Daily Cycling Facts 23.06.2014

Bahamontes, The Eagle of Toledo

The Tour de France began on this day in 1963 - it had been 60 years since the first Tour but, as the race was not held for a total of ten years during World Wars 1 and 2, it was the 50th edition. There were 21 stages, two of which were split into a road race and a time trial, it covered 4,137km in total and 130 riders started. Organisers, fearing that a fourth victory for Jacques Anquetil would be considered boring by fans, especially after he dominated the race with what would be the fastest average speed until 1981 in the 1962 edition, reduced the time trials to 79km so that the mountain stages would contribute more towards an overall win so that a climber would have a better chance. For a while, it looked as though they needn't have bothered: Anquetil had picked up a tapeworm and his doctors advised him not to start, but a few days before the race was due to start he decided that he'd go ahead anyway. He had two main rivals, Raymond Poulidor and The Eagle of Toledo Federico Bahamontes.

There was one rather unusual team that year: IBAC-Molteni was formed from the two existing teams of those names, and half of them wore IBAC jerseys while the other half wore Molteni jerseys.

In the very first stage, just as Anquetil crashed and hurt his knee and elbow, Bahamontes escaped in a four-man break; since he was known as a climber and the stage was flat the peloton was not concerned. The Belgian Eddy Pauwels won the stage and got himself into the maillot jaune for the next two days, but the 1'28" advantage Bahamontes gained came as a big surprise and Anquetil admitted that he now saw him as his main rival. Rik van Looy, who was already in his eleventh year as a professional cyclist (but would remain one for another seven years),  won Stage 2a then the Pelforth-Sauvage took the Stage 2b team time trial before another successful break took Seamus Elliott to victory in Stage 3 - he then stayed in yellow until Stage 6a. He never had it again for the remainder of the race, but it didn't matter because he'd earned his place in history as the first Irishman to lead the Tour de France.

Gilbert Desmet

As expected, Anquetil won the Stage 6b time trial - they didn't call him Mr. Chrono for nothing, but he didn't win back enough time to stop Gilbert Desmet getting into yellow. Since Bahamontes was such a talented climber it was widely thought that as soon as the race reached the Pyrenees in Stage  10, he'd win a massive lead that might even prove sufficient to win the race. Anquetil, however, had guessed what the organisers were planning and spent the early part of the season entering as many hilly and mountainous races as he could, and as a result he was now a very different type of rider - Bahamontes lead a group through the 148km from Pau to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, but Anquetil kept up with him all the way and then still had the strength to beat them all in a sprint. It was the first mountain stage he had ever won, which put him into third overall and suddenly nothing in the race was certain.

Desmet was still in yellow, probably as much to his own surprise as anybody else's, because other than a couple of Classics wins (Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and Paris-Tours in 1958), he'd never shown much potential as a stage racer (he'd win La Flèche Wallonne in 1964, too), and he kept it all the way to the Alps in Stage 15 when Bahamontes decided to use the Grand Bois and Col de Porte to show the rest of the field how a real grimpeur gets a bike to the top of a mountain. He won the stage and moved into second place. Stage 16 took in 202km from Grenoble to Val d'Isère, a tough parcours that Bahamontes probably could have won; but he had bigger fish to fry and began working on improving his overall time, and moved into the lead, while Fernando Manzaneque - who had been sixth overall in the 1961 Tour and stood on the Vuelta a Espana podium a couple of times - won the stage.

Anquetil and Poulidor

Bahamontes would wear yellow for just one day, at least partially due to a little bit of cheating by St. Raphael-Gitane-Geminiani. In 1963, the old rule banning bike swaps except in the case of mechanical failure and/or irreparable damage still stood, but manager Raphaël Geminiani realised that if Anquetil was going to win he'd need a lighter bike fitted with gears more suited to the Alps. So, during Stage 17 he borrowed a cable cutter from a team mechanic and at the foot of the first climb when he was certain nobody would see him, he cut a brake cable as roughly as possible to make it look as though it'd snapped. Anquetil was therefore allowed to continue on the new bike that had been especially prepared and kept up with Bahamontes all the way. Towards the end of the stage, when it began to look like another sprint finish was on the cards, the mechanics had fixed the "broken" cable so he got his high-geared bike back again. He won the second mountain stage of his career and the maillot jaune. When he won the Stage 19 time trial, his fourth Tour victory was in the bag.

Bahamontes was second, 3'35" down, while José Pérez Francés of Ferrys was third with +10'14" and Desmet ended up fifth with +15'. Poulidor, whom so many had thought had a real chance of victory, was eighth with +16'46". Some time after the race, Anquetil and Geminiani admitted that they'd cheating and revealed how easy it had been to do so - the next year, the rule they'd circumvented was repealed.

Steve Joughin
A quarter of a century before Mark Cavendish there was Steve Joughin, an out-spoken compact Manx sprinter who became one of the best in the world and, just like Cav, spent much of his career trying to explain to fans why it was he would never win the Tour de France.

Steve Joughin

He was born on this day in 1959 and discovered his love for racing during childhood, joining the Manx Road Club. In 1977, he became Junior National Champion, then spent a few years picking up good results until 1980 when he went to France to try to make a career. However, France was not to his liking: young cyclists do not live well when they're still trying to make their name and the occasional criterium win here and there doesn't leave much money once bikes and kit are paid for. He was back in Britain within months.

Ten years earlier, he'd have ruined his chances of a professional career there and then; but during the late 1970s and early 1980s British racing was undergoing something of a renaissance and some of the top European names were making the trip across the Channel to race in British events. Joughin beat them regularly enough to get himself noticed and in 1983 he was recruited by the Moducel team, staying with them for four seasons. In 1986 he won two stages at the Tour of Britain and was offered a place with the Percy Bilton-Holdsworth team, then moved to Ever Ready-Ammaco for a year before going back to Percy Bilton from 1989 until 1991 when he spent his last season with KJC-Revelation.

Like many ex-professionals, Joughin found it extremely difficult to adjust to normal life when he retired, finding solace in alcohol. By 2005 he had become so ill that doctors were amazed he survived; then, using the sheer will power that all professional cyclists have, he saved himself and gave up drinking. Now living in Stoke-on-Trent, Joughin owns and runs the Pro-Vision sportswear company and works in a voluntary capacity for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Simon Špilak, born in Tišina on this day in 1986, was Slovenian Under-19 Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2004, then Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2005. In 2009 he won the Tour de Romandie, and in 2012 he was fourth overall at Paris-Nice.

David Millar's arrest

At 20:25 on this day in 2004, British cyclist David Millar was enjoying dinner in a Biarritz restaurant when three plain clothes officers from the anti-drugs squad approached him. He was arrested and the officers took his shoe laces, watch, keys, cellphone and other items before driving him back to his flat and beginning a search. Millar is still highly critical of their methods:

"They went in with a gun first, as if somebody was going to hit them with a back wheel or something. They sat me down and I wasn't allowed to move while they searched the house. They search while you're there. It took them four hours. 

They humiliated me and were critiquing my lifestyle, using a classic good cop, bad cop thing. It was psychological warfare. The bad cop literally hated me. He was saying: 'You're not a good person - we know that.' He said: 'You take three paces and I will bring you down like you're resisting arrest.' It was deliberate. I felt completely violated."

Eventually, the police found what they were looking for - empty phials that had once contained EPO and two used syringes. Precisely where they were found is a bit of a mystery - some reports say that they were lying on top of a book, others that they were concealed within a hollowed-out book. Millar was then taken to Biarritz and locked in a cell. It would later turn out that they had targeted Millar after Philippe Gaumont, arrested six months previously, told them that the British rider had encouraged Cofidis team doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet to provide them and Cedric Vasseur with the drug, which increases red blood cell population.

Millar denied the claims, telling police that Gaumont was "a lunatic" and that he was "talking absolute crap." However, by this time his phone had been tapped for some four months and, when faced with damning evidence against him, he took the sensible option and made a full confession the next day. Under international cyclings sanctioned by the UCI, a confession is considered equal grounds for suspension as a positive test and he was banned for two years by the British Cycling Federation in August. He was stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship, his 3rd place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré finish also from 2003 and his Stage 1 and 6 wins at the 2001 Vuelta a Espana.

Today, Millar has become a spokesman for the peloton; he is widely considered to be one of the most honest men in cycling and is known for his intelligence, erudition and wit.


Marianne Berglund, born in Skellefteå, Sweden on this day in 1963, won the Junior National Road Race Championships in 1978 and the same event at Elite level in 1979, 1984, 1987 and 1991. She was World Champion in 1983 - the first time the title ever went to a Swedish rider.

Other cyclists born on this day: Michael Sandstød (Denmark, 1968); Mario Ghella (Italy, 1929); Henry Brask Andersen (Denmark, 1896, died 1970); Roy Knickman (USA, 1965); Ognyan Toshev (Bulgaria, 1940); Folke Nilsson (Sweden, 1907, died 1980); Jack Hoobin (Australia, 1927, died 2000); Márlon Paniagua (Guatemala, 1974); Richard Johnstone (New Zealand, 1936); XChantal Daucourt (Switzerland, 1966); Günter Lörke (Germany, 1965); Heiko Szonn (Germany, 1976).

Daily Cycling Facts 04.01.2014

Danilo Hondo
(Image credit: Rolf Kaiser
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Danilo Hondo was born in Guben, Germany on this day in 1974. Hondo was banned from racing for two years after he tested positive for the banned Phenylpiracetam, a drug that can improve stamina and resistance to cold (and as such, a very tempting prospect on mountain stages). The ban was then cut to one year, but subsequently extended back to two years by the Court for Arbitration in Sport. Finally, in 2007, Hondo appealed at a civil court and the suspension was ended early.

David Millar
David "The Dandy" Millar was born on this day in 1977. The Malta-born British cyclist is the only British rider to have worn the race leader's jersey in all three Grand Tours, though he was subsequently stripped of his Tour de France on his own insistence during one of the most famous and dramatic doping cases in modern cycling.

At 20:25 on the 23rd of June 2004 as Millar enjoyed dinner in a restaurant, three plain clothes officers from the anti-drugs squad approached him. He was arrested and the officers took his shoe laces, watch, keys, cellphone and other items before driving him back to his flat and beginning a search. Millar is still highly critical of their methods:

"They went in with a gun first, as if somebody was going to hit them with a back wheel or something. They sat me down and I wasn't allowed to move while they searched the house. They search while you're there. It took them four hours.

David Millar
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

They humiliated me and were critiquing my lifestyle, using a classic good cop, bad cop thing. It was psychological warfare. The bad cop literally hated me. He was saying: 'You're not a good person – we know that.' He said: 'You take three paces and I will bring you down like you're resisting arrest.' It was deliberate. I felt completely violated."

Eventually, the police found what they were looking for - empty phials that had once contained EPO and two used syringes. Precisely where they were found is a bit of a mystery - some reports say that they were lying on top of a book, others that they were concealed within a hollowed-out book. Millar was then taken to Biarritz and locked in a cell. It would later turn out that they had targeted Millar after Philippe Gaumont, arrested six months previously, told them that the British rider had encouraged Cofidis team doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet to provide them and Cedric Vasseur with the drug, which increases red blood cell population.

Millar denied the claims, telling police that Gaumont was "a lunatic" and that he was "talking absolute crap." However, by this time his phone had been tapped for some four months and, when faced with damning evidence against him, he took the sensible option and made a full confession the next day. Under international cyclings sanctioned by the UCI, a confession is considered equal grounds for suspension as a positive test and he was banned for two years by the British Cycling Federation in August. He was stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship, his 3rd place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré finish also from 2003 and his Stage 1 and 6 wins at the 2001 Vuelta a Espana. Cofidis, meanwhile, began to tear itself apart as Menuet resigned; sacking riders and team employees until it was left a hollow shell on the point of implosion.

An appeal to the Court for Arbitration in Sport failed to get the ban reduced, but it was backdated to begin from the day he'd made his confession. Then in 2006, he came under further investigation as part of a court hearing in Nanterres. That he had doped was not in any doubt, but the court ruled that since Menuet lived just over the Spanish border, it was impossible to prove whether the rider had taken the banned drug while in France or in Spain - and as such, criminal charges could not be sought. During the hearing, Millar opened himself up and told how he had been almost destroyed by the pressures of the sport; how he had despaired that he could never live up to the expectations of his fans and how, after spending every evening alone in his flat with only the television to take his mind off the stress, he had begun going to parties and drinking heavily. He had always found it difficult to make friends, he said; which suggests that, like many people who crave interaction with other human beings but for whatever reason cannot find friends, he filled the void with the temporary friendships that come so much easier with intoxication. He had broken a bone and been unable to cycle for four months, then split up with his girlfriend and entered a depression.

Millar's return: the 2007 Tour
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

That sort of honesty can drive people over the edge, but in Millar's case it saved him. His obvious intelligence - another quality not found in enormous qualities among professional cyclists (in the men's peloton, at least) - earned him some new fans. He had sent much of his suspension very drunk, but thanks to his honesty he was once again respected rather than pitied and as a result he could begin to respect himself for the first time in years. One of his new friends was Mauro Gianetti, manager of Saunier Duval-Prodir, and he realised that if only Millar could claw himself back from the brink he'd return a stronger, wiser person; so he threw him a lifeline - an offer of a contract once the ban expired. Millar now had hope.

The Tour de France began one week after his ban ended in 2006 and, slowly but surely, Millar began clawing his way back to the top echelon of cyclists. Since then, his intelligence and (sometimes abrasive but always interesting) personality has led to him becoming one of the sport's elder statesmen, frequently approached by journalists seeking his opinion on all sorts of matters.

Professional cycling was a poorer place without him and though many people initially felt that he should not return, he is now among the most popular figures on the ProTour circuit.

Benoît Joachim
Born in Lëtzebuerg, the capital city of Luxembourg, on this day in 1976, Joachim rode in six Grand Tours - twice in the Tour de France (2000 and 2002), four times in the Vuelta a Espana (2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005) and once in the Giro d'Italia (2005). In the 2004 Vuelta, he became the first rider from Luxembourg to wear the race leader's jersey and kept it for two days. That same year, he won the National Time Trial title, having won the National Road Race Championship in 2003.

In 2000, Joachim returned a sample that revealed an unusually high level of 19-nortestosterone, which exists naturally in the human body in minute quantities but, as a metabolite of Nandralone, in larger quantities is indication of illegal anabolic steroid use. However, he was subsequently cleared on a technicality and continued riding for the Discovery team with whom he spent his entire professional career with the exception of his final two seasons from 2007 when he joined Astana, with whom he remained for two years before going to his last team Differdange for 2009, then retired at the end of the season.

Yaroslav Popovych
Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych, born on this day in 1980, enjoyed enormous success as an amateur and won an Under-23 World Championship and Paris-Roubaix before turning professional with Discovery in 2005, where he was hailed as a potential successor to Lance Armstrong - whom he helped towards his historic seventh Tour de France victory that year, while winning the Youth Classification for himself.

Popovych at the 2011 Tour de France
(image credit: PB85 CC BY-SA 3.0)

In the Tour one year later, Popovych was considered to be one of the team's strongest riders and won Stage 12 in memorable style: having broken away from the peloton with Óscar Freire, Alessandro Ballan and Christophe Le Mével, he repeatedly and savagely attacked each of them until he'd drained their strength. In 2007, he rode in support of Alberto Contador and for the second time became an instrumental part in his team leader's eventual victory; a remarkable show of humility considering Popovych was two years older and at a time when many riders are entering their best years. He got his chance to go for glory at that year's Giro d'Italia when he was named team leader, but was forced to abandon in Stage 12 following two crashes.

When Discovery withdrew from cycling at the end of the 2007 season, Popovych moved to Silence-Lotto as a domestique to Cadel Evans who would come 2nd in the Tour that year. It proved to be a far quieter year for the Ukrainian, however, as he achieved just one podium finish - 3rd at Paris-Nice. At the end of the season, he signed up to Astana which had recently come under the aegis of ex-Discovery manager Johan Bruyneel, a man whose management style has earned him the eternal dislike and everlasting loyalty of riders in roughly equal amounts. Once again riding as a domestique for Contador, he helped to propel the Spaniard to 4th place overall while settling for 23rd himself. In 2010, when Bruyneel took on management duties at the new Team Radioshack co-owned by Lance Armstrong, Popovych once again went with him.

In January 2011, Popovych was implicated in the investigation into Floyd Landis. American magazine Sports Illustrated published a report claiming that Popovych's Tuscan home had been raided by police who had subsequently discovered doping products, medical supplies and documents linking him to the notorious Dr. Michele Ferrari. Through his lawyer, Popovych strongly denied the claims and also stated that the magazine's claims that police had found proof of a continuing connection between Ferraro and Armstrong, who had previously insisted he no longer had any association with the controversial doctor, were false. No charges have been brought against Popovych which, it seems, proves the allegations published by Sports Illustrated were indeed either incorrect or a deliberate falsification.

Popovych rode with the new Radioshack-Nissan-Trek team formed following the merger with Leopard Trek for 2012, but failed to win any races.

Marek Wesoły

Kara Chesworth was born in Portsmouth in this day in 1972 but later moved to Wales where she rides with the Dysynni CC. She represented Wales at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and that same year came 8th in the National Road Race Championship.

Marek Wesoły, born in Gostyń, Poland on this day in 1978, has ridden in all three Grand Tours. His best result came at the 2004 National Championships, where he won the Road Race title.

Wilf Waters, born on this day in 1923, became a household name as one of the most successful British cyclists during the 1940s when he won numerous titles. In 1948, he was selected to compete at the Olympic Games in London and, with David Ricketts, Tommy Godwin and Robert Geldard, won a bronze medal in the Team Pursuit. At the time of writing, Waters is still with us.

Dutch criterium cyclist Jan Schröder died on this day in 2007. He was born on the 16th of June 1941.

Carlos-Manuel Figueiredo Teixeira, born on this day in 1971, turned professional with Atum Bom Petisco-Tavira in 1995, then went to Boavista and remained with the team until retirement in 2002 - he didn't set the world alight, but he picked up a few good results including a stage win at the GP Sport Noticias in 1997. Many cyclists fall upon hard times when they retire, but few attempt to solve their problems in the way that Teixeira did - he robbed twenty banks, starting in 2011 and accruing a total of around €152,000 in order to set up his own business. In November 2012 he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Other cyclists born on this day: Frank Høj (Denmark, 1973); Jan Hruška (Czechoslovakia, 1975); Ernst Denifl (Father of Leopard Trek's Stefan Denifl, Austria, 1962); Károly Eisenkrammer (Hungary, 1969); Paul Maue (Germany, 1922); Tadashi Kato (Japan, 1935); Ramón Sáez (Spain, 1940); Heinz Imboden (Switzerland, 1962); Erik Schoefs (Belgium, 1967); Tsuyoshi Kawachi (Japan, 1945); Jimmi Madsen (Denmark, 1969); Ib Vagn Hansen (Denmark, 1926).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.06.2013

Bahamontes, The Eagle of Toledo

The Tour de France began on this day in 1963 - it had been 60 years since the first Tour but, as the race was not held for a total of ten years during World Wars 1 and 2, it was the 50th edition. There were 21 stages, two of which were split into a road race and a time trial, it covered 4,137km in total and 130 riders started. Organisers, fearing that a fourth victory for Jacques Anquetil would be considered boring by fans, especially after he dominated the race with what would be the fastest average speed until 1981 in the 1962 edition, reduced the time trials to 79km so that the mountain stages would contribute more towards an overall win so that a climber would have a better chance. For a while, it looked as though they needn't have bothered: Anquetil had picked up a tapeworm and his doctors advised him not to start, but a few days before the race was due to start he decided that he'd go ahead anyway. He had two main rivals, Raymond Poulidor and The Eagle of Toledo Federico Bahamontes.

There was one rather unusual team that year: IBAC-Molteni was formed from the two existing teams of those names, and half of them wore IBAC jerseys while the other half wore Molteni jerseys.

In the very first stage, just as Anquetil crashed and hurt his knee and elbow, Bahamontes escaped in a four-man break; since he was known as a climber and the stage was flat the peloton was not concerned. The Belgian Eddy Pauwels won the stage and got himself into the maillot jaune for the next two days, but the 1'28" advantage Bahamontes gained came as a big surprise and Anquetil admitted that he now saw him as his main rival. Rik van Looy, who was already in his eleventh year as a professional cyclist (but would remain one for another seven years),  won Stage 2a then the Pelforth-Sauvage took the Stage 2b team time trial before another successful break took Seamus Elliott to victory in Stage 3 - he then stayed in yellow until Stage 6a. He never had it again for the remainder of the race, but it didn't matter because he'd earned his place in history as the first Irishman to lead the Tour de France.

Gilbert Desmet

As expected, Anquetil won the Stage 6b time trial - they didn't call him Mr. Chrono for nothing, but he didn't win back enough time to stop Gilbert Desmet getting into yellow. Since Bahamontes was such a talented climber it was widely thought that as soon as the race reached the Pyrenees in Stage  10, he'd win a massive lead that might even prove sufficient to win the race. Anquetil, however, had guessed what the organisers were planning and spent the early part of the season entering as many hilly and mountainous races as he could, and as a result he was now a very different type of rider - Bahamontes lead a group through the 148km from Pau to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, but Anquetil kept up with him all the way and then still had the strength to beat them all in a sprint. It was the first mountain stage he had ever won, which put him into third overall and suddenly nothing in the race was certain.

Desmet was still in yellow, probably as much to his own surprise as anybody else's, because other than a couple of Classics wins (Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and Paris-Tours in 1958), he'd never shown much potential as a stage racer (he'd win La Flèche Wallonne in 1964, too), and he kept it all the way to the Alps in Stage 15 when Bahamontes decided to use the Grand Bois and Col de Porte to show the rest of the field how a real grimpeur gets a bike to the top of a mountain. He won the stage and moved into second place. Stage 16 took in 202km from Grenoble to Val d'Isère, a tough parcours that Bahamontes probably could have won; but he had bigger fish to fry and began working on improving his overall time, and moved into the lead, while Fernando Manzaneque - who had been sixth overall in the 1961 Tour and stood on the Vuelta a Espana podium a couple of times - won the stage.

Anquetil and Poulidor

Bahamontes would wear yellow for just one day, at least partially due to a little bit of cheating by St. Raphael-Gitane-Geminiani. In 1963, the old rule banning bike swaps except in the case of mechanical failure and/or irreparable damage still stood, but manager Raphaël Geminiani realised that if Anquetil was going to win he'd need a lighter bike fitted with gears more suited to the Alps. So, during Stage 17 he borrowed a cable cutter from a team mechanic and at the foot of the first climb when he was certain nobody would see him, he cut a brake cable as roughly as possible to make it look as though it'd snapped. Anquetil was therefore allowed to continue on the new bike that had been especially prepared and kept up with Bahamontes all the way. Towards the end of the stage, when it began to look like another sprint finish was on the cards, the mechanics had fixed the "broken" cable so he got his high-geared bike back again. He won the second mountain stage of his career and the maillot jaune. When he won the Stage 19 time trial, his fourth Tour victory was in the bag.

Bahamontes was second, 3'35" down, while José Pérez Francés of Ferrys was third with +10'14" and Desmet ended up fifth with +15'. Poulidor, whom so many had thought had a real chance of victory, was eighth with +16'46". Some time after the race, Anquetil and Geminiani admitted that they'd cheating and revealed how easy it had been to do so - the next year, the rule they'd circumvented was repealed.

Steve Joughin
A quarter of a century before Mark Cavendish there was Steve Joughin, an out-spoken compact Manx sprinter who became one of the best in the world and, just like Cav, spent much of his career trying to explain to fans why it was he would never win the Tour de France.

Steve Joughin

He was born on this day in 1959 and discovered his love for racing during childhood, joining the Manx Road Club. In 1977, he became Junior National Champion, then spent a few years picking up good results until 1980 when he went to France to try to make a career. However, France was not to his liking: young cyclists do not live well when they're still trying to make their name and the occasional criterium win here and there doesn't leave much money once bikes and kit are paid for. He was back in Britain within months.

Ten years earlier, he'd have ruined his chances of a professional career there and then; but during the late 1970s and early 1980s British racing was undergoing something of a renaissance and some of the top European names were making the trip across the Channel to race in British events. Joughin beat them regularly enough to get himself noticed and in 1983 he was recruited by the Moducel team, staying with them for four seasons. In 1986 he won two stages at the Tour of Britain and was offered a place with the Percy Bilton-Holdsworth team, then moved to Ever Ready-Ammaco for a year before going back to Percy Bilton from 1989 until 1991 when he spent his last season with KJC-Revelation.

Like many ex-professionals, Joughin found it extremely difficult to adjust to normal life when he retired, finding solace in alcohol. By 2005 he had become so ill that doctors were amazed he survived; then, using the sheer will power that all professional cyclists have, he saved himself and gave up drinking. Now living in Stoke-on-Trent, Joughin owns and runs the Pro-Vision sportswear company and works in a voluntary capacity for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Simon Špilak, born in Tišina on this day in 1986, was Slovenian Under-19 Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2004, then Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2005. In 2009 he won the Tour de Romandie, and in 2012 he was fourth overall at Paris-Nice.

David Millar's arrest

At 20:25 on this day in 2004, British cyclist David Millar was enjoying dinner in a Biarritz restaurant when three plain clothes officers from the anti-drugs squad approached him. He was arrested and the officers took his shoe laces, watch, keys, cellphone and other items before driving him back to his flat and beginning a search. Millar is still highly critical of their methods:

"They went in with a gun first, as if somebody was going to hit them with a back wheel or something. They sat me down and I wasn't allowed to move while they searched the house. They search while you're there. It took them four hours. 

They humiliated me and were critiquing my lifestyle, using a classic good cop, bad cop thing. It was psychological warfare. The bad cop literally hated me. He was saying: 'You're not a good person - we know that.' He said: 'You take three paces and I will bring you down like you're resisting arrest.' It was deliberate. I felt completely violated."

Eventually, the police found what they were looking for - empty phials that had once contained EPO and two used syringes. Precisely where they were found is a bit of a mystery - some reports say that they were lying on top of a book, others that they were concealed within a hollowed-out book. Millar was then taken to Biarritz and locked in a cell. It would later turn out that they had targeted Millar after Philippe Gaumont, arrested six months previously, told them that the British rider had encouraged Cofidis team doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet to provide them and Cedric Vasseur with the drug, which increases red blood cell population.

Millar denied the claims, telling police that Gaumont was "a lunatic" and that he was "talking absolute crap." However, by this time his phone had been tapped for some four months and, when faced with damning evidence against him, he took the sensible option and made a full confession the next day. Under international cyclings sanctioned by the UCI, a confession is considered equal grounds for suspension as a positive test and he was banned for two years by the British Cycling Federation in August. He was stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship, his 3rd place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré finish also from 2003 and his Stage 1 and 6 wins at the 2001 Vuelta a Espana.

Today, Millar has become a spokesman for the peloton; he is widely considered to be one of the most honest men in cycling and is known for his intelligence, erudition and wit.


Marianne Berglund, born in Skellefteå, Sweden on this day in 1963, won the Junior National Road Race Championships in 1978 and the same event at Elite level in 1979, 1984, 1987 and 1991. She was World Champion in 1983 - the first time the title ever went to a Swedish rider.

Other cyclists born on this day: Michael Sandstød (Denmark, 1968); Mario Ghella (Italy, 1929); Henry Brask Andersen (Denmark, 1896, died 1970); Roy Knickman (USA, 1965); Ognyan Toshev (Bulgaria, 1940); Folke Nilsson (Sweden, 1907, died 1980); Jack Hoobin (Australia, 1927, died 2000); Márlon Paniagua (Guatemala, 1974); Richard Johnstone (New Zealand, 1936); XChantal Daucourt (Switzerland, 1966); Günter Lörke (Germany, 1965); Heiko Szonn (Germany, 1976).

Daily Cycling Facts 04.01.2013

Danilo Hondo
(Image credit: Rolf Kaiser
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Danilo Hondo was born in Guben, Germany on this day in 1974. Hondo was banned from racing for two years after he tested positive for the banned Carphedon, a drug that can improve stamina and resistance to cold (and as such, a very tempting prospect on mountain stages). The ban was then cut to one year, but subsequently extended back to two years by the Court for Arbitration in Sport. Finally, in 2007, Hondo appealed at a civil court and the suspension was ended early.

David Millar
David "The Dandy" Millar was born on this day in 1977. The Malta-born British cyclist is the only British rider to have worn the race leader's jersey in all three Grand Tours, though he was subsequently stripped of his Tour de France on his own insistence during one of the most famous and dramatic doping cases in modern cycling.

At 20:25 on the 23rd of June 2004 as Millar enjoyed dinner in a restaurant, three plain clothes officers from the anti-drugs squad approached him. He was arrested and the officers took his shoe laces, watch, keys, cellphone and other items before driving him back to his flat and beginning a search. Millar is still highly critical of their methods:

"They went in with a gun first, as if somebody was going to hit them with a back wheel or something. They sat me down and I wasn't allowed to move while they searched the house. They search while you're there. It took them four hours.

David Millar
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

They humiliated me and were critiquing my lifestyle, using a classic good cop, bad cop thing. It was psychological warfare. The bad cop literally hated me. He was saying: 'You're not a good person – we know that.' He said: 'You take three paces and I will bring you down like you're resisting arrest.' It was deliberate. I felt completely violated."

Eventually, the police found what they were looking for - empty phials that had once contained EPO and two used syringes. Precisely where they were found is a bit of a mystery - some reports say that they were lying on top of a book, others that they were concealed within a hollowed-out book. Millar was then taken to Biarritz and locked in a cell. It would later turn out that they had targeted Millar after Philippe Gaumont, arrested six months previously, told them that the British rider had encouraged Cofidis team doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet to provide them and Cedric Vasseur with the drug, which increases red blood cell population.

Millar denied the claims, telling police that Gaumont was "a lunatic" and that he was "talking absolute crap." However, by this time his phone had been tapped for some four months and, when faced with damning evidence against him, he took the sensible option and made a full confession the next day. Under international cyclings sanctioned by the UCI, a confession is considered equal grounds for suspension as a positive test and he was banned for two years by the British Cycling Federation in August. He was stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship, his 3rd place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré finish also from 2003 and his Stage 1 and 6 wins at the 2001 Vuelta a Espana. Cofidis, meanwhile, began to tear itself apart as Menuet resigned; sacking riders and team employees until it was left a hollow shell on the point of implosion.

An appeal to the Court for Arbitration in Sport failed to get the ban reduced, but it was backdated to begin from the day he'd made his confession. Then in 2006, he came under further investigation as part of a court hearing in Nanterres. That he had doped was not in any doubt, but the court ruled that since Menuet lived just over the Spanish border, it was impossible to prove whether the rider had taken the banned drug while in France or in Spain - and as such, criminal charges could not be sought. During the hearing, Millar opened himself up and told how he had been almost destroyed by the pressures of the sport; how he had despaired that he could never live up to the expectations of his fans and how, after spending every evening alone in his flat with only the television to take his mind off the stress, he had begun going to parties and drinking heavily. He had always found it difficult to make friends, he said; which suggests that, like many people who crave interaction with other human beings but for whatever reason cannot find friends, he filled the void with the temporary friendships that come so much easier with intoxication. He had broken a bone and been unable to cycle for four months, then split up with his girlfriend and entered a depression.

Millar's return: the 2007 Tour
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

That sort of honesty can drive people over the edge, but in Millar's case it saved him. His obvious intelligence - another quality not found in enormous qualities among professional cyclists (in the men's peloton, at least) - earned him some new fans. He had sent much of his suspension very drunk, but thanks to his honesty he was once again respected rather than pitied and as a result he could begin to respect himself for the first time in years. One of his new friends was Mauro Gianetti, manager of Saunier Duval-Prodir, and he realised that if only Millar could claw himself back from the brink he'd return a stronger, wiser person; so he threw him a lifeline - an offer of a contract once the ban expired. Millar now had hope.

The Tour de France began one week after his ban ended in 2006 and, slowly but surely, Millar began clawing his way back to the top echelon of cyclists. Since then, his intelligence and (sometimes abrasive but always interesting) personality has led to him becoming one of the sport's elder statesmen, frequently approached by journalists seeking his opinion on all sorts of matters.

Professional cycling was a poorer place without him and though many people initially felt that he should not return, he is now among the most popular figures on the ProTour circuit.

Benoît Joachim
Born in Lëtzebuerg, the capital city of Luxembourg, on this day in 1976, Joachim rode in six Grand Tours - twice in the Tour de France (2000 and 2002), four times in the Vuelta a Espana (2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005) and once in the Giro d'Italia (2005). In the 2004 Vuelta, he became the first rider from Luxembourg to wear the race leader's jersey and kept it for two days. That same year, he won the National Time Trial title, having won the National Road Race Championship in 2003.

In 2000, Joachim returned a sample that revealed an unusually high level of 19-nortestosterone, which exists naturally in the human body in minute quantities but, as a metabolite of Nandralone, in larger quantities is indication of illegal anabolic steroid use. However, he was subsequently cleared on a technicality and continued riding for the Discovery team with whom he spent his entire professional career with the exception of his final two seasons from 2007 when he joined Astana, with whom he remained for two years before going to his last team Differdange for 2009, then retired at the end of the season.

Yaroslav Popovych
Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych, born on this day in 1980, enjoyed enormous success as an amateur and won an Under-23 World Championship and Paris-Roubaix before turning professional with Discovery in 2005, where he was hailed as a potential successor to Lance Armstrong - whom he helped towards his historic seventh Tour de France victory that year, while winning the Youth Classification for himself.

Popovych at the 2011 Tour de France
(image credit: PB85 CC BY-SA 3.0)

In the Tour one year later, Popovych was considered to be one of the team's strongest riders and won Stage 12 in memorable style: having broken away from the peloton with Óscar Freire, Alessandro Ballan and Christophe Le Mével, he repeatedly and savagely attacked each of them until he'd drained their strength. In 2007, he rode in support of Alberto Contador and for the second time became an instrumental part in his team leader's eventual victory; a remarkable show of humility considering Popovych was two years older and at a time when many riders are entering their best years. He got his chance to go for glory at that year's Giro d'Italia when he was named team leader, but was forced to abandon in Stage 12 following two crashes.

When Discovery withdrew from cycling at the end of the 2007 season, Popovych moved to Silence-Lotto as a domestique to Cadel Evans who would come 2nd in the Tour that year. It proved to be a far quieter year for the Ukrainian, however, as he achieved just one podium finish - 3rd at Paris-Nice. At the end of the season, he signed up to Astana which had recently come under the aegis of ex-Discovery manager Johan Bruyneel, a man whose management style has earned him the eternal dislike and everlasting loyalty of riders in roughly equal amounts. Once again riding as a domestique for Contador, he helped to propel the Spaniard to 4th place overall while settling for 23rd himself. In 2010, when Bruyneel took on management duties at the new Team Radioshack co-owned by Lance Armstrong, Popovych once again went with him.

In January 2011, Popovych was implicated in the investigation into Floyd Landis. American magazine Sports Illustrated published a report claiming that Popovych's Tuscan home had been raided by police who had subsequently discovered doping products, medical supplies and documents linking him to the notorious Dr. Michele Ferrari. Through his lawyer, Popovych strongly denied the claims and also stated that the magazine's claims that police had found proof of a continuing connection between Ferraro and Armstrong, who had previously insisted he no longer had any association with the controversial doctor. No charges have been brought against Popovych which, it seems, proves the allegations published by Sports Illustrated were indeed either incorrect or a deliberate falsification.

Popovych rode with the new Radioshack-Nissan-Trek team formed following the merger with Leopard Trek for 2012, but failed to win any races.

Marek Wesoły

Kara Chesworth was born in Portsmouth in this day in 1972 but later moved to Wales where she rides with the Dysynni CC. She represented Wales at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and that same year came 8th in the National Road Race Championship.

Marek Wesoły, born in Gostyń, Poland on this day in 1978, has ridden in all three Grand Tours. His best result came at the 2004 National Championships, where he won the Road Race title.

Wilf Waters, born on this day in 1923, became a household name as one of the most successful British cyclists during the 1940s when he won numerous titles. In 1948, he was selected to compete at the Olympic Games in London and, with David Ricketts, Tommy Godwin and Robert Geldard, won a bronze medal in the Team Pursuit. At the time of writing, Waters is still with us.

Dutch criterium cyclist Jan Schröder died on this day in 2007. He was born on the 16th of June 1941.

Carlos-Manuel Figueiredo Teixeira, born on this day in 1971, turned professional with Atum Bom Petisco-Tavira in 1995, then went to Boavista and remained with the team until retirement in 2002 - he didn't set the world alight, but he picked up a few good results including a stage win at the GP Sport Noticias in 1997. Many cyclists fall upon hard times when they retire, but few attempt to solve their problems in the way that Teixeira did - he robbed twenty banks, starting in 2011 and accruing a total of around €152,000 in order to set up his own business. In November 2012 he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Other cyclists born on this day: Frank Høj (Denmark, 1973); Jan Hruška (Czechoslovakia, 1975); Ernst Denifl (Father of Leopard Trek's Stefan Denifl, Austria, 1962); Károly Eisenkrammer (Hungary, 1969); Paul Maue (Germany, 1922); Tadashi Kato (Japan, 1935); Ramón Sáez (Spain, 1940); Heinz Imboden (Switzerland, 1962); Erik Schoefs (Belgium, 1967); Tsuyoshi Kawachi (Japan, 1945); Jimmi Madsen (Denmark, 1969); Ib Vagn Hansen (Denmark, 1926).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.06.12

Bahamontes, The Eagle of Toledo

The Tour de France began on this day in 1963 - it had been 60 years since the first Tour and Second World Wars, it was the 50th time the race had been held. There were 21 stages, two of which were split into a road race and a time trial, it covered 4,137km in total and 130 riders started. Organisers, fearing that a fourth victory for Jacques Anquetil would be considered boring by fans, especially after he dominated the race with what would be the fastest average speed until 1981 in the 1962 edition, reduced the time trials to 79km so that the mountain stages would contribute more towards an overall win so that a climber would have a better chance. For a while, it looked as though they needn't have bothered: Anquetil had picked up a tapeworm and his doctors advised him not to start, but a few days before the race was due to start he decided that he'd go ahead anyway. He had two main rivals, Raymond Poulidor and The Eagle of Toledo Federico Bahamontes.

There was one rather unusual team that year: IBAC-Molteni was formed from the two existing teams of those names, and half of them wore IBAC jerseys while the other half wore Molteni jerseys.

In the very first stage, just as Anquetil crashed and hurt his knee and elbow, Bahamontes escaped in a four-man break; since he was known as a climber and the stage was flat. The Belgian Eddy Pauwels won the stage and got himself into the maillot jaune for two stages, but the 1'28" advantage Bahamontes gained came as a big surprise and Anquetil admitted that he now saw him as his main rival. Rik van Looy won Stage 2a, then the Pelforth-Sauvage took the Stage 2b team time trial before another successful break took Seamus Elliott to victory in Stage 3 - he then stayed in yellow until Stage 6a. He never had it again for the remainder of the race, but it didn't matter because he'd earned his place in history as the first Irishman to lead the Tour de France.

Gilbert Desmet

As expected, Anquetil won the Stage 6b time trial - they didn't call him Mr. Chrono for nothing, but he didn't win back enough time to stop Gilbert Desmet getting into yellow. Since Bahamontes was such a talented climber it was widely thought that as soon as the race reached the Pyrenees in Stage  10, he'd win a massive lead that might even prove sufficient to win the race. Anquetil, however, had guessed what the organisers were planning and spent the early part of the season entering as many hilly and mountainous races as he could, and as a result he was now a very different type of rider - Bahamontes lead a group through the 148km from Pau to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, but Anquetil kept up with him all the way and then still had the strength to beat them all in a sprint. It was the first mountain stage he had ever won, which put him into third overall and suddenly nothing in the race was certain.

Desmet was still in yellow, probably as much to his own surprise as anybody else's, because other than a couple of Classics wins (Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and Paris-Tours in 1958), he'd never shown much potential as a stage racer (he'd win La Flèche Wallonne in 1964, too), and he kept it all the way to the Alps in Stage 15 when Bahamontes decided to use the Grand Bois and Col de Porte to show the rest of the field how a real grimpeur gets a bike to the top of a mountain. He won the stage and moved into second place. Stage 16 took in 202km from Grenoble to Val d'Isère, a tough parcours that Bahamontes probably could have won; but he had bigger fish to fry and began working on improving his overall time, and moved into the lead, while Fernando Manzaneque - who had been sixth overall in the 1961 Tour and stood on the Vuelta a Espana podium a couple of times - won the stage.

Anquetil and Poulidor

Bahamontes would wear yellow for just one day, at least partially due to a little bit of cheating by St. Raphael-Gitane-Geminiani. In 1963, the old rule banning bike swaps except in the case of mechanical failure and/or irreparable damage still stood, but manager Raphaël Geminiani realised that if Anquetil was going to win he'd need a lighter bike fitted with gears more suited to the Alps. So, during Stage 17 he borrowed a cable cutter from a team mechanic and at the foot of the first climb when he was certain nobody would see him, he cut a brake cable as roughly as possible to make it look as though it'd snapped. Anquetil was therefore allowed to continue on the new bike that had been especially prepared and kept up with Bahamontes all the way. Towards the end of the stage, when it began to look like another sprint finish was on the cards, the mechanics had fixed the "broken" cable so he got his high-geared bike back again. He won the second mountain stage of his career and the maillot jaune. When he won the Stage 19 time trial, his fourth Tour victory was in the bag.

Bahamontes was second, 3'35" down, while José Pérez Francés of Ferrys was third with +10'14" and Desmet ended up fifth with +15'. Poulidor, whom so many had thought had a real chance of victory, was eighth with +16'46". Some time after the race, Anquetil and Geminiani admitted that they'd cheating and revealed how easy it had been to do so - the next year, the rule they'd circumvented was repealed.

Steve Joughin
A quarter of a century before Mark Cavendish there was Steve Joughin, an out-spoken compact Manx sprinter who became one of the best in the world and, just like Cav, spent much of his career trying to explain to fans why it was he would never win the Tour de France.

Steve Joughin

He was born on this day in 1959 and discovered his love for racing during childhood, joining the Manx Road Club. In 1977, he became Junior National Champion, then spent a few years picking up good results until 1980 when he went to France to try to make a career. However, France was not to his liking: young cyclists do not live well when they're still trying to make their name and the occasional criterium win here and there doesn't leave much money once bikes and kit are paid for. He was back in Britain within months.

Ten years earlier, he'd have ruined his chances of a professional career there and then; but during the late 1970s and early 1980s British racing was undergoing something of a renaissance and some of the top European names were making the trip across the Channel to race in British events. Joughin beat them regularly enough to get himself noticed and in 1983 he was recruited by the Moducel team, staying with them for four seasons. In 1986 he won two stages at the Tour of Britain and was offered a place with the Percy Bilton-Holdsworth team, then moved to Ever Ready-Ammaco for a year before going back to Percy Bilton from 1989 until 1991 when he spent his last season with KJC-Revelation.

Like many ex-professionals, Joughin found it extremely difficult to adjust to normal life when he retired, finding solace in alcohol. By 2005 he had become so ill that doctors were amazed he survived; then, using the sheer will power that all professional cyclists have, he saved himself and gave up drinking. Now living in Stoke-on-Trent, Joughin owns and runs the Pro-Vision sportswear company and works in a voluntary capacity for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Michael Sandstød

Cyclists are, famously, a superstitious bunch even by sporting standards - look closely at the bikes and riders prior to a race and you'll see all sorts of charms dangling from the brake cables and lockets containing who-knows-what on chains around necks.

One rider who was not was Michael Sandstød, born in Copenhagen on this day in 1968. Sandstød enjoyed numerous successes on the road and on the track over the course of his eleven-year career, which began in 1993 with Gitter Mand and ended in 2004 with CSC, including numerous gold medals at National Championships and General Classification victories at the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque (1999) and the Tour de Picardie (2000, 2002). He achieved it all without resorting to the magical talismans favoured by many other riders..

At the 2002 Tour de France, Sandstød had been performing exceptionally well - he'd finished Stage 5 in second place behind Jaan Kirsipuu, his best ever result in the race, and decided to show the other riders that their dried four-leaf clover, miniature statues of saints, upside-down numbers (a common one when a rider is allocated number 13, but some riders have other numbers they consider unlucky) and bottles of holy water were nothing but mumbo-jumbo, so that evening as the teams ate their dinner he deliberately knocked over the salt. Salt is regarded as highly significant by the superstitious and especially so, for some reason, by superstitious cyclists, some of whom wear little phials of if when racing. Spilling it is considered extremely unlucky - which is why many of the other riders around the table stopped eating and stared at Sandstød with horrified expressions.

Fortunately, the terrible things that befall those who spill salt can be avoided by performing one of various rituals, the most well-known of which is to throw some over your left shoulder so that it hits the devil in the eye. But Sandstød did not carry out any ritual. Instead, he deliberately spilled some more, letting it pour onto the floor. "Come on - it's only salt!" he told the silent, shocked men around him.

The following stage was between Pau and La Mongie in the Pyrenees, the first mountain stage of that year's Tour. On a descent, Sandstød lost control of his bike and crashed hard, sustaining injuries so serious - a punctured lung, eight smashed ribs and a shattered shoulder - that he was close to death and spent weeks in intensive care.


Simon Špilak, born in Tišina on this day in 1986, was Slovenian Under-19 Road Race and Time Trial Champion in 2004, then Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2005. In 2009 he won the Tour de Romandie, and in 2012 he was fourth overall at Paris-Nice.

David Millar's arrest

At 20:25 on this day in 2004, British cyclist David Millar was enjoying dinner in a Biarritz restaurant when three plain clothes officers from the anti-drugs squad approached him. He was arrested and the officers took his shoe laces, watch, keys, cellphone and other items before driving him back to his flat and beginning a search. Millar is still highly critical of their methods:

"They went in with a gun first, as if somebody was going to hit them with a back wheel or something. They sat me down and I wasn't allowed to move while they searched the house. They search while you're there. It took them four hours. 

They humiliated me and were critiquing my lifestyle, using a classic good cop, bad cop thing. It was psychological warfare. The bad cop literally hated me. He was saying: 'You're not a good person - we know that.' He said: 'You take three paces and I will bring you down like you're resisting arrest.' It was deliberate. I felt completely violated."

Eventually, the police found what they were looking for - empty phials that had once contained EPO and two used syringes. Precisely where they were found is a bit of a mystery - some reports say that they were lying on top of a book, others that they were concealed within a hollowed-out book. Millar was then taken to Biarritz and locked in a cell. It would later turn out that they had targeted Millar after Philippe Gaumont, arrested six months previously, told them that the British rider had encouraged Cofidis team doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet to provide them and Cedric Vasseur with the drug, which increases red blood cell population.

Millar denied the claims, telling police that Gaumont was "a lunatic" and that he was "talking absolute crap." However, by this time his phone had been tapped for some four months and, when faced with damning evidence against him, he took the sensible option and made a full confession the next day. Under international cyclings sanctioned by the UCI, a confession is considered equal grounds for suspension as a positive test and he was banned for two years by the British Cycling Federation in August. He was stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship, his 3rd place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré finish also from 2003 and his Stage 1 and 6 wins at the 2001 Vuelta a Espana.


Marianne Berglund, born in Skellefteå, Sweden on this day in 1963, won the Junior National Road Race Championships in 1978 and the same event at Elite level in 1979, 1984, 1987 and 1991. She was World Champion in 1983 - the first time the title ever went to a Swedish rider.

Other births: Mario Ghella (Italy, 1929); Henry Brask Andersen (Denmark, 1896, died 1970); Roy Knickman (USA, 1965); Ognyan Toshev (Bulgaria, 1940); Folke Nilsson (Sweden, 1907, died 1980); Jack Hoobin (Australia, 1927, died 2000); Márlon Paniagua (Guatemala, 1974); Richard Johnstone (New Zealand, 1936); XChantal Daucourt (Switzerland, 1966); Günter Lörke (Germany, 1965); Heiko Szonn (Germany, 1976).

Trouble is a-brewin'...

David Millar ‏@millarmind
Dear Cyclingnews, please stop ripping off every story about me & the Olympics. I think I'd be correct in saying it's getting rather boring.


David Millar ‏@millarmind
If you choose to continue, avoid making shit up, it reflects badly on both of us. Makes me look like a wanker and you look like amateurs.


David Millar ‏@millarmind
Although some would argue I need no help when it comes to making myself look like a wanker. So stop it for your sake.


Laura Weislo ‏@Laura_Weislo
@millarmind if you have specific points in that story to address, please email cyclingnews@cyclingnews.com. It's only what DT reported.


Laura Weislo ‏‏@Laura_Weislo
@millarmind we're all professionals here, and calling CN out on Twitter is kind of wanker-ish. You've got all our contact information.

Cycling Evening News 03.05.12

Swift end to the Giro for Sky's Ben - Tour of the Gila - Brailsford will select Millar - Italy drops National Team lifetime ban for ex-dopers - Surprise success for Afghan team at Pakistan Women's Nats - Weylandt's girlfriend to attend Giro - Kampenhout honours Impanis - Yorkshire CX series - Leipheimer uncertain for Tour of California - Hulsmans will miss Giro - Yawn: another "I ride a bike but I'm still a lady" story - Cancellara's recovering - Other racing news - Addison Lee damage limitation exercise - Cycling newswire

Racing
Swift end to the Giro for Sky's Ben
It's looking unfortunately as though the Giro d'Italia is already over for Team Sky's Ben Swift - the 24-year-ol reported via his Twitter feed that he had a heavy crash during training on Thursday and will have to undergo tests. British Cycling reports that he has suffered a fractured shoulder..

Ben Swift ‏ @swiftybswift well that is my Giro over, had a very heavy crash out on the bike today very disappointed not to be able to start. further checks tomorrow

He will be replaced by Jeremy Hunt (born on the 12th of March in 1974, Hunt does not become the oldest man in the race as has been reported elsewhere - Luca Mazzanti was born on the 4th of February in the same year).

Tour of the Gila

Kristin Armstrong, now with Exergy Twenty12

Kristin Armstrong (Exergy Twenty12) rode a remarkable stage to finish no less than 2'18" faster than second place Carmen Small yesterday, grabbing herself a considerable lead in the General Classification.

Alison Powers ‏ @alpcyclesThe Mo-ge-on and @k_armstrong hurt my legs today. Team did great and I was 4th.

Top Ten
  1.  Kristin Armstrong Exergy Twenty12 3h15'39"
  2.  Carmen Small Team Optum Presented By Kelly Benefit Strategies +2'18"
  3.  Jade Wilcoxson Team Optum Presented By Kelly Benefit Strategies +2'42"
  4.  Alison Powers NOW and Novartis for MS +2'48"
  5.  Janel Holcomb Team Optum Presented By Kelly Benefit Strategies +3'35"
  6.  Robin Farina NOW and Novartis for MS +3'39"
  7.  Emily Kachorek Primal/MapMyRide +3'43""
  8.  Tayler Wiles Exergy Twenty12 +3'54"
  9.  Catherine Johnson Panache Boulder +4'00"
  10.  Olivia Dillon NOW and Novartis for MS +4'16"
Full results and GC

Rory Sutherland (UnitedHealthcare Presented By Maxxis) was the fastest man on the challenging climb into the Mogollon Mountains at the end of Stage 1 at the Tour of the Gila yesterday, winning the stage after cruising over the finish line with a 12" advantage over a three-man chase group.

Top Ten
  1.  Rory Sutherland UnitedHealthcare Presented By Maxxis 4h45'43"
  2.  Joseph Dombrowski Bontrager Livestrong +12"
  3.  Chad Beyer Competitive Cyclist Racing Team +14"
  4.  Sebastian Salas Team Optum Presented By Kelly Benefit Strategies ST
  5.  Christopher Baldwin Bissel +33"
  6.  Marc De Maar UnitedHealthcare Presented By Maxxis +39"
  7.  Francisco Mancebo Competitive Cyclist Racing Team +52"
  8.  Luis Enrique Davila +1'02"
  9.  Cesar Grajales Competitive Cyclist Racing Team ST
  10.  Carlos Lopez Gonzalez +1'14"
Full results and GC

For the men, 128.7km Stage 2 both starts and finishes at Fort Bayard - a historic frontier fort that was once home to the Buffalo Soldiers (known also as "The Negro Cavalry," they were one of several troops made up of black soldiers and not fully integrated into other units until the 1950s) who, in the 1890s, were elected to be the first "bicycle troop" because bikes were cheaper than the horses supplied to other (white) troops. On their first test ride, over 3,056km from Montana to Missouri, they proved themselves able to cover the distance more quickly than the horses.

They reach the first Cat 3 climb at 16km and climb to 2,164m, then the second begins at 24km and climbs to 2,361m. After crossing the Continental Divide (with an uncategorised climb of, oh, only 2,045m) they head to a final and very steep Cat 3 at 100km, climbing to 2,070m before the descent and last 16km back to Fort Bayard. The women use a similar parcours but miss the first 25.4km and climb, beginning instead at Pinos Altos. The remainder of the route is identical to the men's.


Brailsford will select Millar

The only thing that can now keep
David Millar from the Olympics is
David Millar

Dave Brailsford says he will select David Millar for the British Olympic team as long as he's fast enough. "He's available and that's the key thing, it's not my decision to make policy," he told reporters at a press conference yesterday in the wake of the Court for Arbitration in Sport's decision to end the British Olympic Association's lifetime ban on athletes who have been banned for doping.

However, it's still not clear if the rider will accept. Millar, who served a two-year suspension for EPO, has said that he has no wish to compete as a "black sheep," but hoped the CAS would block the law so that he can represent Scotland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Italy drops its own National Team doping ban
The FCI, Italy's cycling federation, has lifted its own lifetime ban on riders riding on the National team after a doping conviction, despite having already survived one legal challenge from Danilo di Luca. The policy had come under attack again recently with an appeal mounted by Annalisa Cucinotta, who served a two-year suspension after testing positive for Boldenone - an anabolic steroid not approved for human use and primarily prescribed by veterinarians to horses. The recent CAS decision in the BOA case will have been received by the FCI as an indication that they had little chance of continuing the policy.

Annalisa Cucinotta

In Britain, as far as cycling is concerned David Millar has been the biggest name in the case (though he chose not to play an active part in the appeal). In Italy, the end of the rule frees up a number of high-profile riders who may now be selected for their nation's Olympic team, including Davide Rebellin, Stefano Garzelli, Alessandro Petacchi and Ivan Basso as well as di Luca.


Surprise success for Afghan women at Pakistan Nationals
The Pakistan Railways team won two of three medals on offer in Day 2 at the Pakistan National Women's Championships after winning the 20km team time trial and 1km sprint. Punjab took gold for the 1km individual time trial. A surprise success was the Afghanistan National Team, competing for the first time after receiving an invitation to the race due to the lack of events in their own nation - they won two bronze medals by coming third in the same events won by the Railways team. Further races will be held today at Lahore's open-air velodrome.

An-Sophie to attend Giro
Wouter Weylandt's girlfriend Ann-Sophie de Graeve will visit two stages of the Giro d'Italia. "I've never spoken about Wouter's death because I haven't been able to find the words to do so," she told Gazzetta dello Sport. "I was looking for reasons and explanations, not places, but I couldn't find them."

Weylandt, a rider with Leopard Trek, died on the 9th of May last year during Stage 3 as he descended the Passo del Bocco after his pedal touched a wall running alongside the road, throwing him to the other side of the road. A doctor working with the Garmin-Cervélo team administered CPR in an attempt to revive him, but an autopsy later found he had died immediately upon impact from a fractured skull and massive internal injuries.

An-Sophie, who gave birth to their daughter on the 1st of September 2011, will visit Stage 3 in Denmark and the following time trial stage in Verona.

Kampenhout honours Impanis

Raymond Impanis, 19.10.1925 - 31.12.2010

The council of Kampenhout unveiled a commemorative bust of Raymond Impanis in the town's Sint-Servaaskerk last week. A winner of the Ronde van Vlaanderen, the Waalse Pijl, Paris-Roubaix and two editions of Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Nice, Impanis was considered one of the finest Classics riders of the 1950s but also did well in stage races with third place in the 1956 Vuelta a Espana, finished in the top ten of the Tour de France three times and once at the Giro d'Italia.

Born in Berg on about the 19th of October 1925 and abandoned as a baby on the steps of the village church, Impanis was found by a priest and raised by the local baker - his surname being based on the Latin plural "panis," plural of bread. He lived around Kampenhout for the rest of his life, was made an Honourary Citizen in 1999 and died in the 31st of December 2010 at the age of 85.


Yorkshire CX Summer Series off to a good start
The Yorkshire Pedalsport Cyclo Cross Summer Series got underway yesterday at Oakbank School in Keighley with Ian Taylor (Craven Energy) making good use of a parcours made very tough by recent heavy rain to battle his way through to the front on the very first lap and a ten second advantage. He then continued to add to it all the way to the end of the race, finishing with a lead of 2'41" over second place Ed McParland (GT Racing).

Leipheimer uncertain for Tour of California

Kevin Hulsmans, now with Farnese Vini-Selle Italia

Levi Leipheimer, who was involved in a collision with a car one day before he was due to start the Tour of the Basque Country, is worried that he may not have sufficiently recovered in time for the Tour of California. The rider sustained a broken leg in the accident, leading some to wonder if - at the age of 38 - his career might be over, though he has not yet given any indication that he has considered retiring.

Hulsmans will miss the Giro
Kevin Hulsmans, who had been chosen for the Farnese Vini-Selle Italia Giro team, will miss the race due to an inflamed knee he's been suffering since Paris-Roubaix. Instead, he'll concentrate on recovering in time for the Ronde van België.

Yawn - another "I ride a bike but I'm still a lady" story
On the morning of her Olympic appearance in London this summer," says the The Toronto Star, "Emily Batty will first attend to her own appearance." The newspaper then goes on to describe how she will put on her make-up, fasten a string of pearls about her neck and diamonds in her ears before she tackles the cross country course.

"I’m a cyclist, that’s my profession, my passion, but I’m definitely a woman first," she says. OK Emily, that's fair enough. You can ride in whatever you like, even a frilly pink frock and high-heels if you choose (provided the UCI allow it, and you can find high-heels with pedal cleats). That's your business and nobody has the right to tell you otherwise. It's the fact and way that this is presented as news that is an issue.

Apparently, "the emerging mountain bike superstar has a supermodel-like appeal for young male fans of the sport" - a comment that does women's cycling no favours at all, because we most definitely do not want any young women considering taking up cycling to think that they need to impress male fans if they're going to get anywhere. It's a hard and, often, ugly sport, and those women who compete do so because they are competitive athletes, not to look good - which is precisely how it should be.

"Batty, just 5-foot-2, says the sport has always been a male bastion, but that her emergence as a top draw star may be helping to erode its machismo," the article continues (in actual fact, she doesn't say that at all - she says that "carrying feminine ways" into cycling makes her easy for fans to recognise). Bullshit. Women such as Alfonsina Strada, Elsy Jacobs, Beryl Burton, Jeannie Longo, Missy Giove, Leontien van Moorsel, Caroline Alexander, Judith Arndt, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg and Marianne Vos have been eroding the machismo of cycling and making inroads for other women to follow them for years; not by looking pretty out on the parcours but by being excellent cyclists. Batty may well do the same if she's good enough (and going by her palmares to date, she probably is), but not because of how she looks.

Nobody worth listening to has ever believed that cycling (or any other sport) in some way reduces a woman's femininity, nor that femininity is the measure of a woman's value. Once again, Emily Batty can wear whatever the hell she likes, but reporting the fact that she slaps on a bit of lippy before a race is categorically not news, nor do cycling fans - nor those who are going to become cycling fans and/or riders - care. Worst of all, reporting it in the way that The Star did may damage the sport.

Cancellara's getting better
Fabian Cancellara, whose Spring Classics campaign was brought to a sudden halt by the quadruple collarbone fracture he suffered at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, says that recovery is taking more time than expected but it won't be longer.

"I thought, 'hey, it's my collarbone, that heals quickly,'" the Swiss rider explains, "but the breaks were just a part of it. There's also the damage around the bone - my shoulder, the ligaments, the muscles, it was all damaged. It still feel strange and painful. I could take painkillers, but I prefer to do without. I felt hopeful after the surgery and the pain disappeared quickly, so I stopped taking painkillers then. Everything was going well, sensation returned - then I had another ultrasound and they found another tear in the ligaments

"What I have to do now is find a new position on the bike. The handlebars and saddle are different to what I'm used too because I have to sit as upright as possible, which is uncomfortable. I feel like a cyclotourist!"(More from Het Nieuwsblad)


Other News
"Youth circuit racing is popular" (Stratford Observer, London)

"Brit Stannard ready for Grand Tour outing" (British Cycling)

"Giro d'Italia with a future start in Germany?" (Cycling News)

"Porte tries Dauphine route to Games" (Brisbane Times)

"Waikato's Jaime Nielsen won the bragging rights over her Olympic teammates on the first day of the national club cycling road race championships today" (NZHerald)

"Amateur cyclists will attempt “America’s Toughest Stage Race” in Utah" (Examiner)


"Utah welcomes the USA Cycling Collegiate Road Nationals" (Daily Peloton)

"Cyclists storm Maple Ridge streets" (Maple Ridge News, Canada)

Stephen de Jongh on Sky's Giro squad (Gazzetta dello Sport)

"Second Edition Of National Cycling Tour Of Ghana Launched In Accra" (Government of Ghana)

Cycling
Addison Lee to introduce cyclist awareness training for drivers

Addison Lee - the London minicab firm that found itself in a real-life PR nightmare last month after chairman John Griffin claimed that the capital's cyclists have only themselves to blame if they're killed or injured on the roads - has announced that its drivers will be given special training to increase their awareness of cyclists.

The news was revealed to BikeBiz editor Carlton Reid in an interview with Addison Lee's PR director Alistair Laycock, who claims to have started cycling to work and that the company is looking into the practicalities of installing video cameras in its fleet to provide a record of what happens in a crash and take action against a driver if he or she is found to be at fault. (More from road.cc)

So that's alright then, isn't it?

Erm - well, no, actually. It'd be wonderful if it was, but this sounds suspiciously like a company desperately trying to claw its way back out of the big hole dug by Mr. Griffin after discovering that cyclists are numerous, proactive and in possession of considerable political clout rather than failed loners who can't afford to drive or take cabs, as he apparently previously believed. Only by keeping an eye on Addison Lee in the future will we know for certain if the company - and Griffin - genuinely do wish to help prevent injury to cyclists or whether this is just an attempt to placate an enemy who turned out to be much more formidable than they had initially assumed. Are these long-term plans or will they be forgotten as soon as the media furore dies down? We'll be watching you, Addison Lee.

Newswire
Britain
"Cycling safety fears are stopping more hitting the saddle" (The Courier)

"How cycle safety has gone up the election agenda in London" (BBC)

Worldwide
"The Union of cyclists held the demonstration on the Earth's Day" (Dalje, Croatia)

"Cyclists accuse Toronto mayor Ford of 'war on bikes'" (BBC)

"A man who allegedly helped his friend flee a hit-and-run collision with a cyclist has been charged" (WA Today, Australia)

"Once downright hostile to cyclists, Fresno has come a long way" (Fresno Bee)

"Bicycles, coffee, and beer: the next generation of bicycle shop hits Carytown" (RVANews, Virginia)

"There's room for more bicyclists in Yuba-Sutter" (AppealDemocrat, California)

"Pedals turning on cycling plan" (Woodstock Sentinel Review, Ontario)