); Roger Young (USA, 1953); Gianni Ghidini (Italy, 1930, died 1995); Mino de Rossi (Italy, 1931).

Daily Cycling Facts 02.06.2012

Pascale Jeuland

Jeuland (dark blue) and Giorgia Bronzini

Pascale Jeuland, born in Rennes on this day in 1997, is one of France's best-known female road and track cyclists and has spent her entire professional career to date with the Vienne Futurscope team. Her first notable successes came in 2004 when she won the National Junior Pursuit Championship, then retained it and added the Points the following year, a well as winning two silver medals and a bronze at the European Championships. In 2006, she moved up into the Elite class and won bronze for the 500m and silver for the pursuit at the Nationals.

In 2007, Jeuland became Elite National Points Champion, a title she won again in 2008 and 2009, and made her first mark in road racing with second place in the Calan criterium (won by team mate and older sister Nathalie). A silver medal in the Under-23 European Championships and third place in the Gran Prix de France International Féminin road race came in 2008, then gold at the National Pursuit  and World Scatch Championships in 2010 along with good results at the Tour of Qatar and GP Ciudad de Valladolid. In 2011, she concentrated on track but was 6th at Tielt-Winge, beating Amy Pieters, Liesbet de Vocht, Elisa Longo Borghini and several other names from the very top level of women's cycling, and in 2012 she took second place at the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire when she beat Emilie Moberg, Maaike Polspoel and 31 others in a final sprint.

Tyler Farrar
Born in Wenatchee, USA on this day in 1984, Tyler Farrar began racing at the age of 13 and showed enormous potential whilst still a young amateur, winning the Junior National Championship titles for Individual Pursuit, Team Pursuit and Olympic Sprint, the Tour L-Abitibi (along with Stage 4) and the Three Days of Axel in 2002. Unsurprisingly, these victories showed up on team radar and he turned professional with Jelly Belly for 2003, repaying them by winning the Four Bridges of Albin and a Madison world cup qualification round.

Tyler Farrar, 2011

In 2004, he signed to HealthNet-Maxxis and won Stage 7 at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race designed to reveal young riders who have may have the potential to distinguish themselves in the Grand Tours - which he confirmed when he won Stage 2 the next year, also becoming National Criterium Champion and earning an invitation to move up a gear and ride with Cofidis. As is often the case when a rider makes the jump to the top level (Cofidis, since relegated to Pro Continental status, were then a Pro Tour team), his first year with them was quiet and passed without wins while he concentrated on upping his performance; then in 2007 he won a stage at the GP CTT Correios de Portugal before leaving for Slipstream-Chipotle, the team that would become Garmin-Barracuda and where he remains to the present day.

With Garmin, Farrar has developed from a promising hopeful to one of the most successful sprinters of his generation with a number of Grand Tour stage wins and excellent results in other races to his name. The first of those came in 2009 when he won the Vattenfall Cyclassics, Stages 1, 2 and 4 at the Eneco Tour, Stage 3 at Tirreno-Adriatico, Stages 1, 2 and the Points competition at the Circuit Franco-Belge, the prologue, Points competition, Young Rider category and General Classification at the Delta Tour Zeeland, six top five finishes at the Tour de France and - the icing on a very satisfactory cake - Stage 11 at the Vuelta a Espana. 2010 brought more Grand Tour victories - this time, he added first place for Stages 5 and 21 at the Vuelta to the Stages 2 and 10 he'd won at the Giro d'Italia earlier in the year, as well as revealing himself to have what it takes for the Classics when he was fifth in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. In 2011, Farrar decided to join Leopard Trek in withdrawing from the Giro following the death of his friend Wouter Weylandt. Later, Garmin won the Stage 2 team time trial at the Tour, then he won Stage 3 as well before adding three more top five places.

Farrar in 2008

There is little doubt that, had Farrar have been born in any other era, he'd almost certainly have been hailed as the fastest man in the peloton and would have dominated sprint finishes - however, his career has coincided with that of Mark Cavendish, perhaps the only man in the history of cycling with an ability to consistently sprint ever faster. It's little surprise, then, that the two have not always seen eye-to-eye - after Stage 15 at the 2011 Tour, Farrar seemed dubious (in front of US TV news cameras) if Cav's powers of recovery might be down to something other than natural talent, but later said "I should have kept my mouth shut."

In 2012, Farrar was second at Scheldeprijs - another excellent Flanders Classic result that, combined with his friendship with and respect for Weylandt, his fluent Dutch and decision to make his home in Ghent has won him the love of the Flemish fans.

Early days with Vibor

Roberto Visentini
Born in Gardone Rivera on this day in 1957, made it clear while he was still a teenager that he was going to be a great cyclist when he  won the Junior National and World Championships in 1975. Two years later, he was third overall at the Tour de l'Avenir, and the year after that - his first as a professional, riding for Vibor - he took second place for three stages and was 15th overall at the Giro d'Italia, which also earned him the Young Rider victory.

In 1979, having moved onto the CBM Fast team that would last just one season Visentini was 10th overall at the Giro and won the Elite National Pursuit Championship on the track, then in 1980 he was 9th at the Giro and won the Prologue and Stage 16 at the Vuelta a Espana and a year later upped his Giro performance to 6th, making it apparent that, sooner or later, he was probably going to win a Grand Tour - as would have been the case in 1983 had Giuseppe Saronni not pulled out all the stops and ridden the race of his life to take first. In 1984, he won another stage at the Giro, then abandoned so as not to ruin his chances in his first Tour de France, where he seemed to find himself out of his depth, finishing Stage 7 in 7th place and snatching a handful of other good placings, but in general finishing outside the top 50 before abandoning in Stage 14. The 1985 Giro got off to a better start with second place in the Prologue, but then fell ill and abandoned: a crushing blow, as he had promised the tifosi he'd win - but less crushing than the defeat he'd almost certainly have suffered at the hands of Bernard Hinault, who won. Later that year, he once again found that the Tour operates on an entirely different level to all other races and could only manage 49th overall.

1986 was his year. The competition at the Giro was tough, with Saronni, Francesco Moser and Greg Lemond all in absolute peak physical condition, each of them also displaying that mysterious related-yet-other quality excellent form too - especially Lemond, who had come second at the Tour the previous year and was the easy favourite to win this race. Luck was on Visentini's side, however; Lemond and Moser lost time in crashes and, while Saronni took the lead in Stage 6 and kept it to Stage 15, gradually things came together for Visentini and he crept up the leadership tables, then donned the maglia rosa for Stage 16. From that point onwards, he rode intelligently and without unnecessary risk, making sure he retained a sufficient lead to not lose everything in the Stage 18 individual time trial where he knew Moser would beat him.

Visentini in 1987, the year of the infamous
Marmalade Massacre

Visentini might have won a second Giro in 1987, had he not have become involved in a clash of personalities with team mate Stephen Roche - a clash that led to one of the most notorious incidents in the history of professional cycling, the Marmalade Massacre. Visentini arrived at the race with every intention of winning and looked more than capable of doing so in the Prologue and Stage 1a, but Roche beat him the Stage 1b individual time trial and then took the leadership when their Carrera Jeans-Vagabond won the Stage 3 team time trial. In Stage 13, by which time Visentini was again in the lead, Roche was ordered to ride for him by team management, but chose to ignore it. Instead, he attacked his leader throughout the stage, the savage onslaught regaining him the GC leadership.

Roche incurred the wrath of the tifosi for ever more, but earned the eternal friendship of many others - especially as he'd pulled off the Massacre with virtually no support, Eddy Schepers being the only team member who took his side against Visentini. Instead, he enlisted the aid of old friends Millar and Phil Anderson (both with Panasonic-Isostar, but with whom he had ridden when the trio were first trying to break into European cycling with the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt). Millar and Anderson broke ranks and joined forces with Schepers, then encircled Roche on the ascent of Marmaloda, protecting him from attacks and ensuring that he finished with a time sufficient to guarantee his victory. A few days later, Visentini crashed. His injuries were not major, but with his spirit crushed he abandoned the race


Michał Kwiatkowski, born in Poland on this day in 1990, turned professional in 2009 for MG Kvis-Norda Pacific after winning the European Junior TT Championship in 2008, then joined Caja Rural for 2010 and made his way into the upper echelons with RadioShack in 2011. At the end of that season, he was one of the riders whose contracts were not renewed to make room for those from Leopard Trek when the two teams merged to form RadioShack-Nissan and he moved on to Omega Pharma-QuickStep. Kwiatkowski's best professional result to date was third place overall at the 2010 Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen - he won the prologue at the same race in 2011 and again in 2012, when he also finished 10th on Stage 6 at the Giro d'Italia.

Kurt Hovelijnck, born in Eeklo, Belgium on this day in 1981, achieved numerous good results in races at home and in France between 1999 and 2007, when he took third place in Stage 6 at the Tour of Britain. 2008 and 2009 were quieter, then his career was nearly brought to an end when his rear wheel collapsed during a training run and left him critically ill with a fractured skull. Fortunately, he made a full recovery and returned to racing the following year; then once again began achieving excellent results.

Janez Zakotnik, born in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia on this day in 1950, won the Istrian Spring Trophy a record four times - 1971, 1971, 1974 and 1977. Now a UCI 2.2 race that attracts an international field, when Zakotnik won it was a small, regional race reserved for local riders and little-known on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Other births: Wojciech Matusiak (Poland, 1945 - winner of the 1969 Tour of Poland); Lee Seon-Bae (South Korea, 1939); Aleksandr Perov (USSR, 1955); Rino De Candido (Italy, 1954); Rostislav Vargashkin (USSR, 1933); Manuel Riquelme (Chile, 1912); Xavier Isasa (Spain, 1966); Csaba Pálinkás (Hungary, 1959); Bohdan Bondarev (USSR, 1974).