Daily Cycling Facts 28.09.2014

Léon Devos

Today is the anniversary of the 1919 edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the ninth ever held and the latest calendar date in the 120-year history of the race - as the first in the wake of the First World War, many of the riders who had been on the start lines before racing in Europe was halted by the conflict were no longer around. The parcours was 237km in length and winner Léon Devos also spelled De Vos, took 9h20'30" to complete it after battling through snow to get there.

Trixi Worrack
Born in Cottbus, East Germany on this day in 1981, Trixi Worrack became Junior World Individual Time Trial Champion in 1998, then came third in the same event and second in the Junior World Road Race Championship a year later.

In 2000, she signed her first professional contract with Red Bull Frankfurt and finished Stage 4 of the Women's Challenge in third place. She remained with the team the following year and won Stage 7 at the Women's Challenge, was third at La Flèche Wallonne and fourth in the National Elite ITT Championship. From 2003 to 2009 she rode for Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung; in 2003 she became National Road Race Champion and was second in the Holland Ladies' Tour, then in 2004 she won the Tour de l'Aude, the Krasna Lipa and the Giro della Toscana. In 2005 she won the Primavera Rosa (the women's version of Milan-San Remo); in 2006 he was second at the Holland Ladies' Tour for a third time, also coming second in the World Road Race Championship; in 2007 she was second at the Tour de l'Aude; in 2008 she became National Points Race Champion and in 2009 she won Stage 8 at the Giro Donne and the National ITT Championship.

Worrack at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt, 2012

Worrack joined German team Noris Cycling for 2010 and dominated the Czech Tour, winning all five stages and the General Classification; then in 2011 she raced for AA Drink-Leontien.nl and came fourth at the Trophée d'Or Féminin and won Stage 5 at the Giro della Toscana. She moved on to Specialized-Lululemon for 2012 and has been an instrumental rider in a spectacular first year for the team, starting off the season with a Stage 2 victory and second place overall at the Tour of Qatar, then came third at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and won Stage 3 at the Gracia Orlova and Stages 3 and 4 and second place overall at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt. She also rode with Lululemon's victorious squad at the World Team Time Trial Championship and took eighth place at the World ITT Championship. At the London Olympics, she was ninth in the ITT.

In 2013, Worrack became National Cyclo Cross Champion. On the road, still with Lululemon, she came second on Stage 2 and fifth overall at the Tour of Qatar and second at the Classica Cita di Padova during the Spring races, then came second in the time trial and first in the road race at the National Championships and was sixth overall at the Boels Rental Ladies Tour. Lululemon quite literally dominated the team trials in almost every race they entered throughout 2013, frequently beating even their nearest rivals Orica-AIS and Rabobank-Liv/Giant by large margins; Worrack was an integral part of the squad, riding with them in their successful time trials at the Open de Suede Vargarda, the Lotto-Belisol Belgium Tour, the Boels Rental Ladies Tour and again at the World Team Time Trial Championships, where they beat Rabobank into second place by 1'11.09".


Anthony Ravard, born in Nantes, France on this day in 1983, won three stages at the Tour de Normandie in 2008, his first professional year. In 2011 he won Etoile de Bessèges and finished the World Road Race Championships in 13th place and in 2012 he was fourth at the GP Fina - Fayt-le-Franc.

Broadcaster and journalist Jon Snow is familiar to Britons as the presenter of ITN's flagship 10 o'clock News. He is less well-known as a cyclist, except to members of the Cyclists' Touring Club - having become president of the organisation in 2007. Snow was educated at the University of Liverpool but was rusticated (expelled) due to his part in an anti-apartheid protest. He once found himself seated next to a sleeping Idi Amin aboard a Ugandan presidential jet and seriously considered taking the revolver from Amin's belt and killing him with it; stopping only because of the risk to other passengers.

Frances Willard

Frances Willard, born in Churchville, New York on this day in 1839, was a suffragist, social activist and temperance campaigner who, in addition to her work towards getting women the right to vote, was involved in the fight for free school meals, benefits for the poor, workers' rights to join trade unions, municipal organisations devoted to public health and sanitation, state-funded education for the children of poor families and limitations on the hours employees could be made to work, as well as backing new laws against child abuse and rape. Like Susan B. Anthony, she was also a keen advocate of the bicycle which she saw as means of enabling women to travel when and where they wished. In 1895, she wrote A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, in which she describes her own cycling journeys and the stories of other women she met while completing them. Although it suffers a little from a typically Victorian tendency to ramble, the book is often funny, always interesting and still well worth a read today; best of all, it's out of copyright and can be read online and downloaded free.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jesús Hernández (Spain, 1981); Guus Bierings (Netherlands, 1956); Paweł Kaczorowski (Poland, 1949); Eddie Fiola (USA, 1964); Robert Thompson (Great Britain, 1882); Waldemar Bernatzky (Uruguay, 1920); Maurice Renaud (France, 1900, died 1968); Francesco Del Grosso (Italy, 1899, died 1938); Carlos Coloma (Spain, 1981); Piet Peters (Netherlands, 1921); Paul Réneau (Belize, 1960); Walter Martin (USA, 1881); Jean Brun (Switzerland, 1926, died 1993); Martin Willock (Canada, 1954); Gilbert de Rieck (Belgium, 1936).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.08.2014

Roger de Vlaeminck

Classic de Vlaeminck territory - on the Koppenberg

Some riders specialise in sprints, others in the mountains and others on the long, flat sections that make up the bulk of the total distance of many races. Some excel in time trials; some perform well on two or more types of stage and may win Grand Tours as a result. A few achieve their victories through their ability to absorb pain, to keep going and attacking in conditions that have other riders fighting simply to survive - at which point, having ridden themselves to the point of exhaustion, they attack again, knowing that this is the point at which they can hurt their opponents the most. They are the Flandriens. Briek Schotte was the toughest of them all, so tough that many claim he was the only Flandrien - but if anyone came close, it was Roger de Vlaeminck.

Born on this day in 1947 into a family of traveling clothes merchants (hence his later nickname, "The Gypsy"), de Vlaeminck's childhood love was football; but if a youngster wanted to make his name as an athlete in Belgium cycling was the way forward, and the best place to start was in cyclo cross. Encouraged by older brother Erik - who by this time had already won 17 races of his own - he began racing cross as a junior in 1965. He won two races that year, both cross, and one cross and one road race in 1966. Then in 1967 he won 14 and reached the podium in ten more.

Having won Belgium's International Amateurs and the World Amateurs Cyclo Cross Championships, the General Classification at the Ronde van Belgie and Stages 10a and 10b at the Tour de l'Avenir in 1968, de Vlaeminck turned professional with Flandria-De Clerck-Krüger in 1969. Most riders find themselves overwhelmed by the increased level of competition in their first professional year, but not de Vlaeminck: he won 21 races, including the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the National Road Race Champion, and he was second at Milan-San Remo and Gent-Wevelgem. It was already obvious that here was a potentially great Classics rider, but few suspected just how great he would become. There were more clues the following year, when he won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Scheldeprijs, then more in 1971 with another Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne victory followed by wins at the E3 Harelbeke and Waalse Pijl.

De Vlaeminck remained a professional for 20 years and, for a decade, seemed all but unbeatable in the Classics: his remarkable palmares includes Milan-San Remo (1973, 1978, 1979), two Milano-Torino (1972, 1974), two Giri di Lombardia (1974, 1976), two Omloops Het Volk (1969, 1979) and two Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (1970, 1971), Scheldeprijs (1970), the E3 Harelbeke (1971), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1970), La Flèche Wallonne (1971), the Ronde van Vlaanderen (1977) and Paris-Brussels (1981) in addition World Cyclo Cross Championship (1975), two National Road Race Championships (1969, 1981), General Classification and six stage wins at the 1975 Tour de Suisse, six consecutive overall General Classification victories at Tirreno-Adriatico between 1972 and 1977 and 22 stage wins (including seven in 1975 alone) plus overall Points competition triumphs at the Giro d'Italia between 1972 and 1979.

De Vlaeminck's pavé on the Chemin des Géants leading
to Roubaix velodrome

However, impressive though his achievements in all of those races are, de Vlaeminck will not be remembered for them. His place in history, as befits his Flandrien status, was earned at the hardest race of them all - Paris-Roubaix, the Hell of the North. Some of the hardest men in cycling - Merckx, Hinault - found Paris-Roubaix and its cobbles that shatter bikes, bones and careers with ease simply too much and, after proving that they could win, preferred to stay away from what has been variously described as "a circus," bullshit," "bollocks," "the true definition of hell... I don't know if it's really necessary to impose it on us" and "the most beautiful race in the world." It could have been made for a rider like de Vlaeminck. Before him, only four men had won three editions since it was first held in 1896 - he won four, in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1977. Only Tom Boonen has equaled that record, but there are many (including de Vlaeminck) who will say that Boonen had no real competitors in 2012.

De Vlaeminck is estimated to have won some 257 races during his career, though the figure may be higher as he continued to race small criterium events the results of which sometimes go unrecorded. He is still involved in cycling today, coaching the cyclo cross stars of the future at his farm near Kaprijke, and he is regularly approached for comments by journalists who know that his passionate and sometimes controversial opinions on modern cycling are always good value.

Cuban Women's Team, Pan-Am Championships 2005.
Second from the right: Yuliet Rodríguez Jiménez

Cuban Yuliet Rodríguez Jiménez, who was born on this day in 1977, became National Time Trial Champion in 1995 then  in 1996 defended the title and added the National Road Race title - she would keep the former until 2001, then win it back from 2003-2006 and the latter until 1999 before winning it back in 2001 and 2004-2006. She also won overall at the Tour of Guadeloupe in 1996 and 1997,  the road race at the 1997 Pan-American Championships and the Points and Scratch races at the National Track Championships in 2004.

José Antonio Hermida, born in Puigcerdà, Spain on this day in 1978, was European Mountain Bike Champion in 2002, 2004 and 2007, National Cyclo Cross Champion in 2007 and 2008 and World Cross Country MTB Champion in 2010.

Romain Hardy, born in Flers, France on this day in 1988, has been riding for the pro continental Bretagne-Schuller team since 2010 - the year that he won Stage 4 at the Tour de l'Avenir.  In 2013, he will be moving up a step to Cofidis and may make his first appearance at the Grand Tours.

Other cyclists born on this day: Matthew Glaetzer (Australia, 1992); Cyrille Monnerais (France, 1983); Mohamed Mir (Algeria, 1963); Wang Yan (China, 1974); Edward Salas (Australia, 1965); Aurélie Halbwachs (Mauritius, 1986); Nguyễn Văn Châu (South Vietnam, 1940); Fredy Arber (Switzerland, 1928).

Daily Cycling Facts 22.08.2014

Tatiana Guderzo

Guderzo at the 2012 Olympics

Born in Marostica, Italy on this day in 1984, Tatiana Guderzo came second at the World Junior Independent Time Trial Championhips in 2002, then became famous in the cycling world with overall General Classification victory at the Eko Tour Dookola Polski, a gold medal at the European Under-23 Independent Time Trial Championship and a silver in the World Elite Road Race Championship in 2004. She turned professional with Top Girls Fassa Bortolo Hausbrandt Caffé for the 2005 season, and her name has been a regular inclusion among the top results of many of the most prestigious women's races in the world ever since.

In 2005, Guderzo became Elite National ITT Champion but missed out on another gold at the European U-23 ITT Championships, taking the silver instead; in 2006 she won Stage 2 at the Emakumeen Bira - one of the most important races on the women's calendar, was third in the National ITT Championship and the European U-23 Pursuit Championship and second at the European U-23 Road Race and ITT Championships, then in 2007 she won the Elite National Pursuit Championship. In 2008, she won a bronze medal at the Olympics when she came third in the road race, and one year later she became World Road Race Champion when she beat three of the most legendary riders in the history of the sport - Marianne Vos, Noemi Cantele and Kristin Armstrong - by 19 seconds at Mendrisio, Switzerland. She won the National ITT Championship again and was third in the Giro Donne (the last women's Grand Tour, equal in importance to the Tour de France) in 2010; then in 2011 she was fourth at the Giro Donne and won the pursuit race at the National Track Championships. She won the National ITT Championship again in 2012, then returned to the Giro with her MCipollini-Giordana team in 2012 and came seventh overall.

Guderzo remained with MCipollini for 2013 and got her season off to a good start with another National Time Trial Championship victory and second place overall at the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige-Südtirol, then took four top ten stage finishes and second place overall at the Giro Rosa (the new name for the Giro Donne), a stage win (7) at the Thuringen Rundfahrt and fourth overall at the Route de France. She is with the same team, now called Ale-Cipollini, in 2014.



Theo Bos

Bos takes on Chris Hoy, World
Track Championships 2008

Born in Hierden, Netherlands on this day in 1983, Theo Bos is one of the few sprinters active today able to take on - and beat - Mark Cavendish. He has become, therefore, one of the most popular riders in the modern professional peloton. His older brother Jan has also had some success in cycling, but is better known as a speed skater.

Bos was enormously successful as an amateur, winning the Junior World Track Championship 1km in 2002, then the 1km and Sprint at the European Under-23 Track Championships and at the National Championships, where he competed at Elite level, in 2003; a year after that he became World Elite Sprint Champion, then successfully defended his Sprint title and added the National Keirin title at the Nationals. In 2005 he won the 1km at the World Championships, in 2006 the Sprint and Keirin events at both the Worlds and the Nationals; at the Moscow round of the World Cup that year he also broke the 200m world record, which had stood for eleven years (a faulty computer originally gave him a time of 9.086", which would have been superhuman, his actual time of 9.772" was still enough). He would keep the World Sprint Champion and both National titles in 2007 and won the European Omnium Championship in 2008.

Bos at the 2008 Olympics

In February 2009, having joined the Rabobank ProContinental team, Bos won the 160km Prémio de Abertura road race - his first major success away from the track. He followed it with victory at the Ronde van Noord-Holland and the Omloop van Kempen, then won Stages 1, 2 and 4 at the Olympia's Tour (now very much a sprint specialist, his results on the other stages were far lower and as a result he didn't place in the overall top ten, despite the team also winning the Prologue) - the year brought controversy as well as glory, however: at the Tour of Turkey, he was involved in a crash during the final sprint of the last stage. The UCI subsequently decided that Bos had caused the accident by grabbing hold of Daryl Impy, then levied a fine and banned him for one month; Bos admits that he did come into contact with Impy, but says that he did so not to try to slow him down but to push him away as the South African was forcing him into the crowd barrier alongside the road.

The following year he moved to the Cervélo Test Team and rode his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, where he twice broke into the top ten with ninth place on Stages 5 and 13. These results earned him a contract with Rabobank's top World Tour team for 2011 and, ten years after his first victory, Bos moved to the top level of road cycling. He won two stages at the Tour of Oman (beating Cavendish into second place on Stage 1) that year and took third place stage finishes at the Tours of Britain and Beijing, and to date in 2012 he has won the Dwars door Drenthe, two stages at the Tour of Turkey, one stage at the Benelux Tour and the 197km Veenendal-Veenendal road race. In 2013, Bos won Stage 2 at the Volta ao Algarve, Stages 1 and 2 at the Tour de Langkawi, Stage 1 at the Criterium International, Stage 3 at the Tour of Norway and Stage 2 at the Ster Elektrotoer; in 2014 he won the General and Points Classifications at the World Ports Classic, four stages at the Tour de Langkawi and one stage at the Tour of Poland.

Omer Huyse

Omer Huyse, born in Kortrijk, Belgium on this day in 1898, won Stage 5 at the eventful 1924 Tour de France, when he raced as a second class rider (sponsored, but deemed unlikely to win stages or overall) for the O. Lapize team. He was ninth overall that year, then returned in 1925 to come seventh and again in 1926 when he was thirteenth.

Jokin Mújika, born in Itsasondo, Euskadi on this day in 1962, won Stage 7 at the Tour de l'Avenir in 1986 and was Spanish Cyclo Cross Champion in 1994 and 1996

New Zealander Des Thomson, who was born on this day in 1942, represented his nation in the road race and the independent time trial at the Olympics in 1964, then the road race and 100km team time trial in 1968, but was unable to take home medals in either instance. He was far more successful at the Commonwealth Games of 1966, where he won the silver medal in the road race.

Erik Hoffman, born in Windhoek, Namibia on this day in 1981, won the National Road Race Championship in 2007.

Other cyclists born on this day: Marcelo Arriagada (Chile, 1973); Richard Trinkler (Switzerland, 1950); Gianluca Brambilla (Italy, 1987); Endrio Leoni (Italy, 1968); Haakon Sandtorp (Norway, 1911, died 1974); Oleg Bondarik (Belarus, 1976).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.08.2014

Keetie van Oosten-Hage

Keetie van Oosten-Hage
Born in Sint-Maartensdijk, Netherlands, on this day in 1949, is one of four cycling siblings: her sisters Ciska van Velzen-Hage, Heleen Hage and Bella van de Spiegel-Hage were also successful riders (as, for that matter, is nephew Jan van Helzen) - Keetie, Heleen and Bella all rode for the Beck's Bier team in 1977.

1966 was her first really good year with nine criterium wins and her first National Championship title, in Individual Pursuit, plus a silver medal at the National Road Race Championship; and the year after that she won fourteen crits and successfully defended her title. Then in 1968 she won ten crits, defended the Pursuit again - and won the World Road Race Championships. She kept the Pursuit title until 1978, when she took the silver, and was World Pursuit Champion in 1975, 1976, 1978 and 1979; she also won the National Road Race Championship form 1969 to 1976 and the National Omnium Championship in 1979.

Van Oosten-Hage retired in 1979, not because she was tired but because of the lack of races available to her - women's cycling didn't feature in the Olympics at that time and women's Grand Tours the Giro Donne, Tour de l'Aude and Tour de France Féminine did not yet exist (she said later that she'd have loved to have ridden the latter event). "I had won all the races there were," she explained.  "They included six world championships and several Dutch championships and a big race in America. There comes a point when it makes your ambitions less. I was still winning, but I had done it all." It is very easy to make a comparison here with that other Dutch superstar Marianne Vos, who has won so many races that her Rabobank team reportedly considered entering her into men's races simply to prevent her becoming bored.

Also like Vos, van Oosten-Hage faced accusations that she was too good, that her vast number of races wins left other riders feeling they could never beat her; fortunately most people are now agreed that a rider of such calibre is good for cycling because her success encourages other riders to strive harder, but in time van Oosten-Hage came to agree with her detractors: "Usually I won. A lot of people said at least now you have gone it will give other people a chance and we can use different tactics and so on. I can understand the other girls getting disillusioned because I usually won, and I suppose in retrospect that is not necessarily so good for the sport." It is a very great shame that she has been made to feel regretful about a great career during which she must have inspired many other women to start cycling.

The world was beginning to wake up to the existence of women's cycling by the early 1980s and, as they so often are, the Dutch KNWU national federation was at the vanguard; they gave her a job  running a program designed to ensure younger women would take her place and continue bringing trophies back to the Netherlands. However, the national team coaches - in some cases with good intentions and in others, no doubt, out of resentment that a woman had been given a responsible position in "their" sport - would frequently undo her hard work. She found this frustrating and, by 1985 considered becoming a coach herself but ultimately decided that at the age of 36 the training and examinations were more than she was willing to take on (some contemporary reports also claimed that the KNWU took steps to block her - they hadn't progressed quite that far, it seems).

In the years after her professional career, van Oosten-Hage gave away all her National and Worlds jerseys. "At the time they are nice to have, but then they are not so important and they mean more to other people," she says. "Now, of course, I regret it, but it is too late."

Erik Dekker

Erik Dekker at the Tour, 2005

Born in Hoogeveen, Netherkands in this day in 1970, Hendrik "Erik" Dekker entered his first race when he was eight. He didn't win that one, but it wasn't long before he started winning others; when he turned 15 he was selected for the National Juniors Track Team, and two years later he won a silver medal at the World Juniors Championships.

By the time he won a silver at the National Amateur Championships in 1992, Dekker had already won stages at the important Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda and Olympia's Tour races - this promising track record, combined with two stage wins at the Österreich-Rundfahrt, a prologue victory at the GP William Tell, Stage 10 at the Tour de l'Avenir and first place at the Rund um Köln in the wake of his Nationals medal made him an obvious choice for the Olympic team and entered for the road race. He, together with Fabio Casartelli and a third rider managed to break away from the peloton during the event and could not be caught - Casartelli won, but Dekker's exuberance as he crossed the line earned him many new fans. He had begun riding for the Buckler team at the start of the year (managed by Joop Zoetemelk and Jan Raas, no less) and at the end he was given a full professional contract.

Dekker in 2011

1993 passed quietly, as tends to be the case when a rider first begins to compete at the top level, then in 1994 he won the Postgirot Open and a stage at the Tour of the Basque Country. He was also picked for the team's Tour de France squad and survived the race; he was 101st overall, but two 20th place stage finishes and one in 15th are respectable for a debutant. He won the Postgirot again the following year and managed to improve his Tour finish to 70th place, then slipped a few places in 1996 with 74th, racing that year in red, white and blue as National Independent Time Trial Champion. He performed less well again in 1997 with 81st, but got into the top ten on three stages, including coming near to the podium with fifth place for Stages 17 and 20. 1998 had to be written off due to injuries suffered in a crash, which may also account for 107th place in the 1999 Tour (it might have inspired him to seek a little chemical assistance towards proving he still had the ability to win too, because he got into a spot of bother with a suspiciously high haematocrit reading - indicating possible EPO use and/or a blood transfusion - and as barred from competition until his red blood cells had returned to an acceptable level); but he found better form than ever before in 2000 - after riding his first Giro d'Italia (and coming 121st), he went back to the Tour, won Stages 8 and 17, came 51st in the General Classification and fifth overall in the Points competition.

2001 was, overall, every bit as good: his Tour result slipped to 91st with victory in Stage 8, but he won the Road World Cup, the Vuelta a Andalucia, the Amstel Gold Race, the Profronde van Surhuisterveen and the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt. In 2002 he won Tirreno-Adriatico and another National Time Trial Championship, but 136th at the Tour seemed to be show that any chance he might once have had of breaking into the top ten overall or even winning the Points competition were now gone; also, new injuries badly affected his performance towards the end of the year and throughout the next. Nevertheless, after winning the National Road Race title in 2004 he was back in France and riding faithfully for the team, settling for 133rd place for himself and then cheering himself up with overall victory at the Ronde van Nederland; then he rode the Tour again in 2005 and for a final time in 2006.

Faithfulness to the team is very much the keyword when describing Dekker's career. Buckler picked up a new sponsor in Dekker's second year, becoming WordPerfect for two seasons; then became Novell for 1995. In 1996, it changed to Rabobank and is still known as such, the Dutch bank being one of the few sponsors who got involved in cycling and stuck with it (they also back women's cycling and other sports, being that very rare thing - a company that sponsors sports not only for advertising, but because it actually cares). Dekker stayed with them throughout, for his entire career, and since retiring from competition he has continued to serve them as a team manager.


Jessica Allen, born in Brecon, Wales on this day in 1989, earned a place on British Cycling's Olympic Development Programme in 2006 after being discovered by the Welsh Talent Team; that year she also won the Junior National Time Trial Championships for the first of two  consecutive years and came second at the Welsh National Road Race Championships, then in 2007 she won the Points race at the National Track Championships. In 2008 Allen competed in both the Under-23 and Elite National Road Race Championships, taking second place in the former and fourth in the latter as well as coming third in the National Individual Time Trial Championship.

Maria Blower, born in Leicester, Great Britain on this day in 1964, was third in the National Road Race Championship of 1982; second at the Nationals, third at the Tour of Norway and 29th at the Olympics of 1984; third at the Nationals and eighth at the Olympics of 1988 and third at the Nationals in 1989.

Settino "Timo" Sabbadini, born in Monsempron-Limos, France on this day in 1928, turned professional with Terrot-Wolber in 1950 and retired in 1964 after nine years with Mercier. He won numerous criterium races, but occasionally showed up on the podium in stage races too, sometimes in the most prestigious ones: in 1956 he won Stage 4 at the Critérium du Dauphiné, and in 1958 Stage 5 at the Tour de France.

Businessman Manfred Neun,who was born Heidenheim, West Germany on this day in 1950, and began his career  working in a bank and managing two businesses, one of them a horticultural firm and the other a bike manufacturer. A keen cyclist himself, he currently serves as President of the European Cycling Federation, where his knowledge of cycling and politics has allowed him to act as an effective bridge between cyclists and government. Under his leadership, the ECF has taken an increasingly scientific approach in its mission to promote cycling as sport and as a method of transport, allowing it to back up programs designed to improve cycling infrastructure with accurate studies and facts.

"Cycling means happiness, cycling is community building and as everyone can have a bicycle, cycling is democracy. We can be an example for the whole world. So let us all live like examples." - Manfred Neun

Other cyclists born on this day: Ross Reid (Great Britain, 1987); Preeda Chullamondhol (Thailand, 1945); Koji Fukushima (Japan, 1973); Rodolfo Guaves (Philippines, 1953); Ferenc Stámusz (Hungary, 1934); Carlos Mesa (Colombia, 1955); Samuel Hunter (Great Britain, 1894); Bernhard Eckstein (Germany, 1935); Carlos Alcantara (Uruguay, 1948); Daniel Steiger (Switzerland, 1966).

Daily Cycling Facts 07.08.2014

Steven Rooks

Rooks at the Tour, 1988

Steven Rooks, born in Oterleek, Netherlands on this day in 1960, turned professional with the legendary Ti-Raleigh team in 1982, then switched to Sem-France Loire the following year and won Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In 1985 he was 25th overall at the Tour de France; then ninth in 1986 and second in 1988 after winning Stage 12 on Alpe d'Huez - and he also won the King of the Mountains and was second overall in the Points competition. He would never do quite so well in the Tour again but remained competitive for a few more years, coming seventh overall and third in the King of the Mountains and Points in 1989, 33rd overall in 1990, 26th in 1991 and seventeenth in 1992. He rode it again in 1993 and 1994, failing to finish on both occasions.

Away from the Tour, Rooks won the Tour de Luxembourg and the Amstel Gold Race in 1986, the National Derny Championship in 1987 and the National Road Race Championship in 1991 and 1994 before retiring in 1995. In 1999, Rooks, Peter Winnen and Maarten Ducrot decided it was time to clear their consciences with regard to doping, doing so publicly on the Dutch TV show Reporter and saying that they were doing so to highlight how widespread the problem had become. Rooks admitted that he had used amphetamines and testosterone throughout his career; in 2009 he confessed in a book written by journalist Marc Smeets that he'd also use EPO since 1989 - around the time that the drug first found its way into the cycling world. "It was necessary [to do so in order] to finish high up in the classifications," he said.


Adriano Baffi, born in Vailate, Italy on this day in 1962, won Stages 2, 8, 18 and the Points competition at the Giro d'Italia in 1993 and Stage 19 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1995, along with numerous other races (including a National Points Championship on the track in 1999) before he retired in 2002. He then became a directeur sportif, working with various teams and was recruited by LeopardTrek for the 2011 season. His father, Pierino, was also a professional cyclist and in 1958 became the second man in history (after Miguel Poblet) to win stages in all three Grand Tours in a single season.

Edward Klabiński, more commonly known as Édouard Klabinski in France, was born in Herne, Germany on this day in 1920 but was of Polish nationality. He rode as an independent immediately after the Second World War before signing to Stanord-Wolber in 1946. In 1947, riding for Mercier-Hutchinson, he became the first Pole to ride in the Tour de France and came 34th overall; in 1948 he was eighteenth overall.

Andriy Hryvko, born in Simferopol, Ukraine on this day in 1983, was National Time Trial Champion in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2012. In 2012, he also won the National Road Race Championship.

Michele Merlo was born in Casaleone, Italy on this day in 1984. He won Stage 8 at the 2009 Tour of Britain and finished Stage 2 of the 2011 Giro d'Italia in twelfth place.

Other cyclists born on this day: Francisco Chamorro (Argentina, 1981); Travis Brown (USA, 1969); Iryna Chuzhynova (Ukraine, 1972); Mario Scirea (Italy, 1964); Roberto Brito (Mexico, 1947); Francisco Coronel (Mexico, 1942); Suriya Chiarasapawong (Thailand, 1949); Werner Wägelin (Switzerland, 1913, died 1991); Yahya Ahmad (Malaysia, 1954).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.08.2014

Stuart O'Grady

Stuart O'Grady

Like many of the world's top cyclists, Stuart O'Grady - born in Adelaide on this day in 1973 - has cycling in his blood: his father rode for South Australia in both track and road events and an uncle represented the country at the 1964 Olympics. He himself began to compete on track in the 1980s and, in 1992, helped to win the silver medal for the Team Pursuit at the Olympics; four years later, when he was again selected, the team won the bronze for the Pursuit and he won the bronze for the Points race.

O'Grady made the transition to road cycling in 1995 after joining GAN, the team that later became Crédit Agricole, and showed great promise right from the start with three victories; he also continued to perform well on the track, riding with the winning Pursuit team and coming third in the Individual Pursuit at the World Championships. He concentrated on the Olympics in 1996, win bronze on the Team Pursuit and Points race, then won the Cottesloe and Subiaco criteriums and Stages 1, 6 and 8 at the Herald Sun Tour before going to the Tour de France in 1997 - where he finished in eight place on Stage 4 and second on Stage 5, completing the race in 109th place overall. The following year, he wore the yellow jersey in Stages 4, 5 and 6 and won Stage 14 before coming second behind Erik Zabel in the overall Points competition: Australia began to dream that, 84 years after Don Kirkham and Ivor Munro had been the first Australians to compete in the world's greatest race, their first winner had emerged - and then became sure that O'Grady was to be that man when he finished in the top ten on eleven stages in 1999, once again coming second on Points.

It would never happen, of course: he knew every bit as well as Mark Cavendish does today that he'd never win a Tour and, also like Cav, probably became heartily sick of explaining to new fans he attracted to the sport why this was. O'Grady was 1.73m tall and 73kg; giving him, like most sprinters, the wrong sort of body shape to be able to compete with the wiry climbers in the mountains: those eleven top ten finishes in 1999 were superb, but 135th, 109th, 104th and 130th in the mountains left him in 94th place in the overall General Classification.

O'Grady picked up good results in 2000, including second place at the Tour Down Under and three top ten finishes at the Tour de France, but his only victory was Stage 3 at the GP du Midi-Libre - when he left the Tour after Stage 6 and finished the Road Race at the Olympics in 77th place, it was evident that something was wrong: that he won the Tour Down Under, twice stood on the podium at Paris-Nice, finished another eleven Tour stages in the top ten and was again second in the Points competition in 2001 is remarkable because in April 2002 he underwent surgery on a narrowed pelvic iliac artery which, doctors had discovered, was limiting the power output of one leg. His recovery was swift and complete; he went to the Tour that year and finished seven stages in the top ten, including third place on Stage 10 and was third overall on Points. Later in the year, he won the Road Race at the Commonwealth Games.

2003 got off to a superb start with victory at the National Championships and eighteen podium placings before the Tour got under way, but in France he found himself unable to take on several very strong sprinters including fellow Australians Baden Cooke (who won the green jersey) and Robbie McEwen, finishing the Points competition in seventh place. He switched teams to Cofidis in 2004 and won Stage 9 at the Tour, but was beaten by McEwen, Thor Hushovd and Zabel in the Points competition. In 2005 he came second in the Points competition, then he joined CSC the following year.

O'Grady in 2008

At CSC, it was suggested that O'Grady might do well in the big one-day Classics and he began to train for them. This turned out to be a wise move because, in 2007, he scored the greatest victory of his career when he won the legendary Paris-Roubaix, a race that many riders consider to be the hardest and most dangerous of them all; as of 2012 he remains the only Australian to have won it. He also finished third at the Dwars door Vlaanderen, fourth at Milano-Torino, fifth at Milan-San Remo and the Omloop Het Volk, ninth at the E3 Harelbeke and tenth at the Ronde van Vlaanderen that year - a stunning Classics season by anybody's standards, but a year that ended with a serious crash at the Tour in which he suffered a punctured lung and fractures to three vertebrae, eight ribs, his right collarbone and right shoulder blade. He was badly injured in another crash at Milan-San Remo in 2009 when he collided with a rider who fell in front of him, that time puncturing a lung and breaking his right collar bone and one rib.

O'Grady raced with LeopardTrek in 2011, but announced in August that he would be joining the new Australian ProTour GreenEDGE team. With them, raced his sixteenth Tour de France in 2012 and then his seventeenth in 2013 - tying with George Hincapie for most participations (Hincapie, however, confessed in 2012 to doping and thus had his results from three Tours disqualified; Jens Voigt also rode seventeen but did not finish three). He announced his retirement after the race. O'Grady created and still financially supports a youth team, CSC O'Grady, and is involved with Champions for Peace - an organisation of athletes that attempts to use the international co-operation found in sport to demonstrate that there are alternatives to conflict.

O'Grady was and remains a vocal opponent of doping, yet in 2013 he was listed among riders believed to have doped with EPO during the 1998 Tour, in which he had come second in the Points Competition and worn the maillot jaune for three stages (in 1998, a test for EPO had not been developed; preserved samples were being tested now that one was - hence the long delay). Within 24 hours, O'Grady issued a press statement in which he confessed his guilt, but said that the arrests at the Tour that year as part of the notorious Festina Affair had scared him so much that he had never doped again.

Arnie Baker
Arnie Baker, born in Montreal on this day in 1953, as a highly successful cycling coach - in that capacity, he has trained riders in preparation for around 140 National Championships, 40 record attempts and several Olympics. He was also a successful rider himself, setting eight US records in time trials.

Baker's reputation as a miracle worker looked to be in jeopardy when he was implicated in the Floyd Landis doping case. At the 2006 Tour de France, Landis cracked badly in Stage 16 and lost eight minutes, looking as though he was ready to abandon by the time the race reached the summit of the Alpe d'Huez at the end of the stage; yet the very next day set a blistering pace on Galibier that nobody could match. Both the A and B samples he provided at the end of Stage 17 tested positive for synthetic testosterone and abnormally high levels of epitestosterone, a natural steroid without performance-enhancing effects that can be used in an attempt to mask suspiciously-high testosterone levels. Landis was, eventually, stripped of his 2006 victory and banned from competition for two years.

On the 14th of April 2009, the French L'Express newspaper published a report claiming that information hacked from a French laboratory's network had been emailed from a computer registered to Baker to a Canadian doping lab, and he and Landis were "invited" to answer questions in a French court. Controversially in view of the lack of evidence it was able to find, the court gave Baker a one-year suspended sentence. Baker continues to state that the case against him had deep flaws and insists that he had no part in doping and has never knowingly received or sent on illegally-obtained documents.

Eros Poli, one history's most likable professional cyclists

Eros Poli
Eros Poli, born in Isola della Scala on this day in 1963, said that he only took up cycling because of the ban on using private cars for any purpose other than getting to work during the oil crisis of 1973 - he was given a choice, a bike or roller skates, and chose the bike. A talented sprinter in his own right, Poli became known as Mario Cipollini's lead-out man and was extremely successful in this role, not least of all because at 1.97m tall he was one of the very few riders big enough for the 1.89m Cipollini to be able to draft behind.

Like Cipollini and most large, heavy riders, Poli hated mountain stages - yet he attempted one of the most remarkable attacks ever seen in the Tour de France on Mont Ventoux in 1994. Having calculated that if he built up enough momentum on the flat approach his speed would carry him through and he'd reach the summit with a comfortable lead, he hit the infamous mountain at full speed and pedaled hard to the top. It worked: he was first to the summit, though Ventoux proved much harder than he'd anticipated (just as it invariably does) and his 20' lead dropped to 3'39". His efforts won him the Combativity award for the stage.

Cipollini was frequently accused of being arrogant during his career; yet while he shared Cipo's taste for flamboyant clothes and had the "Italian Stallion" looks that are considered sufficiently appealing by a sufficient number of people for him to have emulated Cipo's playboy lifestyle had he have chosen to do so, Poli was a far more humble and, as a result, likable character: despite many successes during his amateur career, he claimed he didn't believe until he was 28 that he could be a professional rider, and when asked during an interview which words he would like carved on his gravestone, he replied: "Here lies Eros Poli - famous for being tall and coming last in the Giro d'Italia." It was he who, in 1997, went to Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc to announce that the riders had decided not to race for the first 45km of Stage 10 so that they could gather together and pay their respects at the memorial to Fabio Casartelli, who had been killed on the Tour two years earlier.

When asked by Cycling News about that remarkable stage win on Ventoux, Poli's answer was typical for him. Having explained that, for him, working for Cipollini was an honour, he talked briefly about himself before changing the subject to the success of a team mate: "Yes, that was the realisation of a dream. It was me, in the lead, all alone, the guy who people were applauding, like an actor on the stage. I was centre-stage, face to face with the public. Fantastic. That's why when I crossed the finish line I made a gesture of thanks. Me, the insignificant bike rider, the team rider of whom there are a hundred in the peloton. I had the chance to win a mythical stage with the Ventoux in the programme. And it's droll, because I felt the same sensation when Cedric [Vasseur] won his stage at La Chatre last week When I learnt that he'd won I was tearful with emotion, on the bike..."

Mickaël Delage

Mickaël Delage, born in Libourne, France on this day in 1985, was Junior National Champion in Team Pursuit and Madison in 2003, Under-23 National Champion in 2004 and Elite Team Pursuit Champion in 2006, when he also won Stage 1 at the Tour de l'Avenir. In 2011, he won the Combativity award for Stages 3 and 11 at the Tour de France.

Gabriele Bosisio, born in Lecco, Italy on this day in 1980, was a relatively unknown rider who enjoyed little success until he won Stage 7 at the Giro d'Italia in 2008, then finished fifth overall at the Tour of Britain later the same year. The next year, he was second at the National Time Trial Championship which took place in late June; then on the 6th of October news broke that a sample he provided on the 2nd of September had proven positive for EPO, an out-of-competition test carried out after suspicious blood values were detected on his biological passport. He was provisionally suspended by his LPR Brakes team, then banned from competition for two years on the 28th of April 2008 - as the ban was backdated to the announcement of the positive test, it expired on the 5th of October 2011 and he made his return with Utensilnord-Named - a team formed by his old managers after LPR Brakes dissolved in 2009 - in 2012.

érôme Coppel

Born in Annemasse on this day in 1986, Jérôme Coppel - along with Romain Sicard - was the subject of a 2011 four-page article in L'Equope titled Bientôt un crack française? ("Soon - a French champion?") His results to date certainly suggest he has the potential: he was National Under-19 Time Trial Champion in 2004 and National U-23 Time Trial Champion in 2006 and 2007, also managing podium finishes at the European and World Championships in the same period - and he performs very well on road too, having come fourth overall at the 2008 Tour de l'Avenir,  fifth at the 2010 Critérium du Dauphiné and fourteenth at the 2011 Tour de France (to which Saur-Sojasun was invited largely because of his high profile). In 2012, he was eleventh overall at Paris-Nice, twelfth at the Tour de Romandie and 21st at the Tour de France. Now aged 26 and about to enter his best years, he is a rider to watch and may yet prove to be the Tour winner that French fans have dreamed about for more than a quarter of a century.

Other cyclists born on this day: Erwin Thijs (Belgium, 1970); Yumiko Suzuki (Japan, 1960); Sebastian Kartfjord (Norway, 1987); Sören Lausberg (East Germany, 1969); Trần Văn Nen (South Vietnam, 1927); Gottlieb Amstein (Switzerland, 1906, died 1975); Roland Surrugue (France, 1938, died 1997); Francesco Bellotti (Italy, 1979).

Daily Cycling Facts 05.08.2014

Gilles Delion

Gilles Delion

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

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

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

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


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

Santiago Perez

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

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 04.08.2014

Luc Leblanc
When Luc Leblanc was eleven, a drunk driver ploughed into him and his brother Gilles as the two boys rode their bikes near Limoge, where Luc had been born on this day in 1966. Gilles was so badly injured that he died a short while later, Luc spent the next six months in hospital and ended up with a weak leg that was noticeably shorter than the other.

Prior to the "accident," Leblanc's childhood ambition had been to become a priest. However, after a physiotherapist recommend cycling as a way to rebuild strength in his damaged leg, he was spotted by no less a figure than Raymond Poulidor who urged him to consider taking up more serious training with a view to becoming a professional rider. He began to do well in the early 1980s, culminating in a Stage 2 victory at the 1986 Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and earning a contract with the Toshiba-Look team for 1987 - and that year, he won the silver medal at the National Road Race Championship. A year later he won the GP Ouest France and came third overall at the Tour Méditerranéen.

Leblanc rode his first Tour de France in 1990 and finished two stages in the top ten, then in 1991 he finished Stages 12 and 17 in third place and came fifth overall. During Stage 12, he had joined a breakaway with Pascal Richard (Helvetia-La Suisse) and Charly Mottet (RMO). Mottet won the stage with Richard recording the same time, Leblanc was 2" behind them - but he was 6'55" ahead of previous race leader Greg Lemond, which put him into the yellow jersey (he presented it to Poulidor as a sign of gratitude) with an advantage of 2'35". Sadly, it couldn't last - the very next stage, Miguel Indurain beat him by 12'35" and led for the remainder of the race.

There were high hopes that Leblanc would get into the top three at the Tour in 1992 after he won the National Championship, but his leg - which had never fully recovered - started giving him problems. On top of that, he had a spell of bad luck with the bike and told team mates he was seriously considering retiring, then abandoned during Stage 14 en route to Alpe d'Huez. Fortunately, he was talked out of giving the sport up and, after medical attention and more physiotherapy, his leg began to improve and he was able to finish Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia in third place. By 1994 he was even better than ever: he won the King of the Mountains at the Vuelta a Espana, then achieved his first Grand Tour stage win with victory on Stage 11 at the Tour - another five top ten finishes put him into fourth place overall, and later in the year he became Road Race Champion of the World.

The World Championship brought lucrative offers from a variety of teams. He settled for the French Le Groupemont, but disaster struck when the team's sponsors withdrew a week before the Tour and left them unable to take part. He then went to the Italian team Polti, but new problems with his leg resulted in an unsuccessful season and more surgery; once again he made a good recovery and in 1996 he won Stage 7, came sixth overall and fifth in the King of the Mountains at the Tour. It would be his last really good year - he won the Giro del Trentino and finished Stage 5 at the Giro d'Italia in second place in 1997 but failed to break into the top 20 at the Tour, then abandoned after Stage 13. In 1998 he finished stage 10 in 11th place, then abandoned after Stage 16.

Polti sacked Leblanc in 1999: his leg was causing problems again and the team decided that he was no longer competitive. An Italian court decided that this constituted unfair dismissal and ruled that Polti would have to pay him up until the date the contract was originally due to expire; by 2007 the money had still not been paid and Leblanc had to sue the UCI and Italian and French federations in order to get it. He admitted during Richard Virenque's trial in 2000 to using EPO when training for the Tour and the Vuelta.

Yvonne Reynders, born in Schaarbeek, Brussels on this day in 1937, won a total of three Track World Championships (Pursuit 1961, 1964, 1965), four World Road Championships (1959, 1963, 1965, 1966), three National Track Championships and seventeen criteriums as well as taking numerous silver and bronze medals during her career. She is frequently listed as the second most successful female cyclist of the 1960s after Beryl Burton.

José Vicente García, born in San Sebastián, Spain on this day in 1972, joined Banesto in 1994 as a trainee. He was still with them when the team became iBanesto in 2001, Illes Balears-Banesto in 2004, Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne in 2005 and Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears and year later, then  Caisse d'Epargne a year after that. He finally announced his retirement in 2011, by which time it had become Movistar - eighteen seasons with the same team. He won a stage at the Vuelta a Espana in 1997 and another in 2002 as well as one at the Tour de France in 2000.

Gilbert Bauvin, born in Lunéville, France on this day in 1927, led the Tour de France for one stage and came eighth overall in 1951; won Stages 10 and 12, led for two days and came tenth overall at the Tour in 1954; won Stages 1 and 2 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1955; won Stage 10b and came seventh overall at the Vuelta, then finished in second place behind Roger Walkowiak at the Tour in 1956; won Stage 11 at the Vuelta and Stage 5 at the Tour in 1957 and won Stage 3 and led the race for one day at the Tour in 1958

Born in Cardiff, Wales on this day in 1913, Reg Braddick's interest in cycling began with a job as a butcher's delivery boy, riding around on a heavy utility bike. He represented his country - Wales, not Great Britain - at the British Empire Games (the predecessor to the Commonwealth Games) in 1938 but won no medals and won the National Road Race Championship in 1944. Braddick opened a bike shop in Cardiff, and it's still trading today (51°29'17.55"N 3° 9'19.19"W), now run by his son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter, who also maintains the company website - he started the Cardiff Ajax CC in the rooms above the shop in 1945. Among many other riders to have been members over the years are Sally Hodge, who became the very first Women's Points Race World Champion in 1988, and Nicole Cooke - ten-time British Road Race Champion, 2008 World Road Race Champion and twice winner of the Tour de France Féminin.

Edwig van Hooydonck, who was born in Ekeren, Belgium on this day in 1966, marked himself out as a future Classics great when he won the Under-23 Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1986 and the Brabantse Pijl a year later. He also rode well in stage races, winning the Vuelta a Andalucia and Stage 4 at the Tour Méditerranéen in 1988, stages at the Étoile de Bessèges, Tour of Ireland and the Vuelta a Espana (his only Grand Tour stage win) in 1990 and at the Tours de Romandie and Luxembourg in 1993, but the Classics remained his speciality: he won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1989, the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1990, the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Brabantse Pijl and Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1991 and the Brabantse Pijl for a third time in 1993 and a record fourth in 1995. He retired that year, saying that doping was now so prevalent in cycling that he was unable to remain competitive unless he too cheated - something he refused to do.

Ricardo Serrano, born in Valladolid on this day in 1978, won a stage, the Points competition and the General Classification at the Vuelta a la Rioja in 2006, finished Stage 16 at the 2007 Giro d'Italia in third place and won Stage 1 at the Tour de Romandie in 2009. Later that year he was suspended from competition and his Fuji-Servetto team pending an investigation into abnormal blood values revealed by his biological passport. The suspicious values were believed to have dated from the previous year when he rode for the Tinkoff Credit Systems team.

Thomas Stevens, who was born in Berkhamsted, Great Britain in 1854 and emigrated to the USA in 1871, completed the first ever transcontinental ride across the country on this day in 1884. He had begun the journey in San Francisco on the 22nd of April, equipped with his trusty penny-farthing, a spare shirt, several pairs of socks, a revolver and a raincoat that also served as a tent.

Other cyclists born on this day: David Chauner (USA, 1948); Ángel Edo (Spain, 1970); Nina Søbye (Norway, 1956); Jonas Romanovas (Lithuania, 1957); Rony Martias (Guadeloupe, 1980); John Millman (Canada, 1930); Gianluca Capitano (Italy, 1971); Marco Serpellini (Italy, 1972); Rolf Furrer (Switzerland, 1966); Neville Hunte (Guyana, 1948); Yunus Nüzhet Unat (Turkey, 1913); Mamdooh Al-Doseri (Bahrain, 1971).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.07.2014

Ruslan Pidgornyy, born in Ukraine on this day in 1977, began his professional career with De Nardi-Pasta Montegrappa in 2002 and won the Giro del Friuli Venezia Giulia in 2003. He became National Road Race Champion in 2008. In 2004, Pidgornyy and team mate Yuriy Ivanov were sacked by the LPR-Piacenzi Management SRL team after they were accused of assaulting and robbing a woman working as a prostitute near Emilia in Italy. According to news reports at the time, the pair attempted to drag the woman into a car but were unsuccessful, then stole €150 from her - both men admitted their guilt. Two other members of the team, Dimitri Konyshev and Andrey Karpachev, were also arrested but were not sacked as they had apparently taken no active part in the attack. Pidgornyy was offered a contract with the Irish Tenax team the following year and remained with them for four years, later joining ISD-Neri for two seasons and ending his career with Vacansoleil-DCM in 2011.

Stage 4, Tour de France 1904

François Beaugendre, born in France on this day in 1880, rode in the 1903 Tour de France - the first ever held - and came ninth overall, 10h52'14" behind winner Maurice Garin. He entered again the following year and finished Stages 3 and 4 in third place, but then failed to start Stage 5; after numerous riders were disqualified some months after the race had ended, he became official winner of Stage 4 and leader of the race with an advantage of 25'15" over eventual General Classification winner Henri Cornet. Beaugendre rode the Tour again in 1907 and 1908, coming first fifth and then thirteenth, and retired in 1911. His brothers Joseph and Omer were also cyclists - Joseph rode the Tour in 1909, Omer - who won Paris-Tours in 1908 - in 1910.

Wilfried Trott, born in West Germany on this day in 1948, won the Rund um Köln a record three times (1972, 1976 and 1979).

Other cyclists born on this day: Matt Illingworth (Great Britain, 1968); Nacer Bouhanni (France, 1990); Alfred Letourneur (France, 1907); Jean Eudes Demaret (France, 1984); François Beaugendre (France, 1880); Guillaume Levarlet (France, 1985); Wladimir Belli (Italy, 1970); Gerardo Moncada (Colombia, 1962); Peter Riis Andersen (Denmark, 1980); Kosaku Takahashi (Japan, 1944); Robert Farrell (Trinidad and Tobago, 1949); Declan Lonergan (Ireland, 1969); Maurice Gillen (Luxembourg, 1895, died 1974); Per Digerud (Norway, 1933, died 1988); Masaki Inoue (Japan, 1979); Alfred Gaida (West Germany, 1951); Kouflu Alazar (Ethiopia, 1931).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.07.2014

Judith Arndt
Born in Königs Wusterhausen, Germany on this day in 1976, Judith Arndt became one of the greatest and most popular all-rounders in cycling with numerous excellent results in road racing, time trials and on the track.

Arndt turned professional with the Red Bull team in 1999, at a time when she already had five National titles and one World Championship to her name. As a result she did not experience a year or two in which her results dipped while she adjusted to the increased competition as most riders do when they move up to the top level of the sport - having been competing at Elite level since 1995, there was no nasty "big step up" surprise waiting for her and in that first year she won Stage 1 and second place in the overall General Classification at the Holland Ladies' Tour, the Tour de Bretagne and numerous other events. She was a popular favourite for the 2000 Olympics but picked up a virus shortly before the Games; however, the National Pursuit and Points race prevented the year from becoming a total wash-out, as did silver medals for the same two events at the World Championships.

2001 was the year in which Arndt transformed herself from a track rider who could also ride well on the road into a world-beating road racer, winning another Tour de Bretagne and the Gracia Orlova in addition to second place at the Tour de l'Aude, the Thüringen-Rundfahrt and the Women's Challenge. She also won the National Individual Time Trial Championship for a third time and came third in the Road Race at the Nationals. One year later she won the National Road Race, the Women's Challenge, the Tour de l'Aude, the Tour de Snowy and the Redlands Classic. Since then, she has added more three more victories at the Gracia Orlova (2005, 2006, 2007), another Tour de l'Aude (2003), two editions of the Emakumeen Bira (2009, 2012), the National Individual Time Trial title another six times (2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2012), the Tour of Qatar (2012), two editions of the Ronde van Vlaanderen (2008, 2012), numerous other races and a vast number of other podium places. She called an end to her long career at the end of 2012, having won a number of very prestigious races, the National Road Race Championship, the National ITT Championship and the World ITT Championship and earned a silver medal in the time trial at the Olympics that year.

Sometimes outspoken, Arndt has clashed with the German cycling federation in the past. The most notable example of this came in 2004 when she raised her finger at the judges as she crossed the line (the gesture means "fuck off" in many nations) to show what she thought of the Federation's decision not to select her then-partner Petra Rossner in the Olympic team (Rossner won the World Cup in 2002 and had become National Road Race Champion two months before the Games; it does, therefore, seem strange that she wasn't selected). The Federation, as tends to be the way with national cycling federations, didn't take kindly to being criticised by a rider and forced Arndt to apologise; nevertheless, she earned an army of new fans.

Arndt was never the sort of rider who'd allow her career to go on too long and gradually fade into obscurity. After 21 years of racing, she decided that her final professional season would be 2012 - and it proved to be a spectacular year with a silver medal at the Olympics and victory at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, the Emakumeen Bira, the Thüringen-Rundfahrt and the World Time Trial Championships at Limburg.


Roger Hassenforder
Since the earliest days of the sport, cycling has been populated by eccentrics and characters - one of the most amusing of them all was Roger Hassenforder, who was born in Sausheim, France on this day in 1930 and became known as le boute-en-train ("the merry-maker") to the French and de Clown van de Elzas ("the Clown of Alsace") the the Dutch and Flemish. One of his most popular stunts was giving interviews during races, including the Tour de France.

Most cyclists rarely win anything, some win many races and a few will enjoy success at the Tour. Hassenforder was an unusual case in that almost all of his successes came in the Tour and he won very few smaller events - he won a total of eight Tour stages, including four in 1956 alone, and wore the maillot jaune for four days in 1953. Yet, he never won a Tour and in fact finished just one of the sixth he entered: 1956 when, despite those four stage wins, he was 50th overall.

When Hassenforder retired, he opened a cafe at Kaysersberg, one of the most beautiful and historic towns in the Alsace. It rapidly became a favourite haunt of local cyclists and those who visited from around the world, growing into a restaurant and hotel - it can still be found at 129 Rue General de Gaulle and, while no longer owned by the Hassenforder family, the new owners have been wise enough to keep it as the rider intended and have kept both the Hassenforder name and the restaurant's cycling links.


The Basque cyclist David Etxebarria, born in Abadiño on this day in 1973, won the Tour de l'Avenir in 1996 and Stages 9 and 12 at the Tour de France in 1999.

Jean Fontenay, who was born in Hirel on this day in 1911, came second overall at Paris-Nice in 1936 and wore the maillot jaune for two stages in the 1939 Tour de France.

Jörg Jaksche, born in Fürth, Germany on this day in 1976, won Paris-Nice and the Tour Méditerranéen in 2004, then came 16th overall at the Tour de France the following year. In 2006 he was one of the nine riders blocked from taking part in the Tour as part of the Operación Puerto investigation; in 2007 he admitted that he was "Bella," one of the code names used in documents seized from Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, and that he had received blood transfusions administered by the doctor.

Cyclists born on this day: Daniela Gassmann (Switzerland, 1964); Oleksandr Kvachuk (USSR/Ukraine, 1983); Rik Verbrugghe (Belgium, 1974); José Pittaro (Argentina, 1946); Hans-Peter Jakst (West Germany, 1954); Ali Ben Ali (Tunisia, 1933); Olaf Meyland-Smith (Denmark, 1882, died 1924); Benny Deschrooder (Belgium, 1980); Zoltán Halász (Hungary, 1960); Roberto Lezaun (Spain, 1967).