Daily Cycling Facts 27.04.2013

Emile Faingnaert

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1947, when it was won by Emiel Faingnaert. After retiring from racing, Faingnaert ran a bike shop for many years in his hometown Sint-Martens-Lierde where there is now a monument dedicated to his memory.

The Vuelta a Espana began on this day in 1962, 1967, 1972, 1976 and 1992. Jacques Anquetil had already won two Tours de France and a Giro d'Italia by this point and he entered the 1962 edition, which included 17 stages and covered 2,806km, leaving nobody in any doubt that he was there to become the first man to have won all three Grand Tours. It was generally agreed that he stood a better chance than anyone else of doing so, too; but Fate, being what it is, saw to it that he did not - a gastric condition prevented him from winning any stages and, eventually, caused him to abandon the race. The Saint Raphael-Helyett team remained all but invincibly strong with him out of action and then in his absence; team mates Rudi Altig and Seamus Elliot (the first Irish rider to make an impact on the European cycling circuit and who would tragically commit suicide four years after retiring in 1967) swapped the red jersey (which distinguished the race leader during that period) back and forth between themselves throughout the race. Elliot led for a total of nine stages, but then rode a disastrous Stage 15 time trial that saw him finish overall in third place with a disadvantage of 7'17" behind Altig - the first German to win a Vuelta (the Irish would have to wait more than a quarter of a century for their first win, courtesy of Sean Kelly in 1988).

Jan Janssen

1967 consisted of 18 stages, two split, covering 2,940.5km in total. Jan Janssen became the first Dutch rider to win and took the Points competition too. Stages 5 and 16 were won by Tom Simpson - his final Grand Tour victories before his death on Mont Ventoux during Stage 13 at the Tour de France later that year.

1972 once again consisted of 18 stages, two split, the total distance this time being 3,079km. José Manuel Fuente, one of the few riders of the day capable of doing battle and occasionally beating Eddy Merckx (who would not enter the Vuelta until the following year, when he won), won both the General Classification and the King of the Mountains.

In 1976 there were 19 stages, covering 3,340km. José Pesarrodona won, beating Luis Ocaña (who had been Merckx's other main rival) by 1'03", largely on account of a superb Stage 19b time trial where he finished just one second behind stage winner Dietrich Thurau. A Belgian rider, Eric Jacques - then virtually unknown and now virtually forgotten - took a surprise second place in Stage 8, sufficient to put him at the top of the General Classification leadership. Looking at the rest of his career, it comes as somewhat less of a surprise that he failed a doping control after the stage. In those pre-Festina, Puerto and Giro Blitz days the punishments for doping were considerably less than they are today and he received no penalty other than being docked ten minutes; it was, however, enough to ruin his chances and he finished the race in 16th place overall.

Tony Rominger

1992 included 20 stages and covered 3,395km. The race was open right from the start after favourites Stephen Roche, Robert Millar, Erik Breukink and Steven Rooks all showed up on noticeably less-than-first-rate form, leaving most people undecided between Tony Rominger and Pedro Delgado - but then Rominger crashed and was left with an injured knee and concussion which caused him to lose three minutes in the Stage 6 time trial. Meanwhile, Breukink had recovered somewhat and won the stage, though with only a slight advantage over surprise second place Jesús Montoya - hitherto known purely as a climber, Montoya's time was sufficient to put him into the overall lead. However, Rominger would also recover fast and, two stages later when the race ventured into France to climb 1,720m Luz Ardiden in the Pyrenees, he dropped all of his rivals one by one - while he would never catch a breakaway led by eventual stage winner Laudelino Cubino and put himself back into contention. Montoya, leading since Stage 6, began to worry after Pedro Delgado was fastest up Lagos de Covadonga to win Stage 13, and from that point on concentrated on beating him; managing to retain the leadership through to Stage 17. The big mistake they both made was in forgetting about Rominger who was working hard to claw his way back up and took a decisive win in the Stage 18 time trial, putting himself into the overall leadership. From that point onwards he was unstoppable and cemented his race victory when he also won the following stage. It would be the first time the Vuelta had ever been won by a Swiss rider and the first step along the way to becoming the first man to win in three consecutive years.

Obree's 1994 Hour Record

Obree aboard "Old Faithful"
(public domain image)

On this day in 1994, Nuneaton-born Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree set the second of his two Hour Records; both classified among the Human Effort records achieved on bikes with notable differences to that ridden by Eddy Merckx when he set his own record in 1972 and which was decided to be the approved "standard" bike by the UCI.

In fact, Obree's bike - Old Faithful - was very different to the one used by Merckx. For a start, he'd built it himself and it was ridden in an extremely unconventional style. Rather than the drop handlebars used on most track and road bikes, the bars were positioned further back, creating a much shorter distance between them and the saddle (known as "reach"). He would then ride with his upper torso over the bars which he gripped below his chest, thus achieving a streamlined profile similar to that of a skier. The custom bottom bracket was much narrower than standard and elevated chain stays allowed the use of straight cranks, thus permitting him to keep his knees in, and a single-sided streamlined fork reduced the frontal area of the bike. It also featured bearings taken from a washing machine - after noticing that parts in some machines rotate at speeds as high as 1,200rpm, he reasoned that the bearings must therefore be of better quality than those used in bikes. He later regretted telling people this, as the bearings story proved to be of especial appeal to journalists who then ignored the innovation on show on the rest of Old Faithful and wrote silly headlines about a bike made of old washing machine parts.

Old Faithful doesn't look fast at first glance. In fact, it looks a bit like a folding shopper bike (albeit one that somebody's fitted with very expensive carbon fibre wheels) and it wouldn't be unfair to say it's not the most aesthetically-pleasing steed ever to hit the velodrome. Looks can be deceiving -  it's very fast indeed and aboard it Obree covered 52.713km in sixty minutes, almost half a kilometre more than previous record holder Chris Boardman. Shortly afterwards, the UCI banned the bike and Obree's riding position.


Today marks the anniversary of the 1979 birth of Scottish professional cyclist James McCallum, who was born in Glasgow and currently rides for Rapha-Condor-Sharp. A natural athlete, McCallum competed in several sports before deciding to concentrate on cycling and, in 2001, became Scottish National Kilo Champion, then British Circuit Race Champion in 2007. Nowadays, he runs Mach 10 - a sports coaching company he set up - and is involved with Champions in Schools, a charity that aims to educate schoolchildren in the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and provide them with access to sport.

Jayme Richardson-Paris is a Paralympian cyclist born in New South Wales on this day in 1989. She began her athletic career as a swimmer but instinctively felt that it was not the sport she would excel in and, after looking around, settled on cycling. This provided her with more difficulties than it does for most people: whilst Jayme was still in the womb, her mother suffered a uterine rupture. After performing an emergency caesarean birth, doctors believed she was dead. Fortunately, both mother and baby survived; but a part of Jayme's brain had been damaged, leaving her with cerebellar ataxia (a condition that makes coordinated movements difficult, leading to "chronic clumsiness"), gross motor retardation and epilepsy. With therapy, her condition improved sufficiently for her to be picked to compete in National events and she began winning races - a lot of races, including twelve in 2011 alone. Her ambition is now to win two gold medals at the 2012 Paralympics in London.

The Basque time trial expert Jonathan Castroviego was born in Getxo on this day in 1987 and joined Euskaltel-Euskadi in 2010 - an unusual choice for the team, as it's traditionally been made up of climbers and specialises in winning gruelling mountain races, but one that paid off the following year when he won the Tour de Romandie after beating Taylor Phinney by 0.27" in the individual time trial. Earlier that year at Tirreno-Adriatico, he had beaten Cadel Evans and David Zabriskie in a time trial - evidence that, as he enters his best years over the coming four seasons, he will emerge as a serious talent.

Other cyclists born on this day: Petra Walczewski (Switzerland, 1968); Roel Paulissen (Belgium, 1976); Riho Suun (USSR, 1960); Santia Tri Kusuma (Indonesia, 1981); Rory Gonsalves (Antigua and Barbuda, 1979); Gianfranco Contri (Italy, 1970); Sergey Tereshchenkov (USSR, 1938, died 2006); Aleksey Kolesov (Kazakhstan, 1984); Harry Steevens (Netherlands, 1945); Gilson Alvaristo (Brazil, died 1956); José Luis Tellez (Mexico, 1938).

Daily Cycling Facts 26.04.2013

Tom Simpson, 1937-1967

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1961 - the year that Tom Simpson became the first  British rider to have ever won the race (he's still the only British man to have won; Nicole Cooke won the  Ronde voor Vrouwen in 2007). Unfortunately for the legions of fans who idolise Simpson nearly half a century after his death on Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, he almost certainly wouldn't have won had it not been for the powerful gale that blew throughout the day. Tom was out in front on his own as the finish line approached, but the Italian Nino Defilippis - who was a much faster sprinter than Tom - was catching up fast, overtaking him in the last section. Then to Simpson's delight, Defilippis stopped pushing: he grabbed his chance and powered back into the lead, crossing the line with a minute advantage.

Later, Defilippis claimed that because the gale had blown down the banner over the finish he hadn't known where to stop. The Italians complained, of course, believing that their man should have won; however, both Defillipis and Simpson had completed two circuits and, since the organisers felt that this was more than adequate opportunity for everyone to have worked things out for themselves, the complaint was not upheld. Defillipis then approached Simpson and asked if he would be willing to ask the judges to declare the race a draw, pointing out that the last Italian to win a Classic had been in 1953. Simpson looked at him, then replied: "An Englishman hasn't won one since 1896!"

La Flèche Wallonne has also been held on this day - the 22nd edition, in 1958. It started in Charleroi and ended in Liège, as it had for the preceding ten years, following a 235km parcours in between. The winner was Rik Van Steenbergen, who had also won nine years earlier in 1949.

Jesús Loroño

The Vuelta a Espana began on this day in 1957, 1973, 1977 and 1993. 1957 covered 2,957km in - unusually - only 16 stages, the least since the first edition in 1935. Eagle of Toledo Federico Bahamontes won the King of the Mountains for the first time, adding it to the title he'd taken at the Giro d'Italia the previous year. Jesús Loroño was never quite as good as Bahamontes in the mountains, but he was the better rider on the flat stages and, as such, took the General Classification lead from him in Stage 9 and kept it to the end of the race.

1973 covered 3,061km in 21 stages and was won by Eddy Merckx who, having already won four Tours de France and three Giri d'Italia, became the third man (after Jacques Anquetil and Felice Gimondi) to have won all three Grand Tours during his career. Five days after the Vuelta ended, the Giro began - and when he won that too, he became the first man to win both races in a single year (winning the Tour de France as well was too much even for Merckx, who stayed away in 1973; to date, nobody has achieved what would be cycling's ultimate accolade). Luis Ocaña, who would win the Tour that year, took second place and Bernard Thévenet, who would win the Tour in 1975 and 1977 was third, while Merckx would win a fifth and final Tour, the Giro and the World Championship in 1974 - making the podium at the end of this edition of the race perhaps the highest concentration of professional cycling talent ever seen.

"Swiss Tony" Rominger

In 1977, the race covered 2,785km divided between a prologue and 19 stages. Merckx was still racing, but his best years were gone and he stayed away to concentrate on the Tour de France, which would be his last Grand Tour. Instead, Belgium's hopes passed on to Freddy Maertens, and he would not let the fans down - he led the General Classification from the beginning to the end of the race and the thirteen stages he won remains a record record 35 years later.

1993 brought the second of a record three consecutive wins for the Swiss Tony Rominger. By his side through much of the 3,605km (20 stage) parcours was Alex Zülle, seven years his junior and from a rival team but also Swiss, who appeared to be serving some sort of apprenticeship and finished only 29" behind him (third place Laudelino Cubino required another 8'54"). He learned well, going on to win two consecutive Vueltas of his own in 1996 and 1997; unfortunately, one of the skills he may have picked up from his master was the use of EPO - Rominger was never caught, but has long been under suspicion due to his association with the infamous Dr. Michele Ferrari. Zülle, meanwhile, found himself entangled in the Festina Affair of 1998 and confessed that he had used the drug.

Mont Ventoux
"Father of Humanism" Petrarch, accompanied by his brother, became the first man since antiquity to climb Mont Ventoux on this day in 1336 - the Gauls, who named in Vintur after their god of mountains, had been up it in ancient times and may have worshipped it as his domain. Modern cyclists worship Ventoux too: though not especially high nor steep, it's become infamous as one of the world's most difficult climbs and since the death of British rider Tom Simpson in the 1967 Tour de France, it's a place of pilgrimage. Simpson is not the only cyclist to have known Ventoux's wrath: it very nearly finished off Eddy Merckx three years later, and Jean Malléjac came close to death when the Tour climbed the mountain in 1995 - an event that inspired Antoine Blondin to write:

"There are few happy memories of this sorcerer's cauldron. We have seen riders reduced to madness under the effect of the heat or stimulants, some coming back down the hairpins they thought they were climbing, others brandishing their pumps and accusing us of murder... Falling men, tongues hanging out, selling their soul for a drop of water, a little shade..."

"Ventoux is not like any other col..."

That same day, Ferdy Kübler was warned to show his respects. "Watch put, Ferdi," Raphaël Géminiani told him, "Ventoux is not like any other col." Kubler, as full of himself as ever, replied "Ferdi is not like any other rider." He soon found out that to Vintur, a Tour de France winner is nothing when he fails to show his respects and, after trying to prove his supremacy by sprinting up, he was reduced to begging spectators to push him up. Having been overtaken again and again by riders less foolhardy than himself, he eventually reached the summit twenty minutes after the race leader and crashed several times on the way down before finding a bar and giving up. He never entered the Tour again.

In Petrarch's day, the mountain would have been very different to today as the extensive logging that from the 12th Century provided timber to the Toulon shipyards had not yet stripped away the trees, leaving the slopes bare and and with the weird, lunar appearance that makes it such an uncanny place today; though he'd doubtless have been keeping a careful eye open for the wolves and bears that lived up there in those days (or not - as Daniel Freibos points out, it's highly likely that Petrarch made it all up and never climbed the mountain at all). The heat and wind on Ventoux are remorseless, especially in those deforested sections where there is no shelter from either. The wind can be worse than the heat - meteorologists at the summit weather station have known it bend iron poles and burn out anemometers. In the 1970s, a car was blown off the road and wrecked. The man who was driving had gone for help and was blown over a wall but survived. His wife had left the car while he was gone - her body was found by soldiers stationed on the mountain a short while later, battered beyond recognition. The wind had stoned her to death.

(For the very best description of Ventoux, and what it's like to ride it, see William Fotheringham's "Put Me Back On My Bike - In Search of Tom Simpson," Yellow Jersey Press, 2002.)

Tommy Hall
Tommy Hall was born in Croydon but the exact date isn't known. Some sources say that he was born on the 4th of June 1880, which would be the right year if 72 - the age his gravestone says he was when he died on this day in 1949 - is correct; but the Birth Register says William Thomas Hall (his real name) he was born  between October and December in 1887. Meanwhile, the 1901 Census says that he was 24 and living with his parents at 104 Shepherd's Bush Road in London and was employed a a cycle maker - in which case, he'd have been born in 1877 or 1878. His father's occupation is given as furniture maker and he must have earned a good living, because the house still stands and is quite an imposing building.

Tommy Hall with motorpacer

Hall turned professional in 1900 (which suggests the 1887 birthdate is unlikely) and set a new World Motorpaced Hour Record in 1903 when he covered 87.391km. Following his retirement in 1914, he coached the British Olympic team as is revealed by a scan of his ID card from the 1924 Games which can be seen on a website devoted to him (which seems to no longer be updated, rather sadly) set up by a relative. He was buried in Stoke Newington where his gravestone, complete with a carved bicycle, can still be seen in Abney Park Cemetery.


Allan Peiper
According to a stereotype that has been around since the earliest days of the sport, male cyclists start out as skinny boys with hungry eyes who see racing as their only chance to escape grinding poverty (the same is very much not true with the women because no female cyclist, no matter how good she is, is ever going to retire rich unless the world achieves some much-needed changes. Most female riders discover the sport while at university). According to Lance Armstrong, one thing that many professional riders have in common is an absent of abusive father.

Like all stereotypes, both are only partially true: there have been many cyclists from financially comfortable and even wealthy backgrounds and for every hungry boy who learned to fear his father - or never knew him - there are at least four who owe everything they later achieved to their father's support and encouragment. Allan Peiper, meanwhile, is the embodiment of both. Those who knew him as a child say that he was bright but, like a lot of intelligent children, he absolutely loathed school and would show up for morning registration before sneaking out to go and ride his bike. His homelife was awful - his father was a violent drunk and his mother, who had to work herself to the point of illness to support her family, was rarely around to care for him.

As soon as he could, he left school and found a job in a factory which permitted him to save enough money to move to Belgium where he knew he'd have a better chance of making it as a cyclist - he made the journey when he was just 16 and found lodgings above a butcher's shop for a while before his excellent results brought him to the attention of Eddy Planckaert, who invited him to lodge with his family. The Planckaerts are probably the closest thing to a cycling dynasty: Eddy's brothers Willy and Walter were also highly successful professional cyclists, as is Eddy's son Francesco and his nephew (Willy's son) Jo, and a young cyclist trying to make his name thousands of miles from home could not have wished for a better home.

Benefiting from Planckaert mentorship, he became good enough by 1982 to follow so many foreign cyclists in joining the legendary Athletic Club de Boulogne Billencourt and, a year later, was offered a professional contract with Peugeot, racing alongside people such as Phil Anderson, Stephen Roche and Sean Yates and, with them, would go on to become one of the 1980s and 1990s' most successful riders from a country not traditionally known as a producer of great cyclists.

Peter Nelson
Professional cycling can be a cut-throat business, and while cyclists try to give the impression that they're never anything less than 100% sportsmanlike when there's any chance of a camera nearby they've been known to resort to distinctly unsportsmanlike behavour at other times. One who was far above all that was Australia's legendary champion Peter Nelson, born on this day in 1931.

When he was still a boy, Nelson's older brothers returned from fighting in the Second World War and he saw them as nothing less than heroes; copying them in everything they did - including sport. However, it soon became apparent that he was far better than them at any sport he tried: they would later remember that he was "someone who could take up any sport and excel at it." Before long, he was offered a place on the National Swimming Team - but he turned it down because he had decided to devote his life to cycling. After receiving an invitation from Olympian cyclist Jim Nestor, Nelson joined the Sturt CC and began riding 800km each week on the club's outdoor track, despite also working full time at a sports store.

In 1951, he earned a place on the Olympis squad after becoming state champion over 15, 25 and 50 miles and, while traveling to Helsinki to compete in the Games, he met the runner Marjorie Jackson. Following a two-year period in which they both enjoyed enormous success, Nelson and Jackson married; retiring from sport and taking over a almond farm.

Nelson was known for the kindness, compassion and care he showed towards other cyclists and would offer free board to any competing in races near to his Adelaide home. He died of leukaemia on the 2nd of February in 1977, when he was 45 years old.

Charly Wegelius

Charly Wegelius
(image credit: Ludovic Péron CC BY-SA 3.0)

Charly Wegelius was born in Finland on this day in 1977, the son of banker and showjumper Christopher Wegelius, but has spent most of his life in the United Kingdom where he was educated at Bootham in York, a prestigious public school that has produced numerous notable sportsmen, politicians and scientists.

His career was marked by injury and controversy. He was seriously injured before his professional career even got under way in a quad bike (ATV) accident that left him with a ruptured spleen - after removing the damaged organ, doctors told him he'd never be able to race again. He did, of course, and earned a trainee contract with the Linda McCartney team in 1999; and after revealing himself as an extremely useful domestique on mountain stages was offered a place with Mapei for 2000. He could also ride well in a time trial and came 5th in the event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

In 2005, he refused to ride in support of his national team's leader Roger Hammond (Wegelius has British nationality and has always raced under a British licence) at the World Championships, instead assisting the leader of his Liquigas trade team (fellow British rider Tom Southwell did the same, assisting his Barloworld leader). He would later apologise and express regret, repaying in full the cost of his attendance at the event. Despite his apology and attempt to make good, he was never again selected for the national team.

However, this rebellious streak, combined with the appeal of a rider who returns from serious injury, is at least partially responsible for Wegelius' considerable popularity among British cycling fans; among whom he was held in far higher esteem than the majority of career-long domestiques could ever dream of being. He  repaid them in 2007 when he entered the Tour de France for the first time and came 45th overall - by far the best British rider (David Millar was 68th and Geraint Thomas 140th - one place above Lanterne Rouge superstar Wim Vansevenant), even if he was 1h41'05" behind winner Alberto Contador. He rode two more Tours: the first in 2009 when he came 60th after replacing Thomas Dekker who had been barred from entry a few days before the race began due to a sample that tested positive for EPO; then again in 2010 but was forced to abandon after picking up a virus. His account of how he made the decision to give up is moving.

Wegelius retired from competition in 2011 after competing in the first Giro di Padania, but remains popular among fans on Twitter.

Incidentally, his surname is pronounced "vay-gay-lee-ooss."

Other cyclists born on this day: Jon Andrews (New Zealand, 1967); Tsubasa Kitatsuru (Japan, 1985); Michel Scob (France, 1935, died 1995); Wilde Baridón (Uruguay, 1941); Jacek Morajko (Poland, 1981); Giacomo Gaioni (Italy, 1905, died 1988); Herbert Richter (East Germany, 1947); Ferruccio Manza (Italy, 1943); Philippe Chevalier (France, 1961).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.04.2013

Marcel Kint, 1914-2002

Paris-Roubaix was held on this day in 1943 - the latest in the year the race has ever taken place and, since it's now held on the second Sunday in April rather than on Easter Sunday so as to fall one week after the Tour of Flanders, the latest it will ever fall. It was the first time the race had been held since the outbreak of the Second World War and, as France was occupied by the Nazis, many riders stayed away as they also did for the wartime "Tour de France," the Circuit de France run by L'Equipe's rival La France Socialiste (which, in spite of the name, took a very right wing viewpoint and was sympathetic to the fascists). One rider who did not was the Belgian Marcel Kint, who won. Kint also won La Flèche Wallonne that year, as he would again in 1944 and 1945 to become the only man to have ever won three consecutive editions of the event. The start was moved to Saint-Denis in 1943 and would remain there until 1965; the finish was moved to Roubaix Velodrome where, with the exception of 1986, 1987 and 1988 when it was moved to the offices of main sponsor La Redoute, it has remained ever since.

The 23rd edition of La Flèche Wallonne fell on this day in 1959, and for the eleventh year in a row it started in Charleroi and ended in Liège - for the next five years, it was the other way round. The parcours was 218km in length and the fastest rider was Jos Hoevenaers, a rider who was enormously popular among fans for his savage attacking style, yet won far fewer races than he perhaps could have done: one year later, he wore the race leader's maglia rosa at the Giro d'Italia for eight days and it took no less a man than Jacques Anquetil to take it away from him. The 71st edition, which took place in 2007, was also on this date. That year, as all modern editions do, it ran between Charleroi and Huy; changes to the route added half a kilometre to the total distance compared to the previous year. It was won for a second time by Davide Rebellin, who had won three years earlier and would do again two years later when he equalled the record for multiple victories.

The tenth edition of La Flèche Wallonne Féminine took place on this day in 2007, covering a 104km parcours starting and ending at Huy. The winner, for the first time that year, was 19-year-old Dutch women named Marianne Vos, who was showing signs of being very special indeed: by 2013, she had won La Flèche a record five times and was widely rated as the greatest cyclist in the world.

The Vuelta a Espana began on this day in 1955, 1968, 1978, 1988 and 1994. 1955 marked the first time the race had been held for four years after the original main sponsor and organiser Informaciones (a newspaper) pulled out - they would be replaced by another newspaper, El Correo Español/El Pueblo Vasco, and the race has been held every year since. For the first time, large numbers of foreign riders rode; doubling the start list compared to earlier editions.

Felice Gimondi

By 1968, the Vuelta was known worldwide and had grown enormously in prestige, largely thanks to world class riders such as Rudi Altig and arch-rivals  Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor, the three of them taking turns to win between 1963 and 1965. This year, when the race covered 3,014km in 18 stages, the victor would be Felice Gimondi who, in doing so, became the second rider in history (the first was Anquetil) to have won all three Grand Tours during his career (Gimondi would fail a doping test later in the year at the Giro d'Italia, so there's a reasonable chance that his Vuelta success was achieved with chemical assistance). Only three other men - Merckx, Hinault (who won them all at least twice) and Contador - have matched them. Stage 15 from Vitoria to Pamplona had to be abandoned when it was targeted by a terrorist bomb. Thankfully, nobody was hurt; but many riders threatening to abandon and go home before organisers managed to calm them down.

Trouble came to the race again when it next started on this date, in 1978 - the year that Bernard Hinault won for the first time after 19 stages and 2,995km, then went on to win the Tour de France (his first ever attempt at the race) too. This time, two stages were hit by riots and protests in which barricades were built by Basque separatist groups cross the road; which inspired organisers to declare enough was enough and keep the race away from the Basque Country for 33 years until an eventual return in 2011.

1988 covered 3,425km in 20 stages and brought what remains to date Ireland's only win, courtesy of the legendary Sean Kelly. Once again, the race was hit by the misconduct of outside parties, this time during the Tenerife prologue when nails were spread across the road. 1994 covered 3,531km in 20 stages, won by the Swiss Tony Rominger who entered as a favourite and then secured his eventual victory when he gained a two-minute lead in the Stage 8 time trial at Benidorm, leading the General Classification throughout the race despite the efforts of Laurent Jalabert, who won seven stages. It would be the last time that the race was held in spring as the following year it was rescheduled for late summer so as to avoid clashes with the Giro d'Italia and Classics and has remained the last Grand Tour on the calendar ever since. Rominger was the first man to win three consecutive editions.


Rachel Morris
Rachel Morris, born in Guildford on this day in 1979, was a talented runner and beginning to compete at international events with the ambition of representing her country at the Olympics when an illness made it necessary for both of her legs to be amputated.

Afterwards, she tried sailing but didn't find it challenging enough to keep her interest and instead turned to handcycling - and put in so many miles of training during her first six months that she wore out her bike. She became the first British athlete to compete in the sport at the 2011 World Cup, which she won, and will take part in the 2012 Paralympics.

Alejandro Valverde
(image credit: Fanny Schertzer CC BY-SA 3.0)

Alejandro Valverde
Born in Spain on this day in 1980, Alejandro Valverde is the rarest of the rare among cyclists - a rider who excels on climbs and in sprints. Born into a family who have cycling in their blood - both his father and brother are successful amateurs - Valverde got his first bike when he was six years old and he began racing soon afterwards; coming second in his first race and first in his second. According to local legend in his hometown Las Lumbreras, he won fifty races between the ages of 11 and 13 and earned himself the nickname El Impatido - The Unbeaten One. Whether the story is true or not, he received an invitation to ride for Banesto but recorded poor results and instead went to the Kelme development team, getting his first professional contract with them in 2002 and evidently finding things much more to his liking because, in his second year with them, he won Stages 9, 15, the Combination Classification and third place overall at the Vuelta a Espana and a silver medal at the World Championhips. He showed his gratitude to the team by electing to continue riding for them for a third season, despite their financial difficulties and the offers of better-paid contracts to go elsewhere in 2004.

The team faced further difficulties that year after revelations concerning systematic doping were made public by ex-member Jesús Manzano, resulting in an investigation in which several riders and officials were required to answer questions - among them, the now notorious Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes - and their invitation to compete in the Tour de France that year was withdrawn despite Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc' initial reluctance to believe the accusations. Valverde was one of the riders named in the case and alleged to have used synthetic testosterone when he won his third place at the Vuelta, and Kelme withdrew their support at the end of the season; at which point the team became Comunidad Valenciana-Elche.

Having switched to Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne for 2005, he beat Lance Armstrong to win Stage 10 at the Tour de France - a superb result as this was his first appearance in the race, but he was unable to continue after injuring his knee during Stage 13. Fortunately, he recovered in time to race in the World Championships at the end of the summer, becoming team leader after one of Oscar Freire's many injuries and coming second behind Tom Boonen of Belgium. He remained with Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne until 2010, during which time he added many more successes - in 2006, he began the Tour as a favourite but once again was unable to finish after a Stage 3 crash left him with a broken collarbone, but he was back in time to win Stage 7 at the Vuelta - and was third in the Points and Mountains Classification and second overall. He completed the Tour for the first time in 2007, but came sixth after revealing the chink in his armour - despite spending time training at the Treviso headquarters of Pinarello, he was massively outclassed in the time trial.

At the 2008 Vuelta
(image credit: Tekstman CC BY-SA 3.0) 

Valverde decided not to take part in the Vuelta in 2007, preferring to concentrate on training for the World Championships as he felt he had a very really chance of victory - however, by this time the full implications of Manzano's allegations was beginning to become clear: it would be a long time until it was over, but Operación Puerto was now in full swing and threatening to rip the heart out of what was left of cycling's credibility in the wake of the Festina Affair in the 1990s and, like many other rides connected to the scandal, Valverde was blocked from taking part. The UCI also requested that the Spanish Cycling Federation took action against the rider, but this was refused as there was as yet no new evidence against him. The case appeared before the Court for Arbitration in Sport which with uncharacteristic swiftness found in his favour and ruled that he be permitted to compete the Championships. 2008 started exceptionally well with victories at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the Critérium du Dauphiné and the National Championships before victories in Stage 1 at the Tour and Stage 2 at the Vuelta. His best moment that year, meanwhile, came in Stage 13 at the Vuelta when he was second behind Alberto Contador on the Alto de l'Angliru, a mountain that in places approaches a gradient of 24% and which in the past has seen riders struggling unsupported to the summit when team cars were unable to find sufficient traction to get up - an astonishing achievement for a rider who does well in sprints. 2009 didn't start so well, but he rode well in the Critérium du Dauphiné where he led the race after the Mont Ventoux time trial. He was unable to ride in the Tour due to the doping allegations, despite an appeal to the CAS, but took part in the Vuelta where Contador assisted him in withstanding hard and consistent attacks by Cadel Evans and, after three podium finishes, won the General Classification and second place on points.

In 2010, it all went wrong. He had been banned by the Italian Olympic Commission in 2009 (this was the reason he missed the Tour, which crossed the Italian border that year) and UCI had contested the Spanish Federation's earlier decision not to take action against him, especially as he had now been linked to three bags of preserved blood (labelled Valv, Piti and 18) found at Fuentes' laboratory. What's more, the blood tested positive for EPO. The UCI and World Anti-Doping Authority based an appeal around this evidence and, on the 31st of May in 2010, the CAS found against the rider and banned him from competition for two years. The UCI had also asked for all his results thus far be disqualified, but this was not successful and he lost only those results gained since the date the ban became effective, which was set as the 1st of January that year.

Alejandro Valverde
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY 3.0) 

Valverde made his return to cycling at the 2012 Tour Down Under with the Basque Movistar team, which faced criticism for offering him a contract so soon after his ban expired from some quarters and congratulations for risking controversy by giving a rider who has lived out his punishment a second chance from others. In Stage 5 - the most important of the event - he beat GreenEDGE rider Simon Gerrans in the final sprint. Gerrans later said "I bet in that year and a half ban he hasn't missed a day's training. It doesn't surprise me at all that he's back to such good level already."

"This win is for all the people who've supported me during my time off," Valverde said after his win. "It's a perfect comeback for me." He continues to deny that he has ever doped.

Paul Deman, 1889-1961

Paul Deman, winner of the first edition of the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1913, was born on this day in 1889. Deman would also win the 592km Bordeaux-Paris the following year before becoming involved in espionage during the First World War when he acted as a cycle courier smuggling top secret documents into the Netherlands, which remained neutral. He was eventually caught by the Germans and imprisoned in Leuven to await execution - fortunately, the Armistice was declared just in time to save him and he returned to cycling; winning Paris-Roubaix in 1920 and Paris-Tours three years later. Deman died on the 31st of July in 1961.

Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq, born in Arudy on this day in 1886, was a French cyclist who enjoyed a successful career early in the 20th Century when he won seven stages in four editions of the Tour de France. He rode in the first edition, 1903, when he came 11th for Stage 4, but did much better the following year when he won Stages 5 and 6 (which were 425km and 471km respectively) and finished in second place overall after Maurice Garin, Lucien Pothier, César Garin and Hippolyte Aucouturier had all been disqualified from the top four places for cheating. In 1905 he won Stages 6, 10 and 11 before coming third overall behind winner Louis Trousselier and Aucouturier, then won Stage 8 in 1906 and Stage 5 in 1908, both times failing to finish the race, then won Stage 2 at the 1910 Giro d'Italia to become the first foreign stage winner in the race. He retired shortly afterwards and died aged 44 on the 13th of May in 1928.

Pavel Buran, a Czech track rider born in Brno on this day in 1973, earned numerous podium finishes during the 1990s and first five years of the 21st Century along with a European Omnium title in 2001. According to legend, Buran performed a track stand (keeping the bike stationary without putting a foot on the floor, a tactic used in track cycling so that the rider can wait for an opponent to start moving and then ride in their slipstream) that lasted so long during a race as a junior that the UCI introduced a new law limiting the time a rider could remain standing still.

Alejandro Borrajo, born on this day in 1980, is an Argentinian cyclist who won a gold medal at the 2006 South American Games and has been victorious in numerous races in both South and North America. In 2010, his older brother was kidnapped for two days, the tragically committed suicide - Alejandro broke his arm trying to prevent him.

Other cyclists born on this day: Ahmad Haidar Anuawar (Malaysia, 1986); Anton Shantyr (Russian, born in Hungary, 1974); Andreas Aeschbach (Switzerland, 1970); Jenny Fähndrich (Switzerland, 1989); Renato Seabra (Brazil, 1978); Kanellos Kanellopoulos (Greece, 1957); Guy Claud (France, 1936); Marco Zaragoza (Mexico, 1973); Julio Munguía (Mexico, 1942); Saulius Šarkauskas (Lithuania, 1970); Stephen Spratt (Ireland, 1960); Steve Hromjak (USA, 1930); Vladimir Leonov (USSR, 1937).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.04.2013

Antonio Suarez

The Vuelta a Espana began on this date in 1959, 1979, 1989 and 1990. 1959 covered 3,048km in 17 stages, with the General Classification and King of the Mountains both going to Antonio Suárez of Licor 43. 1979 nearly didn't happen after the El Correo Español-El Pueblo Vasco newspaper company, which had created the race in 1955 and both organised and financed it until 1978, pulled out; leaving the race in a very precarious state until the advertising firm Unipublic saw an opportunity, took over and has organised every edition since. The race faced further problems when riders mounted a "go slow" protest over conditions. The race covered 3,373km in 19 stages and the winner was Joop Zoetemelk. In 1989, the race covered 3,656km in 21 stages and saw epic battles between Pedro Delgado and a pan-team group of Colombians unofficially working to get Kelme's Fabio Parra to the top of the General Classification. Delgado also faced a challenge from his Reynolds team mate Miguel Indurain, who had won Paris-Nice and was a favourite until he crashed and broke his wrist. 1990 covered 3,711km in 21 stages and saw a surprise win for Marco Giovannetti who worked hard to hold off Pedro Delgado after taking the race lead in Stage 10.

Laura Trott

Laura Trott

Laura Trott, who was born in Harlow, Essex on this day in 1992, had already become a cycling legend during her teenage years with no fewer than fifteen medals won at the World, European and British National Championships. Yet despite her glowing palmares, she might easily have never had a cycling career after being born with a collapsed lung and severe asthma.

Beginning cycling with her mother, who took up the sport to get fit, Laura soon began to show talent at their visits to the Welwyn track and before long earned a place on the British Cycling development program. By 2011 she was ready to ride with the British squad at the World Track Championships and they won (she also won the European Under-23 Individual and Team Pursuit and Scratch Race Championships as well as the National U-23 Road Race Championships); they won again in 2012 at the World Championships in Melbourne, where Trott also won the Omnium. However, the real highlight of the year was the one that made her a household name, familiar to millions of Britons who had previously taken no interest in cycling: she won in both the Team Pursuit and the Omnium at the Olympics.

Trott is integral part of British Cycling's track masterplan for the coming years, as expressed best by Dave Brailsford in 2011: "She was absolutely brilliant in the team pursuit and she rode an absolutely faultless omnium. Super talent – 19 years old. Wow. It's pretty exciting."

In 2012, she followed her older sister Emma into road racing, signing a contract with Team Ibis; in 2013 she joined the new British-registered Wiggle-Honda, a team owned and managed by Rochelle Gilmore and partly funded by Bradley Wiggins.

Louis Trousselier

Louis Trousselier

Trou-Trou, as he was known to his fellow riders, was the exception to the rule that successful cyclists were "hungry boys from poor backgrounds" who rode bikes because, like working class Londoners and boxing, it was the only way they could escape poverty - he came from a wealthy family that owned a flower merchant business in Paris; which explains the nickname Henri Desgrange gave him, "The Florist" - which somehow manages to sound more chilling than "le Terrible" (Aucouturier), "il Diablo" (Chiappucci), "Spartacus" (Cancellara), "the Butcher" (Pothier and, before he became the Angel of the Mountains, Gaul), "The Cannibal" (Merckx), "Death-Rider" (Cyclopunk favourite Henri van Lerberghe) and any other nickname in cycling history.

In photographs, Trousselier looks a rather stern, over-serious man but this seems entirely an effect of his rather elaborate moustache. In fact, he was widely known as a bit of a comedian who frequently played practical jokes and tricks on his friends - and sometimes, on strangers. One of his favourite was to descend on a cafe while riding with a friend and stage a mock argument over who should pay. The manager would then become involved, at which point Trou-Trou would suggest a race to decide the winner. As cycling in France at the time was an even more popular sport than it is today, le patron would agree and the two men would sprint away, never to be seen again. It seems rather a cruel trick, theft no less; but one friend noted that he would be careful to make a record of the establishment's address and later send payment.

Trou-Trou at the Tour, 1905

Trousselier won the 1905 Tour de France, the first time he entered, and bagged five stages along the way - success that he needed, because he'd only been given leave from the Army for a few days, and returning as anything less than a national hero would almost certainly have resulted in a court-martial appearance and punishment for desertion. Fortunately, he escaped that and his victory brought lucrative contracts to ride in races all over France - he needed those, too, because that very night after he'd won the Tour he gambled and lost all his prize money in a dice game. According to legend, he later told reporters "There's always another Tour, I can win it back again!" He never did, however - the next year, he came 3rd and his results became gradually worse after that; although he did manage to win four more stages before giving up cycling just before the outbreak of the First World War and taking up employment with the family firm.

The exact date of Trousselier's birth is not known - most sources agree that it was the 29th of June in 1881, but some give it as the 29th of January. He died on this day in 1939, making him either 58 or 59. In addition to the Tour de France, he won Paris-Rennes in 1902, Paris-Roubaix in 1905 (and a such is the first man to have both races in a single year), Paris–Valenciennes and Brussels–Roubaix in 1905 and Bordeaux-Paris in 1908.

André Darrigade

Darrigade
(image credit: Velos-Mont-Valerian)

Born in Narosse, France on this day in 1929, André Darrigade made his name by beating Antonio Maspes - who would become World Sprint Champion - at the Vélodrome d'Hiver. The American-born journalist René de Latour was there to see it: "When we first saw him in Paris soon after the war finished he was a novice, not a roadman at all. He had come to the big city to ride in the final of the famous Médaille race at the Vélodrome d'Hiver. When he arrived at the Vélodrome d'Hiver, he had no soigneur, no dressing gown, nobody to hold him up at the start, pump his tyres or adjust his position to suit the high, frightening bankings. He was lonely — but courageous."

After the race, Darrigade received an invitation to join the Vélo-Club d'Asnières-Courbevoiede from none other than Francis Pélissier who by this time had retired from competition and was now serving as one of the club's managers. He accepted and remained in Paris, immediately winning more sprints and, before long, was recognised as the best sprinter in the country due to his ability to up the pace far from the finish line, then keep going at high speed for far longer than his rivals. "Darrigade was the greatest French sprinter of all time and he'll stay that way for a long time," said Raphaël Géminiani. "The mould has been broken. But he wasn't just a sprinter. He was an animateur who could start decisive breaks; he destroyed the image of sprinters who just sit on wheels." He rapidly became a favourite with fans who were as impressed by his technique as by his name - Darrigade, with its rolling double-r, sounds especially musical when pronounced in a French accent.

He also became a formidable presence on the road - after winning four events during that first year in Paris, he turned professional in 1951 with La Perle-Hutchinson (for a salary that only just covered his annual rent, he later said, but he remained with them for five seasons) and won the Castelnau-Magnoacf, Albret, Eckbolsheim and Mirande criteriums and the Bordeaux-Saintes and GP de l'Uza road races. Darrigade's early palmares does not look to be that of a rider destined for success in the long stage races, but from 1952 onwards he began to excel in that discipline too with stage victories at the Tour de Afrique du Nord, the Tour of Algeria and Paris-Nice. In 1953, he rode for the first time in the Tour de France and won Stage 12, then twice stood on the podium the following year.

In 1955, his final season with La Perle, he won the both the National Road Race and Time Trial Championships, then won Stage 6 at the Tour and then finished 2nd in Stages 13 and 22. He moved to Helyett-Potin in 1955, remaining with them for one year before spending two seasons with Bianchi-Pirelli and then returning to Helyett for four years. During this period, he won the Giro di Lombardia and Stage 1 at the Tour (again with two other podium appearances) in 1956; Stages 1, 3a, 22 and 23 (and three other podium finishes) at the Tour in 1957; Stages 1, 9, 15, 17 and 22 at the Tour in 1958; Stages 1, 11 and the Points Competition at the Tour and the World Road Race Championship in 1959 and the Douglas Criterium on the Isle of Man, Stage 15 at the Giro d'Italia and Stage 5 at the Tour in 1960. A year later, he won the Tour's Points competition for a second time, also taking Stages 1a, 2, 13 and 20 - however, by 1962, his 12th year as a professional, he began to slow down a bit and could "only" win a stage at the Critérium du Dauphiné and Stage 2a at the Tour (with another two podium finishes), then Stage 12a in 1963.

Darrigade and Wouters
(image credit: Freshly Squeezed)

When he was 35, he had a return to form with Stages 2 and 18 - yet this would be his final Tour and, having won four more criteriums through 1965 and 1966, he retired in 1966 - his 17th professional year. His career could very easily have ended far earlier: right back in 1958, he was involved in a crash at Jacques Goddet's Parc des Princes velodrome in Paris. The velodrome's 70-year-old general secretary (the grand title given to a man responsible for the facility's day-to-day upkeep, whom the French insist on terming le jardinier) Constant Wouters had crossed the track to ask journalists to step back out of the riders' way, but was unable to see the rider approaching as he tried to cross back over. Darrigade hit him at full speed - the incident was captured by a photographer from Paris-Match - which resulted in both men being thrown high into the air before landing hard enough to be rushed to hospital. The rider sustained broken ribs and a cracked skull but, incredibly, was able to return to the race to complete a lap of honour; which must have absolutely delighted the crowd. Wouters was not so fortunate - twelve days later, he died from his injuries.

Speaking to a journalist after his retirement (in which he became a newsagent in Biarritz and befriended a young David Millar, who had driven there in a yellow Land Rover to set up a new home at the beginning of his own professional career), Darrigade revealed that he had never lost his love for the sport that had transformed him from a boy with nothing all those years ago at the Vélodrome d'Hiver to one of the most famous, successful and adored riders of all time. "I was always considered a team man. I never had any pretensions to be anything else. In the days when the Tour had national teams, [manager] Marcel Bidot always saw me as just that, " he said. "Those wins never became dull or routine. Each one was an immense pleasure. What's more, I had the chance to race alongside such great champions as Louison Bobet and Jacques Anquetil." His record of five final Tour de France stage wins has never been matched. At the time of writing, he is 82 years old and still very much alive.

Rein Taaramäe
(image credit: YellowMonkey/Blnguyen CC BY-SA 3.0)

Estonian Rein Taaramäe was born in Tartu on this day in 1987 and became a stagiaire with Cofidis in 2007, then turned professional for the same team the following year when he won stages at the GP du Portugal and the Tour de l'Avenir. In 2009 he won the National Road Race and Time Trial Championships as well as the Tour de l'Ain, the Mountains Classification at the Vuelta al País Vasco, 3rd place at the Tour de Romandie and 8th at the Tour de Suisse. 2010 was a less successful year, then in 2011 he won a second National Time Trial title, 3rd place overall and 1st in the Youth Classification at the Critérium International and 4th overall and 1st in the Youth Classification at Paris-Nice. He also made his mark in the Grand Tours - at the Vuelta a Espana he improved his 2009 results (7th for Stage 19 and 74th overall) to 1st in Stage 14, although he didn't finish the race; and at the Tour de France his 2010 results (best result: 34th in the prologue, prior to later abandoning) to 8th for Stage 1, 12th overall and 2nd in the Youth Classification.


Bob Addy, born in Northwood on this day in 1941, spent one year with the Belgian Leroux-Terrot team but rode with British teams for the rest of his twelve years as a professional and became one of the most successful British cyclists of the 1960s and early 1970s. His first major win was Stage 6 of the 1963 Tour of Britain, then called the Milk Race after main sponsor the Milk Marketing Board, and followed it with the National Amateur Road Race Championship one year later - in all, he would win 14 races at home. He also raced abroad, coming third in Stage 8 at the 1965 Tour de l'Avenir, but his results on the Continent - where he faced far stiffer competition - were considerably less impressive.

Other cyclists born on this day: Ronny Scholz (Germany, 1978); Michael Grenda (Australia, 1964); Peter Deimböck (Austria, 1942); Pierre Adam (France, 1924); Arie van der Stel (Netherlands, 1894, died 1986); Matthew Randall (New Zealand, 1978); Conrado Cabrera (Cuba, 1967); Luis Muciño (Mexico, 1936); Frederik Bertelsen (Denmark, 1974); Anthony Langella (France, 1974); Wally Rivers (South Africa, 1922); Chun Hing Chan (Hong Kong, 1981); János Bognár (Hungary, 1914, died 2004); Marek Leśniewski (Poland, 1963); Viktor Sokolov (USSR, 1954).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.04.2013

Louis Trousselier, 1905

Paris-Roubaix took place on this day in 1905,  won by Louis Trousselier when he finished in 8h4'20" with an advantage of 7' over 2nd place René Pottier. Later that year, Trousselier would also win the Tour de France and thus become the first rider to enjoy victory in both races in a single season (Pottier won the Tour a year later). Trou-Trou, as he was known to his fellow riders, was the exception to the rule that successful cyclists were "hungry boys from poor backgrounds" who rode bikes because, like working class Londoners and boxing, it was the only way they could escape poverty - he came from a wealthy family that owned a flower merchant business in Paris; which explains the nickname Henri Desgrange gave him, "The Florist" (which is somehow far more chilling than any Shark, Cannibal or Deathrider). The Florist died one day after the anniversary of his Paris-Roubaix victory in 1939 (and for that reason, we'll have much more information about him and his life in the Daily Cycling Facts tomorrow).

67 years later, another Classic took place on this day - the 36th edition of La Flèche Wallonne in 1972. It ran for 249.5km (the longest parcours since 1947) between Verviers and Marcinelle and the winner was the Cannibal himself,  Eddy Merckx, who then won Liège-Bastogne-Liège a few days later to become the third man to win the Ardennes Double. In 2003, the 67th edition also fell on this date. That year, it ran over 199.5km between Charleroi and Huy and was won by Igor Astarloa, the first Basque rider to achieve victory in this race. The 72nd edition, which took place in 2008, was the last time that the race fell on this date. It ran again between Charleroi and Huy and used a very similar route, once again measured at 199.5km, and it was won by Kim Kirchen whose career ended two years later when he suffered a heart attack during the Tour de Suisse.

Nicole Cooke
(image credit: Gsl CC BY-SA 2.5)

The sixth edition of La Flèche Wallonne Féminine took place on this day in 2003, starting and finishing at the same points as the men's race but taking a different route in between to reduce distance to 97.5km. It was won by Welsh rider Nicole Cooke, who was destined to win on two more occasions in the future and therefore equal the men's record of three victories. Since 1999, the race had formed part of the UCI Women's Road World Cup - and that year, Cooke won that as well. For the eleventh edition in 2008, the format differed - rather than running between the same towns as the men's event, the race both started and ended at Huy. The winner, for a second consecutive year, was the Dutch superstar Marianne Vos, who would go on to top Cooke's achievement and smash the men's record with an astonishing five victories by 2013.

The Vuelta a Espana has started on this date five times - in 1969, 1970, 1974, 1985 and 1987. The 1969 edition was unusually short at "just" 2,921.4km, which were covered in 18 stages. Frenchman Roger Pingeon won and would have won the Tour de France that year too had it not have been for Eddy Merckx. In fifth place was Michael Wright, the English rider who didn't speak English - soon after Wright's birth in Bishop's Stortford, his father was killed during the Second World War. His mother later remarried to a Belgian soldier and the family relocated to Liège. It took some time for the Belgian love of cycling to take hold, however: he had originally wanted to be a footballer and it was only when his stepfather died that he switched to cycling in order to be able to support his mother and siblings.

1970 was extended to 19 stages and covered 3,568km and Agustín Tamames emerged from nowhere to announce himself as a future great - in his very first Vuelta, he led all the way until the Stage 19b individual time trial where Luis Ocaña took the overall victory. Tamames would win five years later. 1974 was another comparatively short edition, the 19 stages covering 2,987km. The winner was José Manuel Fuente, a highly respected climber who also won in 1972 and took the King of the Mountains four times altogether. Just a year later, still seemingly at the height of his powers, he would be forced to retire with the kidney disease that killed him in 1996.

Robin Morton
(unknown copyright)

1985 saw 19 stages and 3,474km, and would prove to be an interesting edition for three reasons. Firstly, a Soviet team participated for the first time, it being very unusual in those times for Soviet athletes to take part in any non-amateur sporting events. Secondly, a US-based team took part for the first time - the Rank Xerox-sponsored Philadelphia Lasers; a team that also earned their place in history by being the first men's professional cycling team to be owned and managed by a woman, Robin Morton. The Grand Tours remain a male-dominated world, but in those days Morton faced some obstacles that seem ridiculous today - as an example, there was a UCI rule that banned women from the "caravan" of cars that follows the race and as a result the directors of each race her team entered would take a vote before the event took place to decide whether or not she would be permitted to follow the race in the team car. Thirdly, 1985 very nearly saw the first British victory. Scotsman Robert Millar took the lead in Stage 10 and, phenomenal climber that he was, retained it until the penultimate edition when it seemed that only the Colombian Francisco Rodríguez had a hope of getting anywhere near him. The two men were together when Millar had a puncture, but when they began working to catch up with the Pedro Delgado-led lead group Rodriguez's (Spanish) team manager ordered him to give up his own chances by refusing to help the Scotsman. Millar soon found himself surrounded by riders from various Spanish teams who seemed dedicated in holding him back and, as a result, Delgado took the race leadership and eventually won overall. The incident remains controversial today, and many people suspect there was a collusion between the Spanish teams.

1987 covered 3,921km in 22 stages. Irishman Sean Kelly, one of the favourites, won two stages, wore the gold race leader's jersey for four and looked very much as though he was going to win his first Grand Tour until he was forced to abandon with a painful boil on his perineum during Stage 19. Laurent Fignon won the stage, but the Colombian Luis Herrera took over the leadership and won the race overall - the first ever Grand Tour victory by a South American rider.

Tony Martin

Tony Martin
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

Born in Cottbus, East Germany on this day in 1985, Tony Martin was four years old when his family escaped to the West - just a short while before the unthinkable happened and the Berlin Wall fell. Ironically, he would later return to what had been the Deutsche Demokratische Republik some years later when he won a place at a specialist sports academy in Erfurt.

Martin won the National Junior Individual Time Trial title in 2003 and rode with the winning Team Pursuit squad ain the Team Pursuit Championship a year later. He joined  Gerolsteiner as a trainee in August 2005, then moved on to Thüringer Energie for the next two seasons during which we won the Under-23 categories at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt (2006 and 2007) and National ITT Championships (2006), results sufficiently impressive to earn him his first full professional contract with Bob Stapleton's legendary Team Highroad for 2008. He remained with the team as it went through the transformation from Team Columbia, Columbia-HTC and HTC-Columbia to HTC-Highroad, the name under which the outfit raced its final season in 2011 before lack of sponsorship brought it to an end.

During his first professional year he won three time trials, then in 2009 he won the time trials at both the Critérium International and Bayern-Rundfahrt and a bronze medal racing at Elite level at the World Time Trial Championship where he finished 2'30.18" behind Fabian Cancellara. He also revealed a talent that is almost unique among time trial specialists - his ability to climb, and climb fast; as was proven when he won the King of the Mountains at Paris-Nice and the Tour de Suisse and, perhaps most telling of all, 2nd place behind Juan Manuel Gárate in a very tough Stage 20 at the Tour de France which finished at the top of cycling's most feared climb, Mont Ventoux.

Martin wins the 2011 ITT Championship
(image credit: Mogens Engelund CC BY-SA 3.0)

Martin started 2010 with victory in the Stage 7 ITT at the Tour of California, following that with another win for the ITT at the Tour de Suisse; then won the National Championship and finished 2nd at the Tour de France prologue and Stage 19 ITT before winning the General Classification at the Tour of the Benelux. Once again, he had to settle for bronze at the Worlds when he finished 1'12.49" behind Cancellara. Finally, after winning the Volta a Algarve and the ITTs at the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, his moment came - at the Worlds in 2011, he beat Cancellara by 1'20.59" (and 2nd place Bradley Wiggins by 1'15.83"). Later that year, he also won the General Classification at the inaugural Tour of Beijing.

Cancellara remained a formidable time trial rider, winning the Swiss National Championship in 2011 and while the rest of the year was far from his best the cycling world fully expected him to win back the title in 2012, and excellent form at the Spring Classics made this seem more likely. Meanwhile, Martin had excellent form too, taking second place behind Bradley Wiggins (who had found that once-in-a-career, Tour de France-winning form that most riders never find) at the Volta ao Agarve - and then all bets were called off when both riders were injured early in the 2012 season, Cancellara with a quadruple fractured collarbone from the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Martin with injuries caused during an April training ride when he collided with a car. Martin's recovery was remarkable in its rapidity - by the 23rd of May, just six weeks after the accident, he was able to start the Tour of Belgium and won the Stage 4 time trial and the General Classification. He was a favourite to win the Prologue at the Tour de France but was kept from victory by a mechanical problem, with the honour going instead to Cancellara, then crashed and broke his wrist in Stage 1 but continued until Stage 9, another time trial, where further mechanical problems convinced him that it wasn't to be a good Tour and he abandoned in order to recover for the Olympics. Riding in the Individual Time Trial at the Games, he was once again second behind Wiggins. 2012 was, therefore, a mixed bag, but the season was to end on a highlight: at the World Championships, he rode with the victorious Omega Pharma-QuickStep in the Team Time Trial (which made its return to the Worlds that year after an 18-year absence, and was competed by trade teams rather than national teams as had been the case between 1962 and 1994), then days later he set a blistering time in the Individual Time Trial during which he caught and overtook a stunned Alberto Contador who, incredibly, had left the starting ramp a full two minutes before the German. Martin completed the 42.6km course in 58'38.76"; Taylor Phinney was the only rider to get anywhere near him with +5'37", while third place Vasily Kiryienka was +1'44.99". Following the Championships, Martin went to the Tour of Beijing and enjoyed even more success, winning his first non-time trial stage (Stage 2) for three years and with enough time to give him what proved to be an insurmountable lead in the General Classification.

2013 started well - at the Volta ao Agarve, he won the time trial (Stage 4, the final stage in the race) by 1'07" and thus gained a 58" advantage in the General Classification. His team won the  Team Time Trial and he won the Individual Time Trial at Tirreno-Adriatico, then he went on to also win the difficult Individual Time Trial at the Tour of the Basque Country. Cancellara is still a remarkably talented time trial rider, but over the last two seasons he seems to be gradually evolving into a Classics specialist; Martin has already proved himself to be very much a worthy successor.


Other cyclists born on this day: Gintarė Gaivenytė (Lithuania, 1986); Simone Mori (Italy, 1972); Kathy Lynch (New Zealand, 1957); Jack Hartman (USA, 1937); Jure Pavlič (Yugoslavia, 1963); Tore Milsett (Norway, 1944); Paul Nixon (USA, 1914, died 2008); Kenneth Sutherland (Belize, 1943); Aimé Fritz (Germany, 1884, died 1950); Marcel Stäuble (Switzerland, 1961); Charles Hansen (Denmark, 1891); Luigi Magnotti (Italy, 1895, died 1948); Eduardo Bustos (Colombia, 1937).

Daily Cycling Facts 22.04.2013

Davide Rebellin
(image credit: Diane Krauss CC BY-SA 3.0)

La Flèche Wallonne has fallen on this date twice - the 35th edition in 1971 and the 73rd in 2009. 1971 covered 225km and ran for a seventh consecutive year between Liège and Marcinelle. The winner was Roger De Vlaeminck, called the most talented Classics rider of his generation - yet this was his only victory in this race. The 2009 edition ran for a twelfth consecutive year between Charleroi and Huy, covering 195.5km - which makes it the second shortest edition ever after 1961 which was 193km. The winner was Davide Rebellin, his record-equalling third victory, after he out-sprinted Andy Schleck to the line. Seven days later, the International Olympic Committee announced that Rebellin was one of six athletes under investigation after failing anti-doping controls at the 2008 Games in Beijing and, in 2010, he received a backdated two-year suspension from competition: the first time an Italian Olympic medal winner had ever failed a drugs test. Fortunately, it was decided that his ban would begin as of late April 2009 - allowing to hold onto his Flèche Wallonne victory.

The twelfth edition of La Flèche Wallonne Féminine also took place on this day in 2009, covering a 109km loop that started and ended at Huy. The winner for a third consecutive year was Marianne Vos, who in doing so equalled the record set in the men's race by Marcel Kint in 1947. Since 1999, the race had formed a round of the UCI Women's World Cup; and in 2009 Vos became the second rider to win that as well as La Flèche - Nicole Cooke had managed it in 2003 and 2006.

The Vuelta a Espana began on this day in 1975, 1980 and 1986. 1975 covered 3.104km in 19 stages and was won by Agustin Tamames, his penultimate major victory - having won the Spanish National Championship a year later, his success dried up and he retired in 1977. 1980 covered 3,225km in 20 stages with Stages 1, 2, 14, 17, 19 and 21 being won by the Irish rider Sean Kelly who took the Points competition and finished fourth in the General Classification, 3'31" behind winner Faustino Rupérez. 1986 went to Álvaro Pino, who covered the 3,666km and 21 stages in 98h16'04". Other than Breton Bernard Hinault's victories, it was perhaps the best ever Grand Tour for Celtic riders - the Scotsman Robert Millar was second and Sean Kelly was third.

Carlos Sastre

Sastre at the Tour de France, 2008
(image credit: Bjarte Hetland CC BY 3.0)

Carlos Sastre was born in Leganés, near Madrid, on this day in 1975. His career in cycling began as a climber, but when training revealed he could also ride devastatingly effectively against the clock to win time trials, he immediately became a Grand Tour general classification contender.

Sastre's father Victor established the Fundación Provincial Deportiva Víctor Sastre, a cycling academy in El Barraco with the intention of providing a way for children from poor families to get into the sport. Carlos was also inspired by Francisco Ignacio San Román, a cyclist who lodged with the Sastre family whilst completing his military service and later became a professional rider. After getting his own professional contract, he served for five yeaes as a domestique at ONCE; getting few opportunities to go for victories but impressing other riders and team bosses with his performance in the the mountains of the 2000 Vuelta a Espana. Having left for Bjarne Riis' Team CSC in 2002, he was given further opportunity to shine as team captain at the Vuelta and then, in 2003, he won Stage 13, a tough parcours between Toulouse and Ax 3 Domaines, at the Tour de France and finished a surprise 9th overall. Ivan Basso joined the team from Fassa Bortolo a year later and the two men trained extensively together. Their directeur sportif decided Basso was the stronger rider and gave him the captaincy for the 2005 Tour, thus relegating Sastre to domestique duties again - Basso proved a wise choice, as he came 2nd behind Lance Armstrong. However, Sastre was then selected to lead the team at the Vuelta and came 3rd - a result that was later increased to 2nd following Roberto Heras' disqualification when he tested positive for EPO.

Sastre in 2010
(image credit: Haggisnl CC BY 3.0)

In 2006, he announced that he would ride for Basso at the Giro d'Italia and Tour, then again lead at the Vuelta. The Giro went as planned and Basso won but then, just days ahead of the Tour, the Italian was provisionally suspended from the team after he was implicated in Operación Puerto (and would later receive a two-year ban after it was shown that he had attended a clinic operated by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes with the intention of receiving blood doping, but had not in fact undergone the procedure). This was Sastre's great opportunity to prove his capabilities, which he did by demonstrating that he was easily the strongest climber in the race. Unfortunately, he didn't do so well on the 57km time trial and came 20th, sufficient to put him down to 4th place behind Floyd Landis, Oscar Pereiro and Andreas Klöden. Once again, his result improved when another rider was caught doping - this time, it was Landis.

In the 2008 Tour, Sastre was widely regarded favourite alongside Cadel Evans. Realising that Evans was a strong rider on the climbs and even better in a time trial (the combination that would prove to be Andy Schleck's undoing in 2011 when Evans won the General Classification), the Spanish rider knew that he would need to pace himself very carefully, conserving energy in order to be able to attack at the moment it would do his opponent the most damage. In fact, he was so reserved as the race made its way through the Pyrenees that quite a large number of fans began to wonder if he was unwell, while crueler ones decided he'd had his day and was in decline. However, when the peloton reached the Alpe d'Huez, Sastre blew the race apart; attacking with savage strength right from the foot of the mountain and refusing to let up until he blasted over the finish line for the stage win and the yellow jersey. In the end, Evans simply couldn't find the reserves he needed to make up the 1'32" advantage Sastre now had over him in the time trial, and Sastre won the Tour.


Robert Hunter, who was born in Johannesburg on this day in 1977, won Stage 1 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1999 and Stage 17 in 2001 then in 2004, he won the Points competition at the Tour de Suisse. In 2007 he won Stage 11 at the Tour de France - the first stage win by a South African rider in the history of the race. At the Tour the next year, anti-doping officials permitted the world a brief viewing of their human side by allowing Hunter out of their control so he could fly to Switzerland to be with his wife Claudia as she gave birth to Mandy Inga, their first child.

Wilfried David, born on this day in 1946 in Bruges, won the Tour of Belgium in 1968, 2nd overall at the Vuelta a Espana in 1971 and the Tour de Romandie in 1973.

Francis Castaing, born in Bordeaux on this day in 1959, became National Track Champion in 1981 and won Stage 6 at the 1985 Tour de France.

Other cyclists born on this day: Scott Davis (Australia, 1979); Linn Torp (Norway, 1977); Tom Larsen (Norway, 1972); Jeong Jeom-Sik (South Korea, 1968); Matthias Wiegand (East Germany, 1954); Giovanni Tonoli (Italy, 1947); Pedro Vaca (Bolivia, 1961); Dudley Hayton (Great Britain, 1953).