Daily Cycling Facts 26.01.2013

François Faber
Though François Faber was born in France (Aulnay-sur-Iton, 26th January 1887), his father was from Luxembourg and as a result François had Luxembourgian nationality. However, despite his Luxembourgian passport, the rider insisted throughout his life that he was French; he would, therefore, probably not have been pleased had he have known that he would find his place in history as the first foreigner to win the Tour de France.

When he began cycling he rapidly gained the nickname The Giant of Colombes because, at 1.88m tall and weighing 88kg, he was considerably larger than the average man of his day and enormous in comparison to most cyclists. In photographs he looks as strong as his reputation claims him to have been - rather than the flashy muscles of a gym obsessive, he had a physique hardened by back-breaking labour as a removal man and docker.

Faber began his professional cycling career with Labor in 1906 and entered his first Tour with them, but did not finish. Two years later, he moved on to Peugeot and entered again, this time winning four stages and achieving 2nd overall, then won the Giro di Lombardia. He departed for the mightly Alcyon, the most successful team in Tour history, in 1909 and it was with them that he not only won the race but, battling through some of the worst weather ever recorded during the event before or since, also won five consecutive stages (six in total) - a record that has not yet been broken after more than a century. He remained with them through 1910 and won three stages that year, coming 2nd overall behind team mate Octave Lapize, also winning Paris-Tours. Now one of the most respected and sought-after riders in the world, he was tempted away to Automoto and spent a quiet two years with them and Saphir Cycles before returning to Peugeot for the next two years, winning Paris-Roubaix, one stage at the Tour of Belgium and a total of four at the Tour de France during the period.

The First World War put paid to European racing until conflict came to an end, and Faber signed up with the Foreign Legion almost as soon as hostilities were declared. He was attached to the 2nd Régiment de Marche of the 1st Regiment, FFL, promoted to the rank of corporal. On the 9th of May 1915, the first day of the Battle of Artois near Arras, his regiment came under attack and lost 1,950 men from a total of 2,900. Faber survived the first waves of the attack unharmed, but then saw that one of his comrades was lying injured in no-man's land. He climbed out of the trench, went to him and had carried him part of the way to safety when he was fatally shot in the back, later being posthumously awarded the Médaille militaire for his bravery.

François Faber was 28 years old when he died. Earlier that same day, he had received a telegram informing him that his wife had just given birth to their first child, a daughter.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan, who was born on the 2nd of September 1812 in Keir, Scotland, died on this day in 1878. While not the inventor of the bicycle - the most deserved claimant of that title will probably never be known - he is often credited as the first to come up with the idea of providing some means of driving the rear wheel, bikes until then being powered by scooting the feet along the ground. He achieved this by means of treadles mounted to a central axle, connected to the rear wheel by con-rods. The wooden frame and heavy iron wheels sound rudimentary today, but the machine was possibly the very first example of what we recognise as a bicycle.

Ercole Baldini, an Italian cyclist who set the Hour Record in 1954,  was born on this day 1933 in a village called Villanova di Forli; and he was so fast he became known as The Forli Train. In 1956, he set another Hour Record after his previous one had been beaten by none other than Jacques Anquetil. The following year he won the Trofeo Barrachi with Fausto Coppi and became National Champion. Then, for 1958, he won the overall General Classification at the Giro d'Italia, beating the legendary climber Charly Gaul in the mountains (though to be fair, Gaul wouldn't have been enjoying the hot Italian weather at all). But even that wasn't enough, so later in the same year he became the World Champion. In 1959, his success began to slacken off a bit, though he was still able to win a stage and come 6th at that year's Tour de France before winning the Grand Prix des Nations and Coppa Placci before requiring surgery on his leg that ended his seventeen year professional career in 1964.

Rigoberto Uran
(image credit: Laurent Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

Rigoberto Urán
Born on this day in Urrao, Columbia, in 1987, Rigoberto Urán began cycling at the age of 14 but almost had to give it up when he was forced to take up a job selling lottery tickets three months later after his father (Heriberto; who came 50th overall in the 1986 Tour de France) was murdered by a paramilitary group (some sources say he was killed by crossfire in a battle between drug dealers). Fortunately, it soon became evident that he had talent and by the age of 16 he'd turned professional with the Orgulla Paisa team and gained an impressive collection of Under-17 and, later, Under-19 National titles.

Three years later, he'd made enough of a name for himself to go to Europe and sign a contract with Italy's Tenax, then a year later he joined Unibet, won Stage 8 and came 9th overall at the Tour de Suisse. In 2008, he left the world in no doubt that he had the potential to become a great, coming 3rd in the Giro di Lombardia and 2nd in the Volta a Catalunya. He was 5th in the Tour de Romandie in 200 9and improved his Tour de Suisse finish to 7th overall in 2010. A rider who begins his palmares with results such as these is heading in the direction of the Grand Tours - and once he'd signed up with the British Team Sky, he was entered in the Tour de France. He won no stages (few do in their first Tour), but wore the white jersey for leading the Youth Classification in four stages and may have kept it longer - perhaps even winning the category overall - if he hadn't contracted an illness. Nevertheless, he finished 24th overall, a result with which any Tour debutante who had ridden the race in perfect health would be happy.

His success continued in 2012 with 12th place overall at Paris-Nice; Stage 4 victory and fifth place overall at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya; five top ten stage finishes (best: fourth, Stage 17), first place in the Youth category and seventh overall at the Giro d'Italia and tenth place overall in the Tour of Poland. During the Olympic Road Race, Urán broke away 8km from the finish with Alexander Vinokourov, a rider fourteen years his senior;   many believed that if the race ended in a two-man sprint Urán's youth would win him the race. With 200m to go, he made the mistake of looking back to see if the peloton was chasing them - Vinokourov realised that his rival's attention was diverted, grabbed his chance and sprinted to victory.


Juan José Haedo, the Argentinian cyclist currently with Jamis-Hagens Berman after several years with Saxobank, was born on this day in 1981. Known as a lightning-fast sprinter who can battle his way through the peloton to the line, Haedo has achieved podium finishes in most of the races he has entered and has won many of the biggest events in one-day racing as well as stages at the Tour of California, the Vuelta a Murcia, the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Vuelta a Espana.

On this day in 2011, toy manufacturer Hornby announced a new product in its famous Scalextric range - a Chris Hoy-inspired velodrome racing set. Cyclists aged four to - well, every age really - got excited and rushed out with their Christmas money. Then the complaints started coming in. Apparently, quite a few sets either didn't work or broke within minutes.

Other cyclists born on this day: Kim Gyong-Hui (North Korea, 1970); Klaas Buchly (Netherlands, 1910, died 1965); Ivan Cerioli (Italy, 1971); Rafaâ Chtioui (Tunisia, 1986); Nedyalko Stoyanov (Bulgaria, 1955); Jim Nevin (Australia, 1931); Mira Kasslin (Finland, 1978); Lionel Cox (Australia, 1930, died 2010);  Yury Trofimov (USSR, 1984); Jože Valenčič (Yugoslavia, 1948); Maarten den Bakker (Netherlands, 1969); Aleksandr Dokhlyakov (USSR, 1942); Gerrit van Wees (Netherlands, 1913, died 1995); Mieczysław Nowicki (Poland, 1951); Gao Min (China, 1982); Raphael Glorieux (Belgium, 1929, died 1986); Pak Chun-Hwa (North Korea, 1968); Roman Humenberger (Austria, 1945).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.01.2013

Denis Menchov

Denis Menchov
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

Born on this day 1978 in Oryol, USSR, Denis Menchov began his professional career with Banesto and, almost always a sign of a great-rider-to-be, won the Tour de l'Avenir in 2001. The following year he took the Mountains Classification at the Critérium du Dauphiné, thus revealing himself as having the potential to become a Tour de France contender. He moved on to Rabobank in 2004 and became the team's leader following the departure of American Levi Leipheimer, remaining with them for two seasons and serving as their main General Classification rider in the 2005 Tour; but finished in 85th place due to a chest infection contracted during the race. However, he had made a full recovery by the time of the Vuelta a Espana, repaying Rabobank's faith with his first Grand Tour win, the Combination classification and two stages.

Menchov won one stage and finished in 6th position at both  the 2006 Tour and Critérium du Dauphiné, then concentrated on the Vuelta for 2007 where he won the Mountains and Combination classifications, a stage and the General Classification. He was back at the Tour in 2008 and managed 4th overall, having already finished 5th at the Giro d'Italia earlier in the year; then at the Giro the next year and won two stages and the overall General Classification, also coming second in the Points competition and third in the King of the Mountains - a considerable achievement. In 2010, his last year with Rabobank, he came 2nd in the Vuelta a Murcia and Tour di Romandie, then moved his Tour record up another notch by coming 3rd overall. For 2011, he went to Geox-TMC but didn't have such a good year, his only podium finish being 3rd at the Vuelta a Murcia. He rode the Vuelta a Espana again but this time came 5th, his team mate Juan José Cobo winning overall after a fabulous ascent of Alto de l'Angliru in which he made the infamously hard climb - the steepest in any Grand Tour - look easy.

At the end of the 2011 season sponsor Geox suddenly announced that it would be withdrawing from cycling immediately, leaving the team unable to continue. Menchov was fortunate enough to find a space with Katusha and enjoyed a good season with decent showings at the Vuelta a Andalucia and Volta a Cicilista Catalunya, victory at the National Individual Time Trial Championship, four top ten stage finishes (best: eighth, Prologue and Stage 8) followed by 11th place overall at the Tour de France and Stage 20 victory at the Vuelta a Espana. Katusha was denied a World Tour licence at the end of 2012, leaving it looking as though it would compete as a ProContinental team in 2013 - whether Menchov, who at 34 must be drawing towards the end of his years at the top level of the sport, will remain with them of break his contract and move to another team remains to be seen.

On Menchov's birthday in 2013, the British Guardian newspaper published an article on Team Sky rider Chris Froome. In it, Menchov was incorrectly termed "a formidable climber and doper." In fact, he has never failed an anti-doping test and his 2005 Vuelta victory was awarded restrospectively following the disqualification of initial winner Roberto Heras.

From The Guardian, 25.12.2013

Rene Pottier, 1879-1907

René Pottier
By all accounts, René Pottier was the finest climber of his day and was the fastest man up the 1,171m Ballon d'Alsace when he entered the Tour in 1905, beating Hippolyte Aucouturier, Louis Trousellier and Henri Cornet to the summit - the first time that a mountain had featured in the race. Despite his climbing ability, he lost his lead to Hippolyte Aucouturier after a puncture in his only remaining spare tyre caused by fans who had spread 125kg nails on the road - but fortunately for him, Aucouturier was a gentleman and generously handed over one of his own even though the puncture would have put his closest rival out of the race and so he was able to finish. The next day, he abandoned after a crash.

Pottier entered for a second time in 1906 and won five stages  from the total thirteen. He led the race after Stage 1, having wrested it away from Emile Georget and was once again the first man up Ballon d'Alsace - but this year luck was on his side and he finished the stage a full 48 minutes ahead of the next rider. He remained race leader throughout the remainder of the event.

With the Tour won, he competed in the Bol d'Or 24 hour race at the famous Buffalo Stadium (so named because the first velodrome on the site had once hosted Buffalo Bill Cody's traveling Wild West Show) and completed 925.29km to win. However, life was to take an awful plunge for Pottier - some time early in the next year, he learned that while he'd been away winning the Tour his wife had been unfaithful to him. He entered a deep depression and, on this day in 1907, he hanged himself from the hook upon which he usually hung his bike at their home in Lavallois-Perret. He was 27.

There is a memorial to Pottier, erected by Henri Desgrange, at the top of the Ballon d'Alsace.


British mountain biker Dan Atherton was born today in 1982 near Salisbury. Originally interested in BMX, Atherton took up mountain biking when he was 16 and, by 2004, was National 4X Champion. He came 2nd in a round of the World Downhill Championship a year later before adding numerous good results over the next two seasons. In 2008, he became the World 4X Champion. Dan is the older brother of  World Downhill Champions Gee (2010) and Rachel (2008).

Other cyclists born on this day: Brett Aitken (Australia, 1971); Luke Roberts (Australia, 1977); Elisabet "Elsbeth"van Rooy-Wink (Netherlands, 1973); Alan Danson (Great Britain, 1933); Sandra Temporelli (France, 1969); Alayna Burns (Australia , 1980); Harrie Jansen (Netherlands, 1947); Tomokazu Fujino (Japan, 1967).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.01.2013

Rebecca Romero
(© johnthescone CC2.0)

Rebecca Romero
Rebecca Romero, who started her professional career in sport as a rower and then became a National, World and Olympic Champion cyclist, was born on this day in 1980.

Romero's debut as a cyclist came at the 2006 Track World Championship in Moscow where she won silver, having been just beaten by Northern Irish Wendy Houvernaghel. She became National Time Trial Champion the same year, the National 3km Pursuit Champion the next and added another World Championships silver for the same event. In 2008, she won it individually and as part of the British squad in the Team Pursuit, then won gold for the Individual Pursuit at the Olympics.

In October 2010, she announced that she had decided to leave the British Olympic team before the 2012 Games in London, citing "several set-backs at crucial points" during the previous season. However, she has continued her athletic career, taking fourth place in the 2011 National Individual Time Trial Championship and competing in triathlon.


Cindy Pieters was born on this day 1976 in Veurne, Belgium. She turned professional in 1999, the year she became National Road Race Champion and came 3rd in the Flèche Wallonne Féminine. In 2000, she came 3rd in the National Time Trial Championships, improving her result to 1st the following year and then 2nd a year later.

Retired Spanish professional Fernando Escartin was born on this day in 1968 in Biescas. He entered nine Tours de France between 1992 and 2002, missing only 1998 and 2001. His best year was 1999 when he won Stage 15 and came 3rd overall. He was more successful in the Vuelta a Espana, which he entered seven times between 1993 and 2001, missing 1995 and 1999 - he came 2nd overall in 1997 and 1998.

On this day in 1854, Thomas Stevens was born in Birkhamstead, Hertfordshire. Aged 29, he set out from his family's adopted home in San Francisco on a penny-farthing fitted with cutting-edge nickel-plated wheels - a ride that, a year and a half later, would earn him the title of the first man to circumnavigate the globe on a bicycle. He died on the 24th of January 1935 and is buried in London's St. Marylebone Cemetery.

Cycling Weekly

In 1891, the first ever copy of Cycling Weekly - known to generations of British cyclists as "The Comic" - was published. A few years afterwards, it was briefly renamed Cycling and Moting as it was believed that moting, a name that never quite caught on for motoring, would supercede cycling and that cycling would die out as a result.

Later on, editor H.H. England misunderstood the feelings of the British cycling public and steered the magazine toward support of the National Cyclists' Union's continued ban of bicycle racing on roads, a ban that dated from an incident in the 19th Century when some racing cyclists upset horses pulling a carriage; the occupant of the carriage making a complaint to the police as a result. This led to a belief that were road racing to take place, the police would respond by banning bicycles altogether from the roads. Readership fell as a result and rival titles sprang up, supporting Percy Stallard and his British League of Racing Cyclists in their attempts to establish road races of the type taking place overseas (when they did manage to organise a race, the police supported them). The two best-selling rivals, The Bicycle and Sporting Cyclist, enjoyed good sales at first but would eventually merge with the older publication.

In the late 1950s, still under H.H., the magazine changed its name once again to reflect the increasing popularity of mopeds, becoming Cycling and Mopeds. England was certain that this move would drive sales and draw moped riders into cycling, but it had the opposite effect and sales dropped dramatically - cycling had proved to be far more than the brief craze some felt it would be and the magazine dropped the mopeds. Eventually, he was pushed out and new editor Alan Gayfer, a considerably less conservative character, was brought in as his replacement. Gayfer's first move was to drop the mopeds and broaden the racing coverage so that the magazine included news of all the forms of cycling then in existence. He also took on two new reporters who would go on to become the biggest names in British cycling journalism - Les Woodland and Phil Ligget.

Other cyclists born on this day: Josef Moser (Austria, 1917); Georges Valentin (France, 1892, died 1981); Remo Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Sal Sansonetti (Australia, 1946); Bogumiła Matusiak (Poland, 1971); Erik Friborg (Sweden, 1893 died 1968); Carsten Bergemann (Germany, 1979); Jos Alberts (Netherlands, 1960); Mok Sau Hei (Hong Kong, 1941); Ernst Streng (Germany, 1942, died 1993); Silvio Pedroni (Italy, 1918, died 2003); Angelo De Martini (Italy, 1897, died 1979); Scott Mercier (USA, 1968); László Halász (Hungary, 1959); Sławomir Chrzanowski (Poland, 1969).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.01.2013

Francesco Moser
(copyright expired)

Moser's 1984 Hour Records
On this day in 1984, Francesco Moser set a new Hour Record at 51.151km. Four days earlier, he had broken the previous record with 50.808km. Both of these are classified as "Best Human Effort" records due to the radical nature of Moser's bike which was fitted with disc wheels and various other goodies, resulting in the UCI's decision to issue a decree that the official record had to be set on a bike similar to that used by Eddy Merckx when he set the 1972 record that Moser was trying to break (the Human Effort category was then introduced so as not to stifle innovation, and predictably has become far more interesting than the main UCI record).

Moser's record is also controversial due to his association with Dr. Francesco Conconi, the man who used his expertise in developing new anti-doping measures to find drugs that could not be traced, which he would then supply to cyclists at considerable financial expense to them. Conconi, who is generally thought to have been responsible for introducing EPO into cycling (and thus giving rise to a new and notorious era in the sport), later wrote a book describing how he had "prepared" Moser for the record using methods such as blood doping that are now very much illegal, bannable offences (to be fair to Moser, most of the previous record holders would almost certainly have also been "prepared" in some way or another; Conconi, whose medical credentials are in no doubt, was simply the first to do it in a scientific way).

Moser's Hour Record bike
(public domain image)

On the 15th of January in 1994 Moser - then aged 43 - set a new Veteran Hour Record at 51.840km, again in Mexico City and aboard a bike inspired by the one featuring washing machine parts used by Graeme Obree to set two more Human Effort Hour Records in 1993 and 1994. Note that this distance is greater than the one he set ten years earlier when he was 33.


Other cyclists born on this day: Rhys Lloyd (Great Britain, 1989); Nikita Eskov (USSR, 1983); Henri Collard (Belgium, 1912, died 1988); Pascal Lance (France, 1964); José Teña (Spain, 1951); Håkan Larsson (Sweden, 1958); Axel Wilhelm Persson (Sweden, 1888, died 1955); Erik Friis (Denmark, 1916, died 1983); Georgi Velinov (Bulgaria, 1912); Federico de Beni (Italy, 1973); Eric Berthou (France, 1980).

Daily Cycling Facts 22.01.2013

Pelissier in 1919, the year he won his first
Paris-Roubaix

Henri Pélissier
Born in Paris on this day in 1885, Henri Pélissier was the second of four cycling brothers, of whom three (himself, Charles and Francis) would become professional (Jean, the oldest, died at Argonnes in the First World War). Henri would race in all but two of the peace-time Tours de France between 1912 and 1925, failing to finish all of them except for 1914 when he came second to Phillipe Thys and 1923, which we won after Ottavio Bottechia failed to change his gear in time (in those days, gear shifts were achieved by getting of the bike, removing the rear wheel, flipping it around and placing the chain over the differently-sized cog on that side before retightening the wheel and continuing; so a missed gear change could result in the loss of many minutes rather than seconds) and Jean Alvoine abandoned after a crash. He also won the Giro di Lombardia three times, Paris-Roubaix twice, Milan-Torino, Milan-San Remo, Bordeaux-Paris, Paris-Tours and Paris-Brussels.

His career began by chance after he happened upon twice Tour winner Lucien Petit-Breton one day whilst out walking. Petit-Breton asked him if he'd be willing to join his team to race in Italy - and since the team would depart that day, Pélissier had six hours in which to decide and organise himself. Having little going for him at time - his rather disagreeable personality had caused his father to kick him out of the family home - he decided very quickly that he may as well grab his chance and went. He lost that first race, but won the Giro di Lombardia in 1913 partially through luck: a huge crash 400m from the finish line involved many riders including Pélissier, but he was not hurt and jumped back on his bike before sprinting to the line. The crowd was upset that their local hero Costante Girardengo had lost and decided Pélissier was to blame; a mob climbed onto the track and savagely beat him until he managed to clamber into the judges' tower to safety, where he waited while 80 policemenset about controlling his attackers.

Henri Pelissier with brother Francis - the only rider to stay
with him after he punctured in the Tour

Pélissier was not popular with the other riders, fans or organisers; after being penalised in the 1920 Tour de France for leaving a punctured tyre at the roadside, he spent a large portion of his best years in a long, drawn-out battle with race director Henri Desgrange and the two men seem to have deliberately provoked one another whenever they saw an opportunity to do so. He also took pleasure in insulting and irritating other riders, causing Desgrange to refer to him as a "pig-headedly arrogant champion". This, on more than one occasion, caused repercussions - at a Tour in those genteel times when the rules of gentlemanly conduct dictated that the peloton waited if a rider punctured, he told journalists that the other riders were "cart horses; I'm a thoroughbred." The following day he punctured and the pack raced away; leaving him half an hour behind them.

His wife, Léonie, suffered much and entered a deep depression, leading to her suicide in 1933 when she shot herself with her husband's revolver. Three years following her death, he took a new lover named Camille "Miette" Tharault who was 20 years younger than him. He treated her no better - during a row one day, he attacked her with a knife and slashed her face. She, however, was made of sterner stuff than poor Léonie: she ran upstairs and grabbed the gun with which her predecessor had committed suicide but, instead of killing herself, took it back down to kitchen and shot her husband five times. After the killing was investigated, she was given a 12-month suspended sentence which, court officials said, was the closest they could come to releasing her without charge under the laws of the time.

At Paris-Roubaix, 1919

It should be remembered that, no matter what his personal flaws, Pélissier was an innovative rider and the first to adopt a number of ideas and techniques that would revolutionise the sport over the coming years. He was, for example, possibly the first to understand that an athlete might benefit from following a controlled diet; so he would eat small amounts regularly throughout the day and start a race on a light breakfast in a time when other riders loaded themselves up with as much fatty food (steaks were the favourite of many) shortly before a race began. Thus, his opponents would set off slowly and take time to cast of their sluggishness, giving the wide-awake and alert Pélissier an ideal window in which to attack and build up a insurmountable lead. He was also possibly the first to realise that speed training would come in useful - Tour stages tended to be much longer in the early history of the race (in 1903, the average length of the six stages was 404.6km, while in 2011 the average length of the 21 stages - including time trials - was "merely" 163.3km) and so riders tended to concentrate on improving endurance rather than speed. Pélissier, meanwhile, would get up early and take a speed training session while most other riders would still have been in bed, then go for his distance training ride in the afternoon - as a clever tactician, he kept this secret. He never drank alcohol during a race, which seems obvious to us but was considered bizarre at the time, and developed a very modern fascination with reducing the weight of his bike and equipment: he once explained to a journalist who had found him sand-papering his rims, "I can save 50g - and on a moving part, that's worth 2kg on the frame."

Henri Pelissier in the 1923 Tour de France

Pélissier may have been one of the first to speak out about doping: one day, as he and Francis spoke to the journalist Albert Londres, he described the conditions and challenges that riders faced on a Tour stage and took a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine for our eyes and chloroform for our gums," he explained. Maurice Ville, another rider present at the interview, tipped out his own bag and continued: "Horse liniment to keep my knees warm... and pills? You want to see pills?" He took out three boxes full of them, as did the Pélissier brothers. "In short," Francis said, "we run on dynamite." Many have seen this event as mischief, an attempt to stir up trouble for the race organisers with whom he so often battled and indeed it was partially so - Pélissier later admitted that they'd decided to have a bit fun at Londres' expense because they felt that the  writer knew nothing about the sport; but it might also be seen as evidence of a belief that predates that of Fausto Coppi several decades later, one that riders were forced to endanger their health with drugs simply to be able to meet the harsh demands the Tour made of them.

The other riders may have felt insulted by his carthorses and thoroughbreds comment, but he had a point - and it's possible that he genuinely did wish to improve their lot.

Abraham Olano

Abraham Olano
(image credit: Masestela06 CC BY-SA2.0) 

Abraham Olano, a Basque rider born on this day in 1970 in Anoeta, won the Gran Premio de Villafranca de Ordizia with Lotus during his first professional year, rewarding them for taking him on after his first team CHCS collapsed shortly after signing him. A year later, now riding for CLAS Cajastur, he became National Champion in both road racing and time trial. Two years after that, he came 2nd overall with two stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana and won the World Road Race Championships, beating Miguel Indurain and by doing so, got all of Spain declaring him to be Indurain's successor.

He wasn't, of course - cyclists of that calibre don't come along so often - but he proved nevertheless to be a very talented rider indeed and won the Vuelta a Espana in 1998. He would take 3rd in the Giro d'Italia in 1996 and 2nd in 2001, 9th in the Tour de France in 1996 and 4th in 1997 and, in addition to his later victory, come 2nd in 1995 Vuelta., as well as the 1994 Vuelta a Asturias, the 1996 Tours of Romandia and Galicia, the Euskal Bizikleta in 1997 and 1998 and a list of other races.


Andre Tchmil was born today in Khabarovsk, Russia before moving to Ukraine (then part of the USSR) as a boy with his family. He showed sufficient talent in his early years to be enrolled in a specialist cycling school, one of the sports academies found in Eastern Europe and the USSR before glasnost that were designed to turn out outstanding athletes who could go to the Olympics and bring back glory. Jens Voigt, Jan Ullrich and Viatcheslav Ekimov were students at similar academies. When the USSR broke up, he became a Ukrainian citizen but rode for the Italian Alfa-Lum team, then emigrated to Belgium in 1998. He rode in five Tours de France but finished only two, failing to win a single stage, but became a highly respected Classics specialist with a particular aptitude for the harsh cobbled races; winning the Ronde van Vlaanderen and in 1994, the hardest Classic of them all, Paris-Roubaix. He also won the Road Race World Cup in 1999. Tchmil was still going in 2002 at the age of 39 when he sustained an injury to his thigh in the Three Days of De Panne, bringing his racing career to an end. He has worked in various capacities since retirement, acting as a team consultant before running a UCI cycling facility and then, in 2006, becoming the Minister of Sport in the government of Moldova, the country in which his sport academy had been located. In 2009, he became directeur sportif of the Russian-based Team Katusha.

Other cyclists born on this day: Lee Vertongen (New Zealand, 1975); Dan Frost (Denmark, 1961); Preben Isaksson (Denmark, 1943, died 2008); Carl Lüthje (Germany, 1883); Uwe Messerschmidt (Germany, 1962); Miguel Pérez (Mexico, 1934); Marcelo Alexandre (Argentina, 1963); Renan Ferraro (Brazil, 1962); Sid Taberlay (Australia, 1980); Nikolay Kovsh (USSR, 1965); Nikos Angelidis (Greece, 1977); Lorang Christiansen (Norway, 1917, died 1991); Robert Lechner (Germany, 1967); Sava Gerchev (Bulgaria, 1914); Reinier Cartaya (Cuba, 1981); Paolo Pedretti (Italy, 1906 died 1983); Abraham Olano (Spain, 1970).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.01.2013

Emile De Beukelaer, who died on this day in 1922, was the most successful professional cyclist of the 1880s and later founded, then became the first president of, the Union Cycliste Internationale. Based first in Paris, later in Geneva and now in Aigle, the UCI remains the governing and regulatory body of cycling sports worldwide to this day and was created on the 14th of April 1900 to oppose the British-based International Cycling Association after an extended row over whether or not Britain should be limited to one team to represent Great Britain in international events or be permitted four to represent England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, it having in the past sent four teams to the Olympics before claiming all medals won in the name of Great Britain. Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and the USA, the most powerful cycling nations of the day, joined forces with the French to create the new body and as a result the ICA had little chance of retaining any real power; Britain was subsequently banned from joining until 1903.

Rob Hayles, a British track and road cyclist, was born on this day in 1973.  He received a 14-day suspension from racing in 2008, the same year he became National Road Race Champion, after a blood test found his haematocrit level to be 0.3% over the legal limit, though no decisive evidence of doping was discovered. Hayles won silver and bronze in the 2004 Athens Olympics, bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, gold and silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and has won a total of two gold, five silver and one bronze in the Track World Championships.

Other cyclists born on this day: Carlos Sandoval (Guatemala, 1928); Thomas Montemage (USA, 1927); Léon Ponscarme (France, 1879, died 1916); Leonel Rocca (Uruguay, 1915, died 1965); Maritza Corredor (Colombia, 1969); Raivis Belohvoščiks (Latvia, 1976); Davis Pereira (Brazil, 1958); Osvaldo Castellan (Italy, 1951); Alfred Mohr (Austria, 1913); Magali Faure-Humbert (France, 1972); Manfred Gieseler (Germany, 1933); Gunnar Björk (Sweden, 1891, died 1980); José Viejo (Spain, 1949); Aleksey Bochkov (USSR, 1970); Pyotr Ugryumov (USSR, 1961).

Daily Cycling Facts 20.01.2013

Catherine Marsal
Born in Metz on this day in 1971, Catherine Marsal won the Tour de Bretagne and the Junior World Pursuit Championship in 1988, also coming tenth in the Road Race at the Olympic Games that year; then in 1989 she won the Tour de Bretagne again and came second in the Elite Road Race at the World Championships. In 1990 she became National Champion and won the Giro Donne and the Tour de l'Aude, races considered to be women's Grand Tours - only twelve male riders have won two Grand Tours in the history of cycling. Then, that same year, she became World Road Race Champion - in men's cycling, two Grand Tours and a World Championship earns a rider cycling's greatest honour, the Triple Crown. Only Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche have ever won it.

Marsal won the Tour de l'Aude again in 1994; the National Road Race Championship in 1996; the National Individual Time Trial, Individual Pursuit and Points race Championships in 1997 and the National Points race Championship again in 1999. She won a silver medal at the National Road Race Championship in 2000, a bronze the following year, a stage at the Tour de l'Aude in 2002 and, finally, third place at the GP des Nations in 2004 before retiring at the end of the season.

Cyrille Guimard
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Cyrille Guimard
Cyrille Guimard was born on this day 1947 in Bouguenais, France. He was a rider of considerable talent,  becoming National Champion in road racing, track and cyclo cross and as a sprinter, he won almost a hundred races during his eight professional seasons including eight stages at the Tour de France (he would wear the yellow jersey for eight days in 1973 before winning the overall Combativity award) along with two stages and the Points Classification at the 1971 Vuelta a Espana.

However, his success before a knee problem ended his racing career was minor compared to his performance as a directeur sportif. During his time with the Castorama, Cofidis, Système U-Gitane, Super U, Renault-Elf-Gitane and Gitane-Campagnolo teams, he directed some of the greatest Tour riders in history including Greg LeMond (winner of three Tours and two World Championships), Laurent Fignon (two Tours and one Giro d'Italia), Marc Madiot (winner of two Paris-Roubaix), Charly Mottet (winner of three Critériums du Dauphiné), Lucien van Impe (winner of one Tour, six Tour King of the Mountains classification and two Giro d'Italia King of the Mountains classifications) and, greatest of all, Bernard Hinault (winner of five Tours, one Tour Points classification, one Tour Mountains classification, three Tour Combativity classifications, three Giros, two Vueltas a Espana, a World Championship and - well, just about everything else). Van Impe said, "Without him, I don't know if I would ever have won the Tour."

Guimard trained many great riders, but none
so great as The Badger
(image c/o Granny Gear)

Guimard was no stranger to controversy, either as a rider or as a directeur sportif. He provided a positive sample in a doping test in 1973 at a time when he was under the care of no less than Dr. Mabuse, real name Bernard Sainz, the extremely questionable "sports doctor" who had no medical training and who received a three-year prison sentence in 2008 for his dubious activities in cycling and horse racing. Guimard's personality, sometimes abrasive, led to clashes; most notably with Hinault who was - and still is - an abrasive character himself, and in 1976 he threatened to run van Impe over with a team car if he didn't attack Joop Zoetemelk (van Impe denies that the incident really happened; but if it did it worked - he attacked and won the stage). He was involved with Cofidis right from the start, helping to create the team, but was pushed out in 1997 after a court case in which he stood accused of obtaining credit by pretenses and false accounting, receiving a suspended jail sentence when he was found guilty.

However, talent of the sort possessed by Guimard cannot be stifled. In 2003, he was taken on as technical director of the Velo Club Roubaix, a position that he still holds. During his early days with the club he trained a young and unknown rider from Luxembourg named Andy Schleck - so it seems possible that the world has not yet seen the last Tour winner to come out of the Guimard stable.

Kaarle McCulloch

Kaarle McCulloch (left) with Anna Meares

A winner of gold and silver medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Kaarle McCulloch was born on this day in 1988 in Campbelltown, New South Wales. She has also won numerous gold, silver and bronze medals at many other events, including four (two gold, one silver, one bronze) as a junior at the 2006 Australian Track Championships during which she competed at Elite level in the Team Sprint.

In 2012, McCulloch rode with Anna Meares to take second place in the Team Sprint at the London round of the World Cup where they were beaten by Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish, then at the World Championships where they were again second having been beaten by Kristina Vogel and Mirian Welte of Germany and once more at the Olympics, where they took third place behind Vogel and Welte and silver medalists Jinjie Gong and Guo Shuang of China. She also won silver in the Keirin at the Oceania Championships.

Josef Fischer

The German cyclist Josef Fischer was born on this day in 1865. Little is known about him, but he won't vanish from the pages of cycling history because in 1896 he won the first Paris-Roubaix, the race so hard it's become better known by its nicknames, "The Hell of the North" and "A Sunday In Hell." To date, he is the only German rider to have ever won the event.

Other cyclists born on this day: Clyde Sefton (Australia, 1951); Elisha Hughes (Antigua and Barbuda, 1959); Gerrit van Gestel (Belgium, 1958); Miloslav Loos (Czechoslovakia, 1914, died 2010); Abelardo Ríos (Colombia, 1952); Radoš Čubrić (Yugoslavia, 1934); Yury Kashirin (Soviet Union, 1959); François Hamon (France, 1939); Marie-Claude Audet (Canada, 1962); Nancy Contreras (Mexico, 1978); Mahmoud Abbas (Egypt, 1978); Dario Gasco (Argentina, 1987); Thomas Barth (East Germany, 1960); Falk Boden (East Germany, 1960).