Daily Cycling Facts 07.05.2013

The 26th edition of La Flèche Wallonne fell on this day in 1962. The 201km parcours ran from Liège to Charleroi, as it had done with some changes for the previous two years and would again for two more. The winner was Henri Dewolf, who had celebrated his 38th birthday the day before.

Louis Mottiat

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest Classic of them all, fell on this date in 1922. It was the 12th edition of the race which had first been held in 1892 and the winner - for the first of two consecutive years - was Louis Mottiat. The race was never held on this day again.

The Giro d'Italia began on this day in 1938, 2005 and 2011. 1938 was won by Giovanni Valetti, who would win again the following year. 2005 was won by Paolo Savoldelli, who took the maglia rosa in Stage 13 and retained it for the rest of the race - he was a rider apparently destined to one day win a Grand Tour as he was a very rare example of one who could ride fast up and down mountains (most climbers dislike descending as they don't have the physical weight required to prevent the bike skipping around at high speed). 2011 came under widespread criticism among riders who claimed that it was too difficult, and it was marked by the tragic death of LeopardTrek's Wouter Weylandt, who died in a crash on the Passo del Bocco. To commorate hi life, Wouter's 108 race number will not be issued to future entrants. The winner was Alberto Contador, who has since been found guilty of doping and stripped of the victory, leaving Michele Scarponi de facto winner. Due to concerns that in trying to organise a spectacular race he had overlooked rider safety, director Angelo Zomegnan was removed from his position after the race.

Andrea Tafi, Il Gladiatore
Born in Fucecchio on this day in 1966, Andrea Tafi finished off the job his hero Francesco Moser started and finally killed of the old stereotype that Italian riders couldn't perform well in the harsh northern Classics - and his tendency to do well when even the Belgians considered giving up earned him his nickname, The Gladiator.

Having already gained a reputation as a hardman, Tafi signed to Mapei-CLAS in 1994 and remained with them for eight years, forming a part of the break that powered Johan Museeuw to his first Paris-Roubaix victory in 1996. That same year he won a Monument, the Giro di Lombardia; then in 1999 he replicated Museeuw's win with his own Hell of the North - confirming his tough guy credentials forever.

Paul Kimmage
Born in Dublin on this day in 1972, Paul Kimmage would become, alongside his friend David Walsh, one of the most famous cycling journalists of the 1990s when he published Rough Ride, in which he recounted several tales of doping (including by himself), and later for his willingness to lock horns with Lance Armstrong.

Kimmage's own career as a cyclist was impressive, beginning with numerous victories whilst he was still an amateur - he was Amateur National Champion in 1981 and 1984 and came second at the Amateur Manx International in 1983 before turning professional with Bernard Thévenet's RMO-Meral-Mavic team in 1986. Ireland had in the last few years fallen in love with cycling due to the successes of Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche and the newspapers were, as a result, willing to give Kimmage far more coverage than the average neo-pro domestique could even dream of receiving. Before too long an editor realised that Kimmage was fully capable of writing quality articles himself; as a result his journalistic careeer began soon after his professional cycling career. That first year, Kimmage rode the Tour de France and performed remarkably well with ninth place on Stages 7 and 8 before coming 131st overall - a result that boded well for the future, but in fact 1986 would be the only time that he ever completed a Tour.

Kimmage rode the Tour again in 1987, but the team's emphasis that year was on the World Championships which would take place in the Austrian city Villach. Thévenet created an Irish team-within-a-team consisting of leaders Roche and Kelly, backed up by Kimmage and Martin Earley, and ensured that the four men spent much of the season training and racing together so that by the time of the Championships they knew one another's personalities and skills inside out. Roche had already won both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour, an incredible feat that, prior to that year, had been achieved only seven times and which had left him in no fit state to challenge for the Championship but impressed throughout the race as he pulled hard to support Kelly, who had been chosen to be team leader. However, when Roche got away in a break, Kelly remained with a chase group so as to be in a position to mark his rival Moreno Argentin of Gewiss-Bianchi. This proved a bad move - the break stayed away and, as they began to test one another's strength near the finish line, Kelly had no way to get back into contention. Then Roche found a new reserve of strength, opening up the sprint a full half-kilometre from the line and somehow held on to be the first over it. He had become World Champion, but having won the Giro and Tour that season too he'd also won the greatest prize in cycling: the entirely unofficial Triple Crown, for which there is no trophy nor prize money, and which only Eddy Merckx had ever won before.

1988 was a less successful year, Kimmage's best result being third on Stage 6 at the GP du Midi-Libre and at the end of the season he moved to Fagor-MBK where he once again rode with Roche who had spent the previous year with Carrera Jeans-Vagabond. Sadly, both men were already in decline - Roche had sustained a knee injury from which he never fully recovered at a six-day race in 1986 and was forced to abandon the 1989 Tour in great pain after hitting the injured joint on his handlebars; when he left, Kimmage decided that it was time to end his own career and retired.

In 1990 Kimmage published Rough Ride, still the finest tale of life as a professional cycling domestique in print. In it, he pulled no punches in describing the drug use he saw and engaged in and soon found himself persona non grata in the cycling world, variously attacked and ignored by people who had once been his friends for spitting in the soup - including Roche who, despite Kimmage's obvious admiration for him and his achievements, threatened to sue due to being named as a doper in the book (it was later proved beyond reasonable doubt by an Italian court that Roche had in fact doped with EPO). Meanwhile, cycling fans appreciated his honesty and, when he left the Irish Sunday Independent in 2002 following a row when the paper's editor took a comment concerning football player Roy Keane out of context in order to support a story claiming that Keane was about to divorce his wife, many readers switched to the Sunday Times so as to be able to continue reading Kimmage's columns there. Yet, in 2012, the Times ended his contract; Kimmage argues that this was because a large number of his stories on doping in cycling were prevented from being published by the paper's lawyers to avoid possible legal repercussions. He was also being sued for defamation by the UCI over various claims he'd made concerning the organisation (specifically his claims that ex-UCI president Hein Verbruggen was "corrupt," Once again, fans showed their appreciation: when websites NYVelocity and Cyclismas set up a Paul Kimmage Defense Fund, allowing the writer to counter-sue the UCI, more than $21,000 was donated. Questions arose in the days prior to Kimmage's birthday in 2013 regarding the account and he has had to suspend legal action as a result.

Darryl Webster, a British cyclist born in Walsall on this day in 1962, won the Schoolboy's National 10-mile TT Championship in 1978, was third at the National Hill Climb Championship in 1981, won the National Hill Climb Championship in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986, won the Manx Trophy in 1987 and was eighth in the Tour of Britain in 1988. Webster has always been a vocal opponent of drugs use in sport, so the news in April that he'd been arrested and charged with growing 37 cannabis plants at two locations made it into the national newspapers.

Mikhail Ignatyev

Mikhail Ignatyev, born in Leningrad on this day in 1985, won numerous World Championships on the track as a Junior and later made a successful transition into road racing. Since 2009 he has raced with Katusha, taking second place on Stage 5 and third on Stage 18 at the Tour de France that year, winning Stage 6 at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2010, becoming National Time Trial Champion of Russia in 2011 and winning the Sprints classification at the Tour of Turkey in 2013.

Today is also Paolo Savoldelli's birthday. Nicknamed Il Falco (The Falcon), he was born in Clusone, Bergamo in 1973 and is a climber with a (rare among climbers) talent for descending fast - a combination that would win him the Giro d'Italia in 2002 and 2005, the latter race having started on his birthday.

Giovanni Rossi, a Swiss rider born in Bidart, France on this day in 1926, became Amateur Swiss Champion in 1949 and signed to the professional Tigra team for the following season. In 1951 he took part for the first and last times in the Tours de Suisse and France; in Switzerland he won Stage 5 and then in France he won Stage 1. That same year, he won the Circuit de la Côte d'Or and finished the National Championship in second place behind Ferdy Kübler, who had won the Tour de France the previous year (and who, on the 7th of May 2013, is the oldest living Tour winner). Those are the kind of results that promise a superb career, but Rossi failed to make any further marks until 1954 when he was second behind Bernard Gauthier on Stage 1 at the Critérium du Dauphiné. Then, he vanished from professional cycling.

Jean-François Laffillé, born in Eu, Haute-Normandie, picked up numerous good results as an amateur from the middle of the 1980s through to the middle of the 1990s. Among them were four victories at the Circuit du Port de Dunkerque (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990), three (the joint record, shared with Benoît Daeninck) at the Grand Prix de la Ville de Lillers (1990, 1991 and 1994) and the 1995 Tour de la Manche.

Italy is one of only six nations able to claim to have had athletes competing in every edition of the modern Olympics, but it can do so only thanks to Francesco Bizzoni, a track cyclist born in Lodi on this day in 1875 - eliminated during the quarter-mile race, he was the only Italian athlete at the 1904 Games. By that time, he hadn't lived in Italy for six years, having emigrated to Bournemouth in England where he found work as a waiter in 1898 before moving on to New York, where he again worked as a waiter and made extra income as a chauffeur, the year before his Olympic appearance. In official records from the Games, his name is given as Frank Bizzoni and his nationality as American. However, he enlisted in the US Army during the First World War, and from Army records we learn that he retained Italian nationality until at least 1917 - Italy's claim is therefore shaky, but holds up. Bizzoni died in the Bronx on Christmas Day in 1926 and was evidently popular among local cyclists, a memorial race bearing his name being held for several years after his death.

George E. Wiley was an American cyclist born on this day in 1881 who competed at the same Games as Bizzoni. He won silver and bronze in the 5 and 25 mile events and was fourth in the half mile.

Vlastimil Moravec was a Czech cyclist born on this day in 1949 who won the Tour of Slovakia in 1970 and the Peace Race in 1972 and came second behind Alexandr Kisliak in Stage 8 at the 1978 Milk Race, the predecessor to the modern Tour of Britain. Following his 1981 retirement from competitive cycling, he became a coach at an Army sports facility in Brno, and was still employed there in that capacity in 1986 when, cycling home after work on the 15th of April, he was fatally injured by a truck. Ten days previously, he had married his pregnant girlfriend.

Other cyclists born on this day: Carlos Castaño Panadero (Spain, 1979); Alan Grieco (USA, 1946); Andriy Yatsenko (USSR, 1973); Boncho Novakov (Bulgaria, 1935); Emmanuel Magnien (France, 1971); Bent Jørgensen (Denmark, 1923); Wedell Østergaard (Denmark, 1924, died 1955); Stanisław Podgórski (Poland, 1905, died 1981); José Moreno (Spain, 1969); Tord Filipsson (Sweden, 1950); Don McKellow (Great Britain, 1925); Hui Chak Bor (Hong Kong, 1968); Jean-Pierre Kuhn (Luxembourg, 1903); Serge Blusson (France, 1928, died 1994).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.05.2013

Alfredo Binda, 1924

The 27th edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1963 on a 213km parcours between Liège and Charleroi. The winner was Raymond Poulidor.

The Giro d'Italia has begun on this day three times. The first was in 1913, the fifth edition of the race ever held, when it was won by Carlo Oriani who had been born on the 5th of November 1888. The second time was in 1933 when Alfredo Binda won for a fifth and final time. It would be twenty years until Fausto Coppi - whom Binda trained - would equal this record, and to date it has not been bettered. The final time was 2006, the year that saw the reintroduction of the Team Time Trial for the first time since 1989 and the unpaved mountain pass Plan de Corones wa due to be used, but could not be due to bad weather. The winner that year was Ivan Basso.

Tino Tabak
Tino Tabak was born on this day in 1946 in De Bataaf, Netherlands, but emigrated to New Zealand with his family when he was six. He fell in love with cycling during his childhood and, by the age of ten, listed Tour de France victory as his main ambition in life.

In 1965, aged 19, he won the Elite National Road Race Championship, then that same year became the youngest rider in history to win the Tour of Southland - which he won for the next two years, too. In 1966 and 1967, he also won the Dulux Six Day and Manawatu Tours, making him the only rider to have ever won New Zealand's three major races in a single season. After the second time he did so he emigrated back to Europe, in his words "to learn how to ride a bike." He spent the next three seasons riding as an amateur and had amassed sufficient wins, including the Ronde van Noord-Holland, to earn a professional contract with Flandria-Mars in 1971 and with them he rode his first Tour, finishing the prologue in third place and crossing the line within the top ten on two other stages before abandoning after finishing Stage 9 in 89th place.

Still eligible to ride for the country of his birth, Tabak became National Road Race Champion in 1972 and entered his second Tour. This time he maintained consistently good results and took 18th place in the overall General Classification - the highest ever achieved by a rider from New Zealand. Sadly, he never did get his win: in 1973 he abandoned and then didn't enter again until 1976 when he abandoned for a third time. His career came to an end with a nasty crash at the 1978 Tour of Holland and he now lives in Canterbury, New Zealand. Tino Tobak - Dreams and Demons of a New Zealand Cycling Legend (Jonathan Kennet, 2009) tells the story of his life and provides an interesting insight into the world and processes of professional cycling in the 1970s.

Christophe Brandt
(image credit: Heidas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Christophe Brandt
Christophe Brandt was born in Liège on this day in 1977. In 1997 he won a stage at the amateur race Ronde van Limburg, which earned him a trainee contract in 1999 with Saeco and he spent his first professional season with them before moving onto Lotto, where he remained for the rest of his career.

In 2004, he fell foul of anti-doping controls when a sample he provided was discovered to contain traces of methadone, a synthetic opiate used to treat heroin addicts and which mimics the effects - including pain-killing effects, hence its appeal to endurance athletes - of heroin. Brandt stated that he had not intentionally used the drug and insisted it must have got into his body via a contaminated nutritional supplement he was using as part of his treatment for a liver condition and which about which he had notified the relevant authorities. Lotto management, meanwhile, chose not to take his word for it and fired him from the team - however, the Belgian Federation found during their investigation that the pharmacist who had prepared the supplement had in fact been preparing methadone prescriptions a short while before Brandt's medicine and cleared the rider of all charges. The team then rehired him, and he remained with them until his retirement in 2010.

Roman Kreuziger

Roman Kreuziger
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

Roman Kreuziger, born in Moravská Třebová in the Czech Republic on this day in 1986, is the son of the Roman Kreuziger who won the Österreich Rundfahrt in 1991. In 2004, he won both the Under-19 National Road Race and Time Trial, then also took the U-19 World Championship title - that same year, he won silver medals for the U-19 Time Trial and Cyclo Cross Championships too. That was, needless to say, more than enough to earn him his first offers of trainee contracts, and he turned professional with LiquiGas in 2006.

Unusually for a rider so skilled in a time trial, Kreuziger is also a very talented climber and, having come a surprise 21st at the 2007 Vuelta a Espana, he won the Tour de Suisse in 2008 after proving easily the fastest man up the 1948m Klausen Pass. That same year, still aged only 23, he kept up with the world's greatest over the mountains in the Tour de France - his first participation in the race - and finished in 13th place overall whilst only Andy Schleck could beat him in the Youth Classification.

In 2012 whilst riding for Astana, Kreuziger won Stage 9 at the Giro d'Italia and was sixth overall at the Tour de Suisse; in 2013 with SaxoBank he won the Amstel Gold Race - indication that at 26, he's finding the form to perform well in stage races and the Classics.

Vito Taccone
Born in Avezzano, Italy on this day in 1940, Vito Taccone turned professional with Atala in 1961 and immediately began to make his name - that year, he won two stages and the General Classification at the Tre Giorni del Sud, Stage 10 and the King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia and then took first place at the Giro di Lombardia. In the subsequent years, he continued to be highly successful at the Giro d'Italia: in 1962 he was fourth overall, in 1963 sixth overall (having won Stages 10, 11, 12, 13 and 19) and again first in the King of the Mountains, in 1964 he won Stage 4, in 1965 he was sixth overall and second in the King of the Mountains and in 1966 he was ninth overall and third in the Points competition. Along the way, he won Milano-Torino in 1965, was third in the National Championship and second at Tirreno-Adriatico in 1966 and then second at the Nationals in 1968.

Taccone evidently had piles of cycling talent - he was also very good at getting himself in trouble. At the 1964 Tour de France, he was accused by other riders of causing a large crash. After denying that he was to blame he got into a fight with Fernando Manzaneque who won numerous stages at the Vuelta a Espana; Taccone was not invited to the Tour again afterwards. He didn't change with age: in June 2007, he was arrested and charged with selling stolen and counterfeit clothing, chaining himself to the railings of Avezzano court in protest. Just a few months later, on the 15th of October, he died after having a heart attack.


Hans Junkermann, born in Sankt Tönis, Germany on this day in 1934, was a true all-rounder who excelled in tough one-day races, mountain stages and on the track. Whilst still an amateur, he was approached on numerous occasions by East German representatives who tried to persuade him to defect and become a paid amateur, but he was confident enough of his abilities to remain in the West and wait for a professional contract. That paid off in 1955 when he joined Bauer; the first of the many teams for whom he rode over the course of his 19-year career, because Junkermann was a rider who refused to stay put - in 1958 alone, he rode for Molteni, Solo, Feru and Altenburger. He held ten National Championship titles in his time, including for Track Pursuit in 1958, Road Race in 1959, 1960 and 1961, Madison in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1965 and Team Pursuit in 1962. In addition, he won the 1959 and 1962 Tour de Suisse, thus becoming the first German to do so without wearing a swastika jersey (Ludwig Geyer had won in 1934).

Mario Kummer was born in Thuringia on this day in 1962 and represented East Germany at the 1988 Olympics prior to the Reunification of his nation, riding on the gold medal winning squad in the Team Time Trial. In 1990, when East Germans had been freed to travel to the West, he turned professional with Chateau d'Ax-Salotti and remained with them for two seasons before switching to PDM; then in 1993 he joined Telekom and remained with them until retirement in 1997. Since 2007, he has worked as a manager with the Astana team.

Other cyclists born on this day: Artūrs Matisons (Latvia, 1985); Bernhard Stübecke (Germany, 1904, died 1964); Dieter Koslar (Germany, 1940, died 2002); Franc Škerlj (Yugoslavia, 1941).

Giro d'Italia 2013

Here's a taster of Chris Davies' excellent photography from the 2013 Giro d'Italia. You can speak to Chris about his work and to request licensing by emailing him at cmjdavies@gmail.com. Please do not reuse his images without his approval.

Chris Davies Photography

Daily Cycling Facts 05.05.2013

The 2012 Giro d'Italia began on this day with an 8.7km time trial in Herning, Denmark. This was the second earliest starting date in the history of the Giro; only the 1939 edition started earlier, on the 28th of April.

Today marks the anniversary of the 20th edition of La Flèche Wallonne, which took place over a 221km parcours between Charleroi and Liège in 1956 - the same start and finish towns as in the previous seven years and the following nine (though they were reversed from 1960 to 1965), but using a different route. The winner was Richard Van Genechten, a climber who one year before had driven himself so hard on Mont Ventoux during the Tour de France that he fell unconscious from his bike and was rushed to hospital. He nearly became the third man to win the Ardennes Double a day after his Flèche victory when he finished in second place behind Fred de Bruyne at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Gino Bartali
On this day in 2000, the world lost a man who had it not have been for the Second World War (during which he became an even bigger hero that he did during his cycling career) may have become known as the greatest rider of all time: Il Pio, Gino Bartali. He would win the Giro in 1936 and 1937, the his first Tour de France in 1938 and a second in 1948 - the longest period between victories achieved by an individual rider in the history of the race.

Gino Bartali, a great man on the bike and off

Born in Pont a Ema (the house where he was born still stands, now occupied by a bar), the young Gino began working in a bike shop when he was 13 and was soon encouraged by colleagues to start racing. He then had a successful amateur career before turning professional at the age of 21 and winning the National Championship a year later. He won the Giro's overall King of the Mountains title that same year, then won the General Classification the next year but very nearly gave up cycling forever a year later when his older brother was killed in an accident during a race.

Until they produced a rider capable of dominating the Classics, Italians were widely believed to be useless cyclists when away from their home nation. Having been persuaded to continue racing, this seemed true of Bartali when he entered the Tour de France for the first time in 1937 as he got off to a bad start and lost time; then, perhaps angered by the cliche, he unexpectedly picked up the pace and won the yellow jersey during the mountainous Stage 7 between Aix-les-Bains and Grenoble. However, the very next day he was involved in a crash when Jules Rossi lost control - he plunged 3m off a bridge into a stream, landing on his chest and suffering breathing difficulties that forced him to retire from the race. That evening, he went to visit Tour director Henri Desgrange and apologised for his decision. "You are the first rider to come to see me before dropping out," Desgrange is reputed to have said. "You're a good man, Gino. Next year, we shall see one another again - and you shall win."

It has been known for many years that, during the War, Bartali assisted in efforts to save the lives of Jewish Italians, but it's only comparatively recently become known just how far he was willing to go to  rescue a fellow human being from almost certain death  - not only did he courier information and fake documents around the Italian countryside, he personally transported Jewish refugees in a specially-designed trailer towed behind his bike across the Alps and into neutral Switzerland. It's estimated that he was responsible for saving more than 800 people, yet he never asked for reward nor even recognition; stating years later that "One does these things, and that's that." In 2012, Israel's Yad Vashem announced that it was gathering further information in preparation for declaring him Righteous Among The Nations, an honour bestowed upon those who helped defend and save Europe's Jews from fascist attempts to exterminate them.

Bartali, having won the 1948 Tour

Bartali's career ended with a road accident when he was 40, by which point he had given much of his money away to deserving causes and lost most of what remained in ill-advised investments, later becoming the acerbic host of a popular television show and making a few cameo appearances in films. In old age he developed heart problems (not helped at all by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle - Miguel Indurain's manager once warned the five-time Tour winner to avoid being "like Gino Bartali" in his post-racing life) and underwent bypass surgery but died from a heart attack ten days after receiving the last rights, and a two-day period of official statewide mourning was declared in Italy. Today, many historians believe that had the War not have brought a temporary end to the Grand Tours, Bartali would have topped Lance Armstrong's record of seven Tours de France.


Britain's Lucy Martin was born in Merseyside on this day in 1990. She was spotted and invited to join the Olympic Talent Teamwhen she was 15 and soon selected for the Olympic Academy, a programme reserved for the most promising young athletes. In 2011, she received an offer of a professional trade team racing contract with Garmin-Cervélo where she raced alongside some of the best cyclists in the world including Lizzie Armitstead, Emma Pooley, Jessie Daams and Iris Slappendel, then went with Armitstead, Pooley, Daams and others to AA Drink-Leontien.nl following the demise of the Garmin-Cervélo women's team late in 2011; when AA Drink-Leontien.nl vanished a year later she went with Armitstead and Daams to Boels-Dolmans

Paul Watson, born in Milton Keynes on this day in 1962, had a good amateur career before turning professional in 1987 after performing well for two consecutive years at the Milk Race (as the Tour of Britain was then known). Two years later, he surprised the worldwide cycling scene by somehow coming sixth at no less an event than La Flèche Wallonne, thus inspiring theories that a serious talent had somehow slipped under the radar and was now announcing itself. He entered the Tour de France that year but was woefully unprepared - he was 143rd in the prologue but afterwards managed no better than 191st (Stage 3), then abandoned after coming 202nd - only four riders ahead of the Lanterne Rouge - in Stage 5. He did well at the Milk Race again that year, coming 4th overall, then faded away from cycling and little has been seen of him since.

Nick Nuyens
(image credit Thomas Ducroquet CC3.0)

Another rider who has enjoyed success at the Tour of Britain is the Belgian Nick Nuyens, who was also born on this day but eighteen years after Watson - he was third overall in 2004, then won Stages 1, 5 and the overall General Classification one year later. However, Nuyens is known primarily as one of the strongest Classics riders of his generation, having won or placed well at several of the most important one-day races, In 2011, he won both the Ronde van Vlaanderen and the Dwars door Vlaanderen.

British rowing champion James Cracknell, who was born on this day in 1972, attempted in 2010 to swim, run, row and cycle from Los Angeles to New York in 16 days. On the 20th of July, during one of the cycling sections, he was hit from behind by a truck in Arizona - one of the most dangerous types of accident for a cyclist, and was left with a coup contrecoup injury caused when the brain impacts against the inside of the skull. Cracknell has attributed his survival to the Alpina helmet he was wearing at the time, pointing out that it absorbed enough of the impact to have been broken into two pieces, and has since been a vocal advocate of cycling helmets - especially those made by Alpina, though he insists that there is no commercial agreement between himself and the company. In 2011, British newspaper The Daily Mail published a photograph of a helmetless Cracknell riding a folding bike but stated that he returned home to get one when he realised; his wife told reporters that he has suffered memory loss since his accident.

Lenka Ilavská, who was born in the Slovakian town Liptovský Mikuláš on this day in 1972, won the 1992  Emakumeen Bira, the 1993 Giro d'Italia Femminile and the 1995 Krasna Lipa Tour Féminine.

Mouritius "Maurice" Prosper Peeters was born in Antwerp on this day in 1882 and moved whilst still a child with his family to The Hague, where the Peeters took Dutch nationality. Maurice represented the Netherlands at the Olympics in 1920 and 1924. In 1920, he rode alone in the 1000m Sprint against British stars Thomas "Tiny" Johnson and Harry Ryan, who worked together in an attempt to remove all chances of a Dutch victory. Ryan attacked in the early part of the race, trying to tire his opponent out so that Johnson could cruise to unchallenged victory. However, Peeters proved more than match for the pair of them: Ryan tired and gave up his attacks, then the Dutchman went to work on Johnson, maintaining his lead and taking the gold medal. Four years later, he won the bronze in the 2000m Tandem race.

Leif Mortensen won a series of amateur races in the late 1960s, then turned professional and won a silver medal at the World Road Race Championship in 1970 (held that year in Leicester, Great Britain). A year later, he was sixth overall at the Tour de France and then twelfth in 1972, then he won the Tour of Belgium in 1973 and was 19th at the Tour de France - the palmares of a man who came so close to being a great, but didn't quite have what it takes.

Other cyclists born on this day: Maria Hawkins (Canada, 1962); Kazım Bingen (Turkey, 1912); Andrej Hauptman (Slovenia, 1975); Leif Mortensen (Denmark, 1946); Carlos Miguel Álvarez (Argentina, 1943); Jakob Caironi (Switzerland, 1902); Anton Krijgsman (Netherlands, 1898, died 1974); Elio Bavutti (Italy, 1914 died 1987); Tekeste Woldu (Ethiopia, 1945); José Ollarves (Venezuela, 1953); Syamak Zafarzadeh (Iran, 1964); Alex Van Linden (Belgium, 1952); Mohamed Reza Banna (Iran, 1971); Kevin Kimmage (Ireland, 1967); Bob McLeod (Canada, 1913, died 1958); David Boll (USA, 1953).

Daily Cycling Facts 04.05.2013

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day -one of only two in May (the other was the first edition in 1913) - in 1941 and was won for the second time by Achiel Buysse, the rider who, two years later, would become the first man to win three times. The Ronde, as we've noted previously, was the only Classic to continue on occupied home soil throughout the duration of the Second World War, Belgium having been overthrown by the Nazis the previous year. In 1941, a number of Nazi officers - presumably cycling fans themselves - became involved in the running of the race which would lead to problems following the Liberation when organisers were faced with accusations of collaboration.

La Flèche Wallonne has also fallen on this day. The first time was in 1957, the 21st edition, when Raymond Impanis was the fastest man over the 226km parcours between Charleroi - Liège. The second was the 28th edition, which took place in 1964. That year, the race covered 215km from Liège to Charleroi and was won by Gilbert Desmet. The race has never been held in May since then. It was also the last time that it was held on the day before the Liège-Bastogne-Liège Monument, thus bringing to an end the famous Le Weekend Ardennais.

Aleksandr Kolobnev
Born in Vyksa in the USSR on this day in 1981, Aleksandr Kolobnev spent his first professional riders riding as a trainee with Italian teams before signing up to Dutch Rabobank in 2005, a year after winning a National Championship. It was with CSC from 2007 that he really began to make his mark in the stage races, winning a stage at Pari-Nice and also doing well in the Classics and one-day events, ending up in the podium a number of times. In 2010 he joined Katusha, won another National Championship and came second at Liège-Bastogne-Liège - results sufficiently impressive for the team to send him to the Tour de France in 2011.

Aleksandr Kolobnev
(image credit: Heidas CC BY-SA 3.0)

That year's Tour was widely acclaimed as having been the first in many years that saw no riders caught taking performance-enhancing drugs; however, Kolobnev fell foul of a Stage 5 doping control when he tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide - a diuretic drug that, while having no performance-enhancing effects of its own, can be used to mask the presence of other drugs which might offer a competitive advantage. His B-sample confirmed the discovery and he was fined an amount equal to 1500 Swiss francs by the Russian Cycling Federation. The UCI felt that this was lenient and subsequently appealed to the Court for Arbitration on Sport, asking that he be banned for two years - the Court has not yet heard the case and Kolobnev remains subject to a provisional suspension.


Julie Paulding was born in Birkenhead, Great Britain on this day in 1969 and originally competed in athletics, specialising in 400 and 800m running events until myalgic encephalomyelitis (commonly known as ME or chronic fatigue syndrome) forced her to give up sports and her job as a physical education teacher. At her worst, Paulding could not even walk up a flight of stairs - but was helped to recovery by a friend, Steve. Steve told her that cycling has been shown to be a more efficient aid towards recovering from the condition than running and so she took it up; beginning on a stationary bike and later moving onto the track, where it began to become apparent that she had the potential to embark on a second athletic career. In 2002, she won a silver medal for the 500m Time Trial at the Commonwealth Games and, one year previously, she and Steve married. They now live near Manchester to be close to the National Velodrome and Julie works as a development officer with Scottish Cycling.

Mark Jamieson, born in Dandenong, Australia on this day in 1984 began racing when he was ten years old and showed sufficient promise to be awarded a scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport. In 2002, he became Junior World Champion in Pursuit and Under-23 National Time Trial Champion in 2004 and 2005, then National Pursuit Champion at Elite level in 2008. On the 15th of February 2010, he pleaded guilty to multiple charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl and one count of indecent assault against a girl aged under 16, offences that took place between November 2008 and January 2009. The court found that the the first girl had been an apparently willing participant and, as the second offence was relatively minor (he had tried to kiss her), sentenced him to a thirty month suspended prison sentence with a three-year good behaviour bond after taking into account the facts of the case and the psychological problems he had suffered.

Westley Gough, who was born on this day in 1988, was selected for the New Zealand Track Team at the 2008 Olympics and rode in the Pursuit Team during the preliminary races, helping the team qualify for the final - at which point, he stepped aside to allow Hayden Roulston to ride. When the team then won a bronze medal, the International Olympic Committee had an extra medal cast and awarded it to Gough in recognition of his efforts.

The UCI Paracycling World Cup got underway in Sydney on this day in 2011.

Other cyclists born on this day: Emil Lindgren (Sweden, 1985); Wu Kin San (Hong Kong, 1985); Mario Lusiani (Italy, 1903, died 1964); Peter Roes (Belgium, 1964); Roger Rinderknecht (Switzerland, 1981); Zbigniew Szczepkowski (Poland, 1952); Kazuo Takikawa (Japan, 1962); Denfield McNab (Belize, 1943).

Daily Cycling Facts 03.05.2013

Robert Slippens
(image credit: Nicola CC BY-SA 3.0)

Robert Slippens, born in Opmeer on this day in 1975, is a professional cyclist who represented the Netherlands at the Olympics in 1996, 2000 and 2004. In the first two events, he took part in the 4km Team Pursuit and in the last one he competed in the Madison.

Saúl Morales, born in Madrid on this day in 1973, turned professional with Fuenlabrada in 1999 and won the Vuelta a Venezuela that same year. In 2000, during an eventful Tour of Argentina during which riders faced bad conditions, poor medical treatment and race officials who openly favoured Argentinian teams, he was hit and killed by a truck that had been permitted to get onto the race route. For many European teams, this was the final straw and they abandoned the race in protest - it hasn't been held since.

Other cyclists born on this day: Christophe Detilloux (Belgium, 1974); Alan Goodrope (Australia, 1951); Hans Känel (Switzerland, 1953); Jorge Gómez (Cuba, 1956).

Daily Cycling Facts 02.05.2013

La Flèche Wallonne was held on this date in 1937. It started for the second of three consecutive years at Tournai and covered 280km to Ans, making it the joint longest edition ever - 1938 was also 280km, but finished at Rocourt. The winner, Adolphe Braeckeveldt, was having the best year of his career and would also win the Tour of Belgium and Stage 17b at the Tour de France. The race was held on this date again in 1953, when it covered 220km between Charleroi and Liège and was won by the Belgian Stan Ockers.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the most venerated of the Monuments, took place on this day in 1926. It was 16th edition of the race and the winner was Dieudonné Smets who that same year became Belgian Independent (semi-professional) Road Race Champion.


Pia Sundstedt

Pia Sundstedt
(image credit: Phoyote - where you can find an interview with the rider)

Pia Sundstedt, born in Kokkola on this day in 1975 is a professional cross-country skier and cyclist who competes in road racing and mountain biking. She began winning road races in the late 1990s, taking both the Road Race National Championship and Giro del Trentino in 1997, then won stages at the Giro d'Italia Femminile and twice finished La Flèche Wallonne in second place over the following three years.

Sundstedt would become National Road Race Champion again in 2001, 2002 and 2005, at which point she began to concentrate on mountain biking with especial emphasis on cross-country marathons (XCM) - in 2005, she won the European XCM title and came fifth in the World Championships. The year after that, she couldn't improve at the Worlds but became National XCM Champion and won the XCM World Cup, as she would again in 2007 and 2008.

As of 2011, fourteen years after her professional career began, Sundstedt has once more begun to make herself known in road racing: she won the National Time Trial and Road Race Championships that year, in addition to a fourth XCM World Cup and fourth place at the World Championships. She announced her retirement at the end of the 2012 season.

Jean-François Bernard
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0)

Jean-François Bernard
Jean-François Bernard, who was born in Luzy, France on this day in 1962 and in the early part of his career was considered by many to be the successor to Bernard Hinault. He turned professional on the 1st of August 1984 with Hinault's La Vie  Clair team after winning a series of prestigious amateur races including a National Championship, then proved he could mix it with the pros in 1985 by winning stages at the Tours de Suisse and Limousin and finishing on the podium in several other races.

1986 brought greater success with eleven victories, including overall at the Tour Méditerranéen and Stage 16 at his first Tour de France. A year later he rode in both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour, winning Stage 19 at the former and 18 (a Mont Ventoux time trial) and 24 at the latter, on both occasions taking the yellow jersey. For the fans, this cleared any doubts that they might still have - this was the man that would continue what Hinault started. Then, the following year, things went badly wrong: Bernard crashed heavily whilst racing through a tunnel at the Giro, badly injuring his back. He seemed sufficiently recovered to enter the Tour but didn't do well, then miraculously came second for Stages 13 and 14 - however, he abandoned soon afterwards, then lost out on much of 1989 due to an operation on his knee. In 1990, he entered the Tour again but once more was forced to abandon and underwent another operation, then returned to win Stage 15 at the Vuelta a Espana, which would prove to be his last Grand Tour triumph.

Bernard would ride in one more Giro (1991, abandoned) and five more Tours (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995) and finished in a respectable position, but gradually - and despite his victories elsewhere, for example at the 1992 Critérium International which he won outright - it became apparent that his best years had coincided with those he missed through injury. His results were not helped by the fact that he had developed a taste for the finer things in life, often favouring good food, expensive wine and exotic cars to training; but it was nevertheless a realisation that would have been harder on him were it not for the fact that despite 53 professional victories, Bernard never let France's hopes that he was a potential Tour winner convince him that he was even nearly equal to Hinault and instead he was content to ride as a superdomestique: ""I'll never be a leader," he told L'Equipe, the newspaper that now employs him as a race consultant. "I can't be someone that you can count on 100%, and if you ask that of me I lose half my power."



Filippo Savini was born in Faenza, Italy on this day in 1985. In 2011, he won Stage 3 at the Vuelta a Castilla y León.

Other cyclists born on this day: Kieran Page (Great Britain, 1983); Muriel Sharp (Great Britain, 1953); Oscar Pezoa (Argentina, 1933).

Daily Cycling Facts 01.05.2013

La Flèche Wallonne, perhaps the most prestigious of the Classics after the Monuments, fell on this day in 1938 - the third edition of the race. At 280km - not, as some sources claim, 300km - it shares the honour of being the longest ever edition with the previous year. It started at Tournai, as had 1937, but followed a different route to end at Rocourt and the winner was Émile Masson Jr., who would also win a stage at the Tour de France that year. Masson was the son of Émile Masson Snr., who won two stages at the Tour in 1922. The 14th edition, held in 1950, also took place on this date. Running for the third of twelve consecutive years between Charleroi and Liège, it covered 235km and was won by Fausto Coppi - the second Italian to achieve victory. For the first time that year it was held the day before the Liège-Bastogne-Liège Monument to create Le Weekend Ardennais.

Henri Pélissier

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

On this day in 1935, Henri Pélissier died. Aged 46, he had been the 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 and used his exalted position to protest against the harsh conditions riders of his day were expected to endure and, as result, became embroiled in a long feud with Tour director Henri Desgrange - surprisingly, he didn't always enjoy popular support and many other riders apparently found him rather annoying. However, for all the concern he showed for their welfare he was by no means a likable man - his wife, Léonie, suffered much at his hands and entered a deep depression, leading to her suicide in 1933 when she shot herself with his revolver. Three years following her death, he took a new lover named Camille "Miette" Tharault, 20 years younger than he was. It appears that he treated her no better 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 very same gun with which her unfortunate predecessor had committed suicide but, instead of turning it on herself, took it back down to kitchen and shot Henri 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. (For more on Pélissier, click here.)


On this day in 1998, Lance Armstrong married Kristin Richard - and thus set in motion several years of confusion for sports commentators, those of whom with little knowledge of cycling could never quite tell the difference between the new Kristin Armstrong and the one who won a total of five National and two World Road Race and Time Trial Championships and is not related to Lance in any way.