Daily Cycling Facts 11.05.2013

Paolo Savoldelli
(image credit: Tony Rocha
CC BY 2.0)

The Giro d'Italia started on this date in 2002, the last year that riders were not required to wear helmets (the UCI changed the rules following the death of Andrei Kivilev at Paris-Nice in 2003). The race had an especially international flavour with a prologue in the Netherlands, Stage 2 in Germany and Belgium, Stage 3 in Belgium and Luxembourg and Stage 4 in Luxembourg and France before the riders travelled south to Italy. The winner was Paolo Savoldelli, a climber with a (rare among climbers) talent for descending fast - a combination that would also win him the Giro in 2005.

Bruno Neves, 05.09.1981 - 11.05.2008
(image credit: Oxiclista)

Portuguese sprinter Bruno Neves died on this day in 2008 at the Classica de Amarante following a horrific crash. It was initially thought that the injuries he sustained in the crash had killed him, but an autopsy revealed that he'd been suffered a heart attack which then caused the crash. He died on the way to hospital, aged 26.

Paulo Ferreira, born in Vialonga, Portugal on this day in 1962, won Stage 5 at the Tour de France in 1984. He was the second Portuguese rider to achieve a stage win in the history of the race (the first was Joaquim Agostinho with Stages 5 and 14 in 1969.)

Jason Queally, born in Great Haywood, Staffordshire on this day in 1970, enjoyed a successful track career after coming close to death in an accident at Edinburgh's Meadowbank Track when a 45cm piece of wood broke off the track when he crashed and passed through his armpit into his chest. He made a full recovery and won a gold medal for the 1km Time Trial at the 2000 Olympics, then set a new European Human-Powered Speed Record at 103.55kph a year later.

Other cyclists born on this day: Kanji Kubomura (Japan, 1943); Thomas Mühlbacher (Austria, 1974); Glen Mitchell (Great Britain, 1958); James Joseph (Guyana, 1957); Serhiy Ushakov (USSR, 1968); Vito Da Ros (Italy, 1957); Zhao Haijuan (China, 1971); Liu Hong (China, 1969); Jean Bernard Djambou (Cameroon, 1947); Lubor Tesař (Czechoslovakia, 1971); Stanisław Gazda (Poland, 1938); Marcel-Ernest Bidault (France, 1938).

Daily Cycling Facts 10.05.2013

The sixteenth edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1952, following the same 220km between Charleroi and Huy that it had the previous year. It was won for a second consecutive year by the Swiss Ferdy Kübler, winner of the 1950 Tour de France. The next day, he also won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, as he had done the previous year - and he is therefore the only rider to have won the Ardennes Double twice (note "is" rather than "was" - 62 years later, Ferdy is the oldest Tour winner alive).

The Giro d'Italia has started on this date three times - 1924, 1931 and 2003 1931, the 20th edition, covered 3,012km in 12 stages and was won by Francesco Camusso, a rider who remains ranked among Italy's best climbers today. 2003 covered 3,472km in 21 stages, its longest stage at 236km roughly equal in distance to 1931's third shortest at 234km. The winner was Gilberto Simoni, fortunate in being able to enter after he was cleared by the Italian Federation of wrong-doing in the wake of a positive test for cocaine in 2002 and withdrawn from the race.

The 1924 Giro d'Italia

Alfonsina Strada,
16.03.1891 - 13.09.1959

1924 was the 12th edition and covered 3,613km in 12 stages, won by Giuseppe Enrici who despite his Italian nationality was born in the USA and died in France. The start list was dramatically reduced by a national strike, which allowed Enrici and Federico Gay to dominate the race. To bolster numbers, organisers decided to open the event to independent riders which led to one of the most remarkable incidents in the history of the Grand Tours - a woman took part.

Her name was Alfonsina Strada, nee Morini, but she entered under the name Alfonsin so that organisers thought she was a man until it was too late; because in those days, despite the fine work done by the Suffragettes in other nations who had taken the bicycle to heart, women in conservative, Catholic Italy were not supposed to take part on bike races. Though stories of her early life have probably been somewhat embellished over the years, many state that she faced severe opposition when she began cycling and villagers would cross themselves as she rode by, leading to her nickname Devil in a Dress. Her mother apparently did all she could to persuade her to give up cycling and learn to sew, but her father - who deserves as much praise as she does - seems to have thought differently, and when she was ten years old he bought her a bike of her own for the princely sum of ten chickens. Three years later, she won her first race. The prize was a pig.

Strada did considerably better than anybody expected, finishing the first stage an hour after the winner - which in those days was considered a reasonably close result. Misfortune struck later on when her handlebars snapped in a crash during a stormy 304km stage, but a peasant (perhaps realising that Strada came from the same background) cut off a length of broom handle and pushed into the half still attached to the bike, thus permitting her to carry on. Nevertheless, she was unable to finish within the time limit.

Race directors were then faced with a problem - the rules stated that Strada could not continue to ride. However, by now she'd become enormously popular with the public, many of whom would turn out simply to see her - and they cheered her, rather than crossed themselves. There appears to have also been an unspoken desire among some organisers to thumb their noses at the Fascists who had taken advantage of Nationalist discontent following the First World War to win the elections that had taken place just a month before the race began - according to Fascist ideology, the male must be the athletic hero and the female the home-maker: they did not like Strada one bit.

Consequently, they were not willing to let her go. Having checked the rules, they decided that she would be allowed to continue with them paying her expenses but without being awarded a place in the classifications and ineligible for a prize. The next day, when she finished the stage, a vast crowd of fans carried her and her bike in their shoulders around Fiume, the Italian name for what is now Rijeka in Croatia. Motivated to go on, Strada became one of only 38 riders to finish the race that year - 28 hours behind Enrici but 20 ahead of Telesforo Benaglia in last place. Her fame was so great that an appeal to provide her with a prize raised 50,000 lire.

Victor Johnson

Victor Johnson

Victor Johnson was born in Aston Manor, Warwickshire on this day in 1883. Having left school, he earned a living as a carpenter, the occupation he gave in the census of 1901 when he lived at 22 Station Road in Erdington on the northern outskirts of Birmingham - the city that was in those days the global centre of bicycle manufacturing, the industry within which his father worked. 22 Station Road is still there, now converted into a hair-dressing salon, but the upper part of the building reveals that it must have been quite an attractive house.

He began racing with the Rover Racing CC in 1902 and rapidly became a very talented track cyclist, winning 60 races in 1908 alone including the 660 yard sprint at the Olympics, held that year in London. He'd have had a second gold medal for the 1000 yard sprint too, had a puncture not seen to it that he took second place. A year later he set three World Records at the Herne Hill Velodrome in London - the quarter mile, three quarters of a mile and one mile. The quarter mile stood as a World Record for 21 years and as a British Amateur Record until 1948 when a change to UCI rules forced a slower time to be accepted instead. Johnson died at Sutton Coldfield in the 23rd of June in 1951, when he was 68 years old.


On this day in 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, bringing several of Europe's most prestigious cycling races to a temporary halt.

Priska Doppman, winner of the Tour de France Féminin in 2005 in addition to two gold and multiple silver and bronze medals at the Swiss National Road Racing Championships, was born in Cham on this day in 1971. In addition to her Tour and National Championships (1999, 2001), Doppman won the GP des Nations in 2004, the Chrono des Herbiers in 2006 and numerous stages at other races.

On the very same day as Doppman and less than 50km away at Altdorf, Beat Zberg was born. Having won several National Under-19 titles, he became Swiss Road Racing Champion in 2007. They were not the only successful Swiss cyclists born on this day - there was also Karl Burkhart in 1908 (died 1976) and Ralph Näf, born 1980 and still riding with Multivan-Merida mountain bike team. So, if you happen to be Swiss and wish to become the parent of a professional cyclist, you need to keep your diary clear for the 10th of August.

Agostinho leading the 1972 Tour de
France. Behind him are Raymond
Poulidor and Lucien van Impe.
(image credit: Memoire-du-Cyclisme CC BY-SA 3.0)

Moisés Dueñas was born in Béjar, Spain in this day in 1981. Following a successful early career, Dueñas was 39th overall at the 2007 Tour de France - then was unceremoniously ejected from the race just before Stage 11 in 2008 when the Agence Française de Lutte contre le Dopage announced he had tested positive for EPO.

Joaquim Agostinho, born on the 7th of April in 1942, became the first Portuguese stage winner at the Tour de Frace when he won Stage 5 and 14 in 1969. He was the fastest man up the Alpe d'Huez a decade later and rode in a total of 13 Tours, finishing 12 of them. On this day in 1984, while leading the Volta ao Algarve, he was killed after colliding with a dog.

Other cyclists born on this day: Vera Andreyeva (Russia, 1988); Norberto Oconer (Philippines, 1965); Manuel Youshimatz (Mexico, 1962); Robin Croker (Great Britain, 1954); Imelda Chiappa (Italy, 1966); Son Yak-Seon (South Korea, 1966); Vladas Jankauskas (Lithuania, 1903, died 1969); Anatoliy Chukanov (USSR, 1954); Daan van Dijk (Netherlands, 1907, died 1986); Gunnar Asmussen (Denmark, 1944).

Daily Cycling Facts 09.05.2013

Pino Cerami
(image credit: Ken's Bike Shop)

La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1960, the 24th edition of the race. It ran from Liège to Charleroi for the first time, having been run in the opposite direction for the previous eleven years, and covered 208km. The winner was Giuseppe 'Pino' Cerami, who had taken Belgian citizenship in 1956 and as such was not the second Italian winner of the race despite being born in Sicily (the Italians didn't have to wait long, however - Roberto Poggiali won in 1965 and since then Italian riders have won another sixteen times, making them the second most successful nation in this race after the Belgians).

The Giro d'Italia began just once on this day, in 2009. The race took an unusual course around Italy's most historic cities and missed most of the climbs that have made it famous, yet it was marked by near-tragedy when the Basque rider Pedro Horrillo crashed into a ravine during Stage 8. He fell 60 metres, breaking his neck, knee cap, both femurs and puncturing a lung. After regaining consciousness in the ambulance as he was taken to hospital, medics placed him in an artificially-induced coma. In time, Horrillo made a full recovery; but has not returned to racing. The next day saw riders protesting at safety conditions, refusing to race until they came to the final sprint - which drew criticism from fans and organisers - and the stage was neutralised. Denis Menchov was overall winner, followed by Danilo di Luca who would subsequently be stripped of his result in a doping scandal.

Matthew Bushe
(image credit: Fanny Schertzer CC BY-SA 3.0)

The term "meteoric" doesn't do justice to American rider Matthew Busche's rise to the top levels of professional cycling: in August of 2008 he joined the ProContinental Kelly Benefit Strategies team and by the beginning of the next year he was riding with RadioShack, one of the best-financed and most successful teams in the history of the sport. Having enjoyed a successful career as a cross-country winner during which he won two NCAA National titles, he switched allegiance to cycling and joined the amateur ISCorp team in 2007 and finished in third place for Stage 2 at the St. Louis Gateway Cup with them. He then began racking up a series of top ten results in National Championships and other races before turning professional and moving on to European stage races, where he also did well. He then won the National Championship road race in 2011 and was entered into his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, where he came 113th overall. His contract was extended following RadioShack's merger with LeopardTrek late in 2011, and the world will be watching closely in 2012 to see if Johan Bruyneel's faith in him is deserved.

Vincenzo Borgarello was born in Cambiano, Piedmont on this day in 1884. In 1911, he won Stage 2 at the Giro d'Italia, followed by Stages 2, 7 and 9 at the Giro and 8 and 14 at the Tour de France the following year. He led the race after Stage 2 - and thus became the first Italian to lead the General Classification in the history of the Tour, though he eventually finished in 13th place overall.

Though Rubens Bertogliati - who was born in Lugano, Switzerland on this day in 1979 - has twice been National Time Trial Champion (2009/10), he is better known as an all-rounder; a combination which has seen him record some impressive results in the Grand Tours. He won the opening time trial at the 2002 Tour de France, then rode well enough the next day to keep the yellow jersey, and in 2010 he was second in the mixed-terrain Stage 6 at the Giro d'Italia.

Flavio Giupponi was born in Bergamo on this day in 1964. In 1989, he won Stage 14 at the Giro d'Italia and finished the overall General Classification in second place, 1'15" behind Frenchman Laurent Fignon.

Svein Tuft
Canadian cyclist Svein Tuft was born in British Columbia on this day in 1977. He would leave school at the age of 15 and spent the next few years mountain climbing and cycling, completing a 4,000km ride to Alaska and back whilst still a teenager, then began racing in 1999. His results were immediately good and he found himself with a contract to ride for Symmetrics team which, while virtually unknown in Europe, could be found competing in many of North America's most prestigious cycling events and which reached a wider audience when it was the subject of a Marvel comic, in which Tuft is portrayed as having enormous muscles. Upon seeing the picture, he told reporters "We're all a bunch of sissies really!"

Tuft has become highly respected as a time trial specialist, winning the National Championship in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 - which earned him the offer of a contract with the ill-fated Team Pegasus which fell by the wayside after sponsorship issues. Instead, he joined Spidertech-C10 for 2011 and with them won another National Time Trial and the National Road Race for the first time. In August that year, he announced that he had been offered a place with the new Australian team GreenEDGE which was at that time hoping to be given a UCI ProTeam licence, which it subsequently received - so this year, we are likely to see how Tuft copes with a Grand Tour.

Iñigo Landaluze

Iñigo Landaluze
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

Basque rider Iñigo Landaluze was born on this day in 1977, turning professional with Euskaltel-Euskadi in 2001 and remaining with them for the rest of his career. He appeared on the cusp of making a breakthrough into the upper echelons of the sport with victory at the 2005 Critérium du Dauphiné, but shortly afterwards it was announced that anti-doping controls had discovered an unusually high level of testosterone in his samples.

However, he was cleared on a technicality when it was shown that correct laboratory procedure had not been followed during the test - whereas the Court of Arbitration for Sport concluded that the rider "probably had" intentionally doped, it found that there was no grounds to prosecute as the UCI had failed to satisfy the burden of proof by failing to provide evidence to support claims that procedure violations would not affect the outcome of the test. Since he became free to return to racing in 2006, anti-doping laws and regulations have changed considerably and it is believed that had the case have been tried today Landaluze would have been sanctioned.

On the 17th of July 2009, he failed two anti-doping tests, one at the Critérium du Dauphiné again and another a few days after the race ended - this time for Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator or CERA, a blood-boosting drug that combines the notorious EPO with other drugs designed to increase its effectiveness and longevity within the body. He was provisionally banned by the UCI pending investigation and has not yet returned to the sport.


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

When he began cycling, he rapidly gained the nickname The Giant of Colombes because, at 1.88m tall and weighing 88kg, he was considerably larger than the average man of his day and enormous in comparison to most cyclists. Photographs show a man who looks phenomenally strong - as indeed he was, his natural physique honed by hard labour as a removal man and docker. He began his professional cycling career with Labor in 1906 and entered his first Tour with them, but did not finish. Two years later, he moved on to Peugeot and entered again, this time winning four stages and achieving 2nd overall, then won the Giro di Lombardia. He departed for the mighty Alcyon in 1909, the most successful team in Tour history and it was with them that he not only won the race but, battling through some of the worst weather ever recorded during the event before or since, also won five consecutive stages (six in total) - a record that has not yet been broken after more than a century.

He remained with Alcyon through 1910 and won three stages at the Tour that year, coming 2nd overall behind team mate Octave Lapize and also winning Paris-Tours. Now one of the most respected and sought-after riders in the world, he was tempted away to Automoto and spent a quiet two years with them and Saphir Cycles before returning to Peugeot for the next two years, winning Paris-Roubaix, one stage at the Tour of Belgium and a total of four at the Tour de France during the period. The First World War put paid to European racing until conflict came to an end, and Faber signed up with the Foreign Legion almost as soon as hostilities were declared. He was attached to the 2nd Régiment de Marche of the 1st Regiment, FFL, promoted to the rank of corporal.

Faber was 28 years old when he died on this day in 1915 at the Battle of Artois. His regiment came under attack and lost 1,950 men from a total of 2,900, and though Faber survived the first waves of the attack unharmed he saw that one of his comrades was lying injured in no-man's land. He climbed out of the trench, went to the fallen man and had carried him part of the way to safety when he was fatally shot in the back. Later, he was posthumously awarded the Médaille militaire for his bravery. That very morning, he had received a telegram informing him that his wife had just given birth to their first child, a daughter.

Wouter Weylandt
On this day in 2011, at the Giro d'Italia which just one year previously had been disrupted when riders protested against safety conditions, LeopardTrek's 26-year-old Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt was killed as he descended the Passo del Bocco at 80kph. According to Manuel Antonio Cardoso, who was behind him at the time, Weylandt had looked over his shoulder to see if other riders were catching him and lost control, hitting a guardrail before being catapulted 10m across the road and landing heavily on his face. The race's chief medical officer was nearby in a car and saw the accident take place: "he was already and clearly dead upon impact. I had never seen such a thing before, such a sudden death," he later told reporters. The impact when he hit the wall would have been sufficient to end his career even had he have fallen there - an autopsy found that his left leg had been so badly damaged it would have required amputation. His death was attributed to skull and facial injuries and massive damage to his internal organs - it was noted that the impact when he hit the road had stopped his heart instantaneously and there would not have been time for him to suffer. His girlfriend, An-Sophie, was five months pregnant when he died.

The following stage was neutralised and church bells rang along the route, riders wearing black armbands taking turns to lead the peloton. Weylandt's race number, 108, is no longer assigned to riders in the Giro and became an integral part of the team's kit design, as well as a common sight at many races where fans and riders alike display it to show their respects.

Wouter Weylandt, 27.09.1984 - 09.05.2011
(image credit: Dzipi CC BY-SA 2.0)

Other cyclists born on this day: René Rillon (France, 1892, died 1956); Jean-Marie Joubert (France, 1932); Nobuhira Takanuki (Japan, 1938); Karl-Dietrich Diers (East Germany, 1953); Hans Michalsky (West Germany, 1949); Constantin Stănescu (Romania, 1928); Vid Cencic (Uruguay, 1933).

Daily Cycling Facts 08.05.2013

Germain Derycke

The eighteenth edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1954, following the same 220km parcours between Charleroi and Liège that it had used for the last three years and would use again the next. The winner was Germain Derycke, a rider who had won Paris-Roubaix the year before and would add the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Milan-San Remo, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Ronde van Vlaanderen over the remainder of his career.

The Giro d'Italia started on this date three times, in 1937, 2004 and 2010. 1937 brought the second of two consecutive victories for the legendary Gino Bartali, who would win for a third time nine years later when the race started up again after the Second World War. The 2004 edition was won by Damiano Cunego, the race having an especially international flavour that year as it ventured into Switzerland, Croatia and Slovenia. 2010 started in Amsterdam and spent three stages in the Netherlands, then moved on to Italy where riders were faced with one of the most fearsome series of climbs in many years: Zoncalan, Kronplatz (Corones), Mortirolo and the Passo di Gavia. The winner was Ivan Basso after a number of riders were prevented from starting due to doping investigations and the controversial non-selection of Dutch ProContinental teams Vacansoleil and Skil-Shimano.

Beryl Burton, one of the greatest British athletes of all time
(unknown copyright)

Beryl Burton
On this day in 1996, Great Britain lost its greatest ever athlete with the death of Beryl Burton, winner of seven World Championships and more than 90 National titles. Burton was born on the 12th of May 1937 in Leeds and remained in that area for the remainder of her life. Medical problems during childhood kept her away from sports and she didn't discover cycling until introduced to it by her future husband Charlie - two years after first taking it up, the won a silver medal in the National 100 Mile Time Trial. (More on Burton in four days' time, the anniversary of her birth. If you can't wait, here's Ian Street.)



Ciarán Power, born in Waterford on this day in 1976, turned professional in 2000 with the ill-fated Linda McCartney Team and rode the Giro d'Italia with them - the first Irishman in a Grand Tour since Stephen Roche in 1993. He retired in 2008.

Polish climbing specialist Marek Rutkiewicz was born in Olsztyn on this day in 1981. In 2009, he won the Mountains Classification at the Tour of Poland and in 2010 he became National Hill Climb Champion.

Harry Hill

Harry Hill, a record-breaking British cyclist and bronze-winning Olympian, was born on this day in 1916. Hill's Olympic appearance came at the infamous 1936 Games, held in Nazi Germany, and he may have won silver or even gold were it not for the fact to get to Germany, he needed to first get from his home near Sheffield to London. He had no money, and nor did his mother who had raised him alone after his father was killed while fighting in Africa in the First World War. So, he rode the 200 miles (322km) on the bike with which he planned to enter.

Once back in Britain, he faced the same problem - but this time it was worse. On the way there he'd had just enough money to buy food and had carefully saved enough to do the same on the way there, but whilst in Germany temptation had got the better of him and he'd spent it all on a souvenir jacket. There was no alternative: he'd have to do it without eating. He couldn't, of course, and "only" managed 170 miles before he cracked and had to thumb a lift.

The following year, Hill set a new Hour Record for an outdoor track in Milan, covering 25 miles (40.23km). In 1976, when he was 60 years old, he cycled across North America. He claimed to have never smoked or consumed alcohol in his life. He rode his bike every day from the age of 13 until 2004, when he fractured his hip. He was Britain's oldest winner of an Olympic medal when he died aged  92 of pneumonia on the 31st of January 2009.



Other cyclists born on this day: Han Song-Hui (South Korea, 1983); Boris Shukhov (USSR, 1947); Miguel Droguett (Chile, 1961); Raido Kodanipork (Estonia, 1969); Igor Sláma (Czechoslovakia, 1959); Châu Phươc Vình (South Vietnam, 1927); Silvia Fürst (Switzerland, 1961); Law Siu On (Hong Kong, 1964).

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).