Daily Cycling Facts 18.05.2013

Carlo Galetti

The Giro d'Italia started on this date nine times; in 1910, 1935, 1957, 1958, 1966, 1970, 1973, 1990 and 1996 - more than any other date It also ended on this date in 1939, making it the earliest date upon which the race has both started and ended. 1910, which covered 2,984km in ten stages, was the second edition and was won by Carlo Galetti, who has been second in the first edition. It could very easily have gone otherwise - for a start, Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq looked to be in with an excellent chance of becoming the first French winner after storming ahead in Stage 2. The Italian riders formed themselves into a pan-team alliance against him, but he was stronger than they thought and continued to challenge the race leadership. Until, that is, Stage 4; when he became suddenly and violently ill. The police suspected he'd been deliberately poisoned and found enough evidence to support their theory for 20 riders to be thrown out of the race. Galetti led for the last nine stages, but he too had misfortune - in the final stage, he crashed into hay wagon and suffered bad cuts and bruises. However, with the finish line at Milan not too far away, he got back on his bike and carried on; finishing fifth for the stage but first overall. 101 riders started but only 20 finished.

Vasco Bergamaschi

1935 included 18 stages and covered 3,577km. It was a pivotal year with one Great Age of Cycling giving way to another, for this was Alfredo Binda's last Giro and Gino Bartali's first. Binda's best days were long gone, but he rode well and took second place on four stages and finished 16th overall. Bartali, who was brand new and the lowliest of domestiques, electrified the race when he won Stage 6 and came seventh overall, 9'46" behind race winner Vasco Bergamaschi - who is all but forgotten today.

Fausto Coppi was the favourite for the 1957 edition which covered 3,926km in 21 stages, but he broke his leg in a crash in Sardinia before the race and was unable to start. That left Lousion Bobet, Charly Gaul and Ercole Baldini looking the likely victors, but all three were taken by surprise by the chain-smoking Gastone Nencini. Nencini was known as a good all-rounder who could hold his own in the mountains, but the real ace in his hand was the way he descended - gravity seemed to have a stronger hold over him than anyone else and he plummeted like a hawk. What's more, he had courage in spades and took steep downhill bends at full speed while his rivals would be grabbing the brakes. Gaul took the lead in Stage 16 after Bobet and Nino Defilippis had dominated for much of the race, but after three races it was wrestled out of his hands and Nencini kept it to the end.

Baldini won in 1958, taking 92h09'30" to complete the 20 stages and 3,341km with two summit finishes in the Dolomites proving decisive - he also won the National and World Road Race titles that year. 1966 saw the introduction of a Points competition, won by Gianni Motta who would also be fastest over the 22 stages and 3,976km to win the General Classification too. Italo Zilioli came second for a third consecutive year, which earned him the nickname The Italian Poulidor - Poulidor having come second to Anquetil so many times. Anquetil, meanwhile, was third; an unmistakable sign that his best days were over.

Merckx
(image credit: Nationaal Archief, public domain)

Just four years later, there was a new king: after the controversy of 1969 when he was disqualified after providing a positive sample (still disputed by him and the official in charge), Eddy Merckx came back for 1970, took the leadership in Stage 7 and kept it all the way to the end for his second victory. He would win three more General Classifications - equalling the record set by Alfredo Binda and Fausto Coppi, 24 stages and spend a total of 76 days in the lead (a record). There were 20 stages that year, covering a parcours of 3,292km and the Points competition's red jersey changed to mauve, taking the name Maglia Ciclamino - it would change back to red (the Maglia Rosso Passione) in 2010. Merckx won his fourth edition in 1973 after 3,801km, a time trial and 20 stages; leading the race through all of them. The Vuelta a Espana had been held between the 26th of April and the 13th of May that year, and Merckx had won that too - the first rider to win both races in a single season.

The 1990 edition covered 3,450km in 21 stages. Winner Gianni Bugno duplicated Merckx's domination, leading the race from start to end; a feat that only they, Costante Girardengo (1919) and Alfredo Binda (1927) have managed. 1996 covered 3,990km in 22 stages and was won by Pavel Tonkov, the second Russian rider to take the victory.


At a press conference in Brussels on this day in 1978, Eddy Merckx told his audience:

"I am living the most difficult day of my life. I can no longer prepare myself for the Tour de France, which I wanted to ride for a final time as a farewell . After consulting my doctors, I've decided to stop racing."

With that, he ended that most remarkable career in the history of cycling, and a new era began.

Niki Terpstra

Niki Terpstra
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY 3.0)

Niki Terpstra, who was born in Beverwijk, Netherlands, on this day in 1984, gave all the signs of being destined for a career on the track when he first appeared in the cycling world back in 2004. He won a few road races prior to 2007, but three National titles for the Scratch and one each for Madison and Points suggested he was going to ride the boards. However, that year he also won the Mountains Classification at the Tour of Germany and revealed himself to have more than one string to his bow.

In 2008, he was 4th overall at the Three Days of De Panne and won the Combativity Award for Stage 13 at the Tour de France, then a year later he won a stage at the Criterium du Dauphine. In 2010, he took a sixth National Championship, this time in the Road Race, and was third at the Dwars door Vlaanderen. By now, it was obvious that his future lay on the road; as he proved in 2012 by winning the Dwars. He remains a talented track rider, meanwhile, winning the 2011 Amsterdam Six Days with Iljo Keisse.

Sean Yates
Sean Yates was born in Ewell, Great Britain, on this day in 1960 and represented his nation in the 1980 Olympics, where he was sixth in the 4km Individual Pursuit. Seeking a career on the road, he travelled to France where like so many prospective riders from Britain and outside Europe he joined the famous Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt; a wise move as only two years later (in 1982, when he was also second at the National Road Race Championship) he was invited to turn professional with Peugeot where he rode alongside Stephen Roche - who would become Ireland's first Tour de France winner and the second man to win the Triple Crown (the Tour, the Giro d'Italia and the World Championship in a single season - the other man to win it was, of course, Eddy Merckx) - and the legendary Scottish climber Robert Millar, the only Briton to have won the King of the Mountains at the Tour (and the Giro),

Sean Yates
(image credit: YellowMonkey/Blnguyen CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1988, Yates moved on to Fagor and then to 7-Eleven the next year, then Motorola in 1991 where he rode with a young Lance Armstrong, remaining with them for the rest of his racing years. 1994 was his best year, despite a stage win at the Tour in 1988, because he became the third British rider to lead the Tour de France. Unfortunately, his results overall were not good and he was 71st in the General Classification when the race ended, far short of his 45th place in 1988. All in all, he would ride in twelve Tours; but although he climbed well for a man with his powerful physique he was outclassed by the dedicated grimpeurs in the high mountains.

Yates retired in 1996 but remained a part of the cycling world, becoming involved with the administration of numerous teams beginning with Linda McCartney, which would collapse in 2001, then the ill-fated Australian iteamNova outfit that looked all set to take on the world before running out of money and dying. Fortunately, Armstrong remembered him and took him on as a manager at Discovery following a short spell with CSC-Tiscali (which would later become Team SaxoBank); though he remained with Discovery for only a year before going to Astana. In 2009 he found his natural management home with the announcement of Sky, a British team that set out to do what he, Millar, Simpson and so many others from the ACBB had tried - propel a British rider to the top step of the Tour de France podium. He remains with Sky to this day. While he enjoyed some success in racing after his time as a professional, including becoming 50-mile TT Champion in 1997, Yates now has to limit himself to unchallenging events due to heart irregularities.


Erin Mirabella, born in Racine on this day in 1978, is an American track cyclist who has won six National titles and three events at the PanAmerican Cycling Championships.

Kate Bates, born in Sydney on this day in 1982, has held five National (2005 - Individual Pursuit, Scratch, Points; 2006 - Scratch, Points) and one World Championship (2007 - Points) titles. She retired during December 2011 following a hip injury sustained in a crash during her time with HTC-Highroad - an unfortunate end to a career from which she had planned to retire after the 2012 Olympics.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jacques van Meer (Netherlands, 1958); Kiyofumi Nagai (Japan, 1983); Michael Maue (West Germany, 1960); John Trevorrow (Australia, 1949); Jimena Florit (Argentina, 1972); Cuauthémoc Muñoz (Mexico, 1961); Alberto Minetti (Italy, 1957); Miguel Samacá (Colombia, 1946); Romulo Bruni (Italy, 1871, died 1939); Martin Riška (Slovakia, 1975); Omar Enrique Pumar (Venezuela, 1972); Gary Dighton (Great Britain, 1968); Katsuhiko Sato (Japan, 1943); Dzintars Lācis (USSR, 1940, died 1992); Lothar Thoms (East Germany, 1956).

Daily Cycling Facts 17.05.2013

The Giro d'Italia has started on this date eight times - 1930, 1940, 1952, 1975, 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1997. The 1930 edition consisted of fifteen stages - for the first time ever, some of them (Stages 1, 2 and 3) were held in Sicily - and covered 3,907km. The winner was Luigi Marchisio, who came third the following year, then scored three or four respectable results over the next two years before vanishing from the cycling world until his death at the age of 83 in 1992. He may very easily not have achieved his greatest win - Giro organisers had become worried that their race would be boring if Alfredo Binda won for a fifth time and paid him 22,500 lire (considerably more than Marchisio got when he won) to stay away. Aged 21 when he won, Marchisio is still the second-youngest victor ever: only Fausto Coppi, who was 20 when he won his first Giro in 1940, was younger. That year, the race had been extended to 20 stages but shortened to 3,574km. There are two versions of what happened that year.

Some say that, after the aging hero Gino Bartali crashed in Stage 3 and lost his chances of winning, Coppi set out to claim glory for their Legnano team. His chances too seemed to have been ruined after he broke his bike and lost significant time in Stage 5, but after a superhuman effort he successfully clawed his way back into contention and then took the race leadership from Enrico Mollo during Stage 10, after which the two of them worked together to ensure the younger man kept the lead all the way to the end of the race. Others say that, with the old hero Bartali out of the way, young upstart Coppi decided to grab the race for himself and the reason he road so hard was that he didn't want to share glory after Bartali sent the team after him. Either way, in the years to come the two men developed an intense rivalry that divided Italy.

Fausto Coppi

Coppi won again in 1952, the third of his five victories and a spectacular return after injury and the death of his younger brother Serse who had died after an accident at the Giro del Piemonte the previous year - having taken the lead in Stage 10, he attacked on every remaining climb and rode solo over the finish line, beating Fiorenzo Magni by 9'42" after 20 stages and 3,964km.

The 1975 Giro covered 3,933km in 21 stages and saw a superb win for a virtually-unknown Fausto Bertoglio  after taking the lead in Stage 13. The far more experienced Spanish climber Francisco Galdos did everything in his power to take the victory from him and eventually beat him to the finish line on the Passo del Stelvio - however, Bertoglio's overall time remained 41" shorter, and the race was his.


1979 consisted of 20 stages including a prologue, covering 3,301km. Francesco Moser was favourite, but the young Giuseppe Saronni shadowed him all the way and eventually gained a 1'24" lead in the Stage 8 time trial. Though doing so seemed an impossible task, he successfully retained his lead to the very end and even added to it; finally beating Moser by 2'09".

Francesco Moser
(image credit: Roadworks)

1984, a total of 22 stages and 3,784km, went to Moser. However, his win was controversial as there was some evidence - and many accusations - to suggest that race officials deliberately changed things to suit Moser and ensure that the Frenchman Laurent Fignon could not win. Among them are the allegations that the Stelvio stage (in which Fignon would almost certainly have beaten Moser) did not need to be cancelled - the reason given was snow, but photographs appear to show the road was clear; refusal to allow a team car to assist Fignon when he developed problems with his chain on Selva di Val Gardena; officials turning a blind eye when Moser was pushed up climbs by fans and even claims that the helicopter filming the race was positioned to provide Moser with a tail wind. It should be remembered, meanwhile, that while there is no doubt whatsoever that Moser was happy to cheat when he felt it necessary to do so, the 1984 parcours was far more suited to him that it was to Fignon and even if one assumes the Italian had temporarily turned over a new leaf the odds were in his favour. Felice Gimondi has identified three mistakes that, in his opinion, cost Fignon the race despite a heroic effort to change matters: 1. On the Blockhaus (Stage 5), a notoriously difficult climb in Abruzzo, Fignon attempted to set a pace too high for his own abilities and exhausted himself; 2. He attempted to out-sprint Moser and Moreno Argentin from 800m in Stage 6 and 3. He lost significant time after choosing too high a gear when trying to follow Roberto Visentini on a climb (Stage 13). Whatever happened, it would be Moser's sole Grand Tour triumph. Fignon, meanwhile, would win the next time the Giro started on this day in 1989 - when it was a refreshingly straight-forward 22-stage, 3,623km free of obvious skulduggery.

1997 victory for Ivan Gotti, who - despite another win in 1999, is almost entirely forgotten today, the reason being that his two Grand Tours were not won entirely fairly - he was caught out in a doping control in 2001, which brought his career to an end; then shortly afterwards his marriage broke up too. Today, Gotti is a sales agent for Ferrero, the well-known chocolate manufacturer. When discussing the way his cycling days ended and the way in which the cycling world went after dopers in the early years of the 21st Century, he sounds bitter; however, he seems happy enough overall with his new life.

Edvald Boasson Hagen

Edvald Boasson Hagen
(image credit: Petit Brun
CC BY-SA 2.0)

Edvald Boasson Hagen is a Norwegian cyclist who has found fame riding with the British Team Sky and is now considered to be one of cycling's greatest rising stars.

Born in Lillehammer on this day in 1987, Boasson Hagen became National Under-19 Road Race Champion in 2004 and then Road Race and Time Trial Champion the following year before turning professional with Maxbo-Bianchi in 2006. 2007 was his break-through year with fifteen victories; earning him a place with the legendary, tragically now-defunct Highroad for the next season - which also proved successful with three stages at the Tour of Britain, one at the Tour of the Benelux and, best of all, Stage 3 at the Criterium International.

In 2009 he won the prestigious Gent-Wevelgem, a Flanders Classic that ends with a sprint at the end of a very challenging parcours with several steep climbs and by doing so revealed his speciality - he was a lightning-fast sprinter but, unlike most sprinters, he could take serious abuse on the way to the final few metres. He also rode the Giro d'Italia, his first Grand Tour, that year. Most Grand Tour rookies will not finish, but Boasson Hagen won Stage 7, was second on two more, third on another and in the top ten in two others - an extremely impressive total, despite doing badly on others and coming 82nd overall. Later, he won the Points competition at the Tour of the Benelux - and, as the summer reached an end, announced that he would be joining the newly-formed Sky the following year.

During his first season with the British team, the young rider - still only 22 - did the unthinkable when he took on World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara in a time trial at the Tour of Oman and beat him by an incredible 17", enough to win him the overall Youth category and Points competition. Sky would prove to be his ideal home, giving him room to learn from more experienced riders yet also plenty of scope to keep winning races - he has been National Time Trial Champion at Elite level every year since 2007, won Stages 6 (the first time a stage had ever been won by a British-registered team) and 17 at the Tour de France and the General Classification at the Tour of the Benelux in 2011 (and the Points for a second consecutive year). Since the start of 2012, he has won the Points competition at the Tour Down Under and stages at the Volta ao Algarve and Tirreno-Adriatico. It seems only a matter of time before he wins a Grand Tour.

Joan Llaneras
Joan Llaneras, born in Porreras, Spain on this day in 1969, was partnered with Isaac Gálvez in the Madison at the 2006 Six Days of Ghent - the meet at which Gálvez collided with Dimitri De Fauw, hit the railings and died (De Fauw suffered terrible depression after the accident and took his own life three years later). Llaneras, who started out as a road racer but subsequently decided to concentrate on track cycling, considered giving the sport up afterwards.

Llaneras and Gálvez
(image credit: Olimpiaduerme)

"It was the first reaction," he explained. "Logical... natural... Normal after what had happened, but life goes on, and giving it all up, unfortunately, will not solve anything. In addition, the track is my life, is my dream, my family, it is almost everything to me." The year after the tragedy, Llaneras returned to racing - and won the Points Race at the World Championships. He also won the same event at the 2008 Olympics, then retired.


The Swedish rider Fredrik Kessiakoff, having won his National Mountain Bike Championship four times, defected to road cycling in 2009 with a contract to ride with Fuji-Servetto, the team that became Geox-TMC. A year later, he switched to Garmin-Transitions (now Garmin-Barracuda) and then in 2011 to Astana - with whom he won the Tour of Austria.

Beñat Albizuri, born in Berriz, Euskadi on this day in 1981, joined Euskaltel-Euskadi as a trainee in 2005 and then earned himself a professional contract after he came second on a stage at the Vuelta a la Rioja. Unfortunately, his results in the following years were not impressive and the team released him at the end of 2008. He seems to have then vanished from cycling altogether.

Czesław Lang, born in Kołczygłowy, Poland on this day in 1955, won the Tour of Poland in 1980. Since 1993, he has been director of the race.

On this day in 2009, Steve Peat beat fellow British rider Gee Atherton by 0.02" at the third round of the UCI World Cup and became officially the most successful professional downhill mountain biker of all time.

On this day in 1941, Alfred Letourneur used a Schwinn bike at the Los Angeles Speedway to set a new World Motor-paced Bicycle Speed Record at 175kph.

Other cyclists born on this day: Luke Ockerby (Australia, 1992); Michael McKay (Jamaica, 1964 - not to be confused with GreenEDGE CEO Michael McKay); Elisabeth Westman (Sweden, 1966); Wolfram Kurschat (Germany, 1975); Achille Souchard (France, 1900, died 1976); Mun Suk (South Korea, 1965); Junker Jørgensen (Denmark, 1946, died 1989).

Daily Cycling Facts 16.05.2013

The 25th edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1961, running from Liège to Charleroi for a second consecutive year. However, the parcours had been altered and as such was 15km shorter at 193km - the shortest in the 76-year history of the event. The winner was Willy Vannitsen who won more than 110 races during his 13 professional years, including Stage 1 at the 1958 Giro d'Italia and Stages 10 and 15 at the 1962 Tour de France, yet is virtually forgotten outside his native Belgium.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest and - according to some - greatest Classic of them all took place on this day in 1909. Eugène Charlier was the first over the line, but when officials discovered he hadn't finished the race on the same bike he started with his victory was disallowed - rather than being disqualified, as some sources claim, his time was recorded as being the same as that of Victor Fastre (and the next seven men, this being the first time that the race had ended with a bunch sprint) and he was relegated to second place. In third place was Paul Deman, winner four years later of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and then Paris-Roubaix in 1920 and Paris-Tours in 1923.

Alfredo Binda

The Giro d'Italia began on this day seven times - 1925, 1936, 1959, 1969, 1974, 1985 and 1998. The 1925 edition started and ended in Milan, with twelve stages covering a total of 3,520km. It is remembered - by those few people fortunate to have seen it and still be with us - as one of the most exciting ever due to an epic battle between Costante Girardengo, who fought long and hard through the mountains and won five stages, and Alfredo Binda who matched every attack he made to take the race lead from him and keep it for the final eight stages to win by 4'58".

1936 covered 3,745km in 19 stages, though Stages 15 and 17 were split - 15a was a short road stage, 15b an individual time trial, 17a and 17b were short road stages. Gino Bartali, who had won the Mountains classification the previous year, returned and performed even better to win the Mountains and his first General Classification, leading the race through the final twelve stages and winning two of them. Olimpio Bizzi won Stage 6 at the age of 18 years and 299 days, making him the youngest Giro stage winner ever.

Charly Gaul

1959 was made up if 22 stages and 3,657km - another epic year in which Luxembourg's Charly Gaul once again proved himself unbeatable in the mountains (or, as many will point out, proved himself capable of consuming larger quantities of la bomba), driving hard over the snowy peaks and continuing to push himself when others had exhausted themselves. Gaul was almost as good in a time trial as he was in the climbs, but he wasn't quite as good as Jacques Anquetil who took a 1'30" lead after Stage 2, then proceeded to slowly grind down his opponent's advantage until the race leadership passed to him in Stage 15. Going into Stage 20, the Frenchman still had the lead and many believed the race was as good as his. Then, in Stage 21, Gaul crushed him. Pushing so hard over three challenging mountain that nobody could get near him, he won by 9'48" and took back the leadership. Rolf Graf won the final stage, but Ancquetil may as well have not bothered - bettering what Gaul had done was far beyond even his capabilities.

1969 covered 3,851.3km in 22 stages and would be one of the most controversial editions ever due to a sample provided during Stage 16 by Eddy Merckx, found to be positive for N-ethyl-3-phenyl-norbornan-2-amine, a stimulant prescribed under the name Reactivan and still used, though rarely, in medicine today. For reasons that remain unknown, news of the sample and the rider's expulsion from the race was supplied to the press before he and his team management were notified and when he revealed that he had been offered money to throw the race by an un-named Italian rider the day before, suspicions that something nefarious was going on began to pick up speed. Prince Albert of Belgium sent his own aeroplane to bring him home and the government got involved, demanding an investigation from the Italian Foreign Minister. The Italian Federation continued to insist it had acted correctly and, while Merckx was subsequently given the go ahead to ride in that year's Tour de France, which he won, the official reason for his Giro expulsion has never been retracted. Many believe that the Belgian rider would have won but, with him out of the way, Felice Gimondi dominated the remainder of the race and took the overall General Classification. 43 years later, Merckx still says that the stage was such an easy one that he had no reason to resort to cheating, as does appear to be the case when we take his abilities into account, and to this day he insists he is innocent. So does the official who was in charge of the positive sample.

From left to right: Hinault, Maertens, Merckx and de Vlaeminck
(unknown copyright)

In 1974, Merckx won for the fifth time after 22 stages and 4,001km. While he led from Stage 14 to the end, it was noticeable at several points during the race, especially when Jose-Manuel Fuente and Gianbattista Baronchelli got into a duel in Stage 20 and raised the pace so high that Merckx nearly exhausted himself in his attempts to keep the leadership (in fact, Baronchelli was "leader on the road" for a while during the stage), that his reign was beginning to crumble. He would win the Tour as well that year, becoming for the fourth time one of the few riders to have won two Grand Tours in a season.

1985 came during the reign of the man commonly considered the second greatest cyclist after Merckx, Bernard Hinault who won for a third time. Taking third place after the 22 stages and 3,998km was Greg Lemond, who would slay the Badger the following year when he became the first American to win the Tour de France. When Hinault won the Tour later in the year, he won two Grand Tours in a season for the third time. Strangely, when the Giro next started on this date in 1998, winner Marco Pantani took the first step in adding his name to the list too because he also won the Tour that year. 1998 covered 3,868km in 22 stages.

Simon Gerrans
Simon Gerrans, born in Melbourne on this day in 1980, took up cycling after injuring his knee during childhood; the sport having been recommended to him by his neighbour, who was a reasonably successful rider himself - Phil Anderson, the first non-European to wear the maillot jaune at the Tour de France. It soon turned out that he wasn't bad at it either and he was awarded a scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport, where he began to develop into a world-class road racer.

Simon Gerrans
(image credit: GreenEDGE)

Gerrans' first major success was the Under-23 title at the National Championships of 2002, where he also took 5th in the Elite race. The big European teams were not slow in taking note and in 2003 he was invited to join Carvalhelhos-Boavista as a trainee after spending a short while with the Norwegian team Ringerike, then a year later AG2R Prévoyance with whom he turned professional in 2005 and entered the Tour de France for the first time, surprising many by coming third in Stage 17 and leaving no doubt that he was a new talent - one that could very easily have been ended in February the next year with a crash at the GP d'Ouverture la Marseillaise which left him with pins in his collarbone and shoulder as well as several stitches to repair flesh wounds to his head. He recovered quickly and rode his second Tour that year, improving his General Classification result from 126th to 79th, then dropped to 94th in 2007.

In 2008, having moved on to Crédit Agricole, he won Stage 15 after sprinting to the finish without challenge from the other surviving two riders of a four-man break that had escaped early in the stage and managed to stay out in front. The next year he joined the legendary Cervelo Test Team, but managers mystified fans by failing to pick him for the Tour squad. However, he did go to the Giro d'Italia, where he won Stage 14 (Cervelo's first Grand Tour stage win), and the Vuelta a Espana where he won Stage 10; thus becoming the first Australian rider to have won a stage at all three Grand Tours. 2010 saw him depart for the new British team Sky, with whom he went back to the Tour. Another crash ended his chances in Stage 8 and left him with a broken arm. He stayed with Sky through 2011 and began to show promise as a Classics rider, taking third at the Amstel Gold, second at the Waalse Pijl and 12th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, then third for Stage 2 at the Tour.

In 2011, it was announced that a new team, GreenEDGE, was being put together and stood a very good chance of being the first Australian team to receive a ProTour licence from the UCI. Gerrans was invited join and did so - which, in 2012, looked to have been a very wise decision. With them, he became National Champion for the first time, won a second Tour Down Under and then added the highlight of his career so far - victory at the legendary Milan-San Remo Monument when he beat Fabian Cancellara.

Matthias Kessler

The German rider Matthias Kessler, born in Nuremburg on this day in 1979, was little known outside his own nation until 2000 when he turned professional with Deutsche Telekom. In 2001 he finished in the top 5 for two stages at the Giro d'Italia but remained little known - until he was widely proclaimed an outside favourite for the Classics in 2003 on the strength of 6th place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2002 and soon caught the public's attention for his habit of unzipping his jersey and deliberately ripping his undershirt to keep cool. He finished the Amstel Gold Race in 5th place in 2003, then La Flèche Wallonne in 3rd a year later.

Unfortunately, what could have been a great career was marred by bad luck and doping. In the 2004 Tour de France he was left in agony after a bad crash and, while he finished the stage, didn't start the next day. In 2007, he provided a sample that was shown to contain unusually high levels of testosterone; leading to his dismissal from Astana a short while later. Things began to fall apart from that point on and he experienced difficulty in finding a new contract once his two-year ban came to an end. In 2010, while on a training ride in Algaida, Mallorca, he accidentally collided with a cat. The resulting crash left him with serious head injuries.

Other cyclists born on this day: Roger de Beukelaer (Belgium, 1951); Roberts Plūme (Latvia, 1897, died 1956); Im Sang-Jo (South Korea, 1930); Pål Henning Hansen (Norway, 1953); Juan Reyes (Cuba, 1944); Wilhelm Rabe (Germany, 1876); Antonio Hernández (Mexico, 1951); Lennie Kristensen (Denmark, 1968); Gustavo Guglielmone (Argentina, 1971).

Daily Cycling Facts 15.05.2013

Carlo Galetti

The Giro d'Italia has started on this date seven times - 1911, 1926, 1927, 1948, 1965, 1980 and 1999. The 1911 edition was the third and marked the 50th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, starting and ending in Rome to mark the occasion and covering 3,526km in twelve stages - an increase on the first two editions when it had been eight and then ten stages. Carlo Galetti won for a second consecutive year (he would have won again in 1912, but the organisers decided that year that only team results would be counted) and Lucien Petit-Breton, who headed the General Classification during Stage 9, became the first French rider to have led the race. 86 riders started, only 24 finished.

1926 retained the twelve stage format and covered 3,429km. The winner, Giovanni Brunero, became the first rider to three Giro victories after gaining 20' on 1925 winner Alfredo Binda, winning Stage 8 and then working hard to keep Binda from the General Classification leadership for the remainder of the race after Costante Girardengo - then drawing towards the end of his career but still very capable of winning races, including two stages in this one) - abandoned having led for three days. Binda was unstoppable the next year, 1927, when he won twelve of the fifteen stages and led the General Classification throughout the full 3,758km starting and ending in Milan, beating Brunero by 27'24".

Fiorenzo Magni

Fiorenzo Magni won in 1948, covering the 19 stages and 4,164km in 124h51'52", but it was not a popular victory. For a start, he was never a popular figure among other riders on account of his political views, which are said to have been shockingly right-wing. Secondly, he received a little bit of assistance from his fans who had been seen pushing him up some of the climbs, which in turn caused a third factor - furious at the cheating, Italian cycling's new darling Fausto Coppi withdrew in protest. The 1965 edition was held five years after Coppi's death. To mark it, organisers introduced the Cima Coppi prize which is still awarded for the fastest rider to the top of each edition's highest point - Graziano Battistini won it, being the first man over the Stage 20 finish line on the Passo Stelvio. The race covered a total of 4,051km in 22 stages and the overall winner was Vittorio Adorno, a victory termed the finest since Coppi by the press.

1980 was again 22 stages and covered 4,025km. Attention was immediately turned to a new rider in the race, Bernard Hinault who had already won two editions of the Tour de France. Having won Stage 14, Hinault proved what he was capable of by gaining 8' with help from team mate Jean-Rene Bernaudeau on Stelvio and thus took the race lead - which he kept for the rest of the race, becoming the first man to have won all three Grand Tours on his first attempt.

Marco Pantani
(image credit: Aldo Bolzan CC BY-SA 3.0) 

1999 had 22 stages over 3,757km and saw controversy when Marco Pantani - who had won the Giro and the Tour the year before - recorded a suspiciously high haematocrit reading prior to Stage 21; indication of a blood transfusion or (more likely in this case) EPO for which he was ejected from the race. His entire Mercatone Uno-Bianchi went with him. In Stage 13, Pantani's chain had come off as he climbed the Dolomites, causing him to lose 30" - however, once he'd fixed it he got back on and powered straight past the other riders to win the stage, leading Laurent Jalabert to claim, "Pantani is too strong!" and the press to dub the race The Pantani Show. With him and his team out of the way, the race became a free-for-all as numerous riders and squads realised that all of a sudden they were back in contention. Ivan Gotti won with a 3'35" advantage over Paolo Salvodelli, but to this day there are many who will argue that the race should have been Pantani's.

Yvonne Hijgenaar
(image credit: Nicola CC BY-SA 3.0)

Yvonne Hijgenaar
Like so many Dutch cyclists, Yvonne Hijgenaar - born in Alkmaar on this day in 1980 - came to cycling from speed skating, a sport in which she represented her nation. She made the switch in 2001, having taken up track cycling as a training regime and realising that she was able to beat male opponents and that same year became Dutch 500m Champion. In 2002 she added the Sprint title, then kept both in 2003 and took the Keirin too. Retaining all three in 2004, she went to the Olympics with high hopes but with track cycling a relatively minor sport in the Netherlands found herself outclassed, missing out on medals.

2005 brought bronze medals for the 500m and Keirin at the World Championships and she once again won 500m, Sprint and Keirin the Nationals. Realising that she was a serious talent, the National Federation gave her permission to train with the Australian team. However, 10th place in the qualifying round prevented her going through to the Sprint final at the 2008 Olympics, but a bronze for the Omnium at the Worlds in 2009 - the first time the event had featured - showed she still had form.

Hijgenaar won a total of twelve National Championships, but has not regained them in the years since - though a selection of silver and bronze medals illuminate her palmares. In 2012, Hijgenaar said that if she didn't win a medal at the Olympics, she would retire.


Niklas Axelsson
Niklas Axelsson, born in Västerås on this day in 1972, finished in sixth place at the 1999 Giro d'Italia; a remarkable result since it was his first Grand Tour. When he was third at the Giro di Lombardia a year later, it began to look as though a serious new Swedish talent was on the scene - and the next year he won a silver medal at the National Road Race Championship, apparently confirming it. Unfortunately, he didn't attain those early victories entirely through his own effort. At the World Championships in 2001, he became one of the first athletes to be caught out by the then-new cyclelectrophoresis and isoelectric focusing methods of detecting EPO and confessed. His honestly was not viewed favourably by the Svenska Cykelförbundet, which handed him an unusually long four-year ban.

In time, the National Federation relented and allowed him to return to competition in 2004. He then experienced two dry years without wins before coming second at the 2006 Giro della Romagna and third at the following year's GP Industria Artigianato e Commercio Carnaghese. This did not prove to be a sign that his luck had returned, because in 2007 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer - thankfully, the disease was detected sufficiently early for therapy to enable him to make a full recovery, and he once again began racing.

This time, his results were immediately better. He came third in two stages at Tirreno-Adriatico, won a stage at the GP Industria Artigianato e Commercio Carnaghese and outright at the Swedish Solleröloppet race, then took a silver medal at the National Championships in 2008. In 2009 he was 7th overall at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, then 9th at the GP Industria & Commercio di Prato - the race that would be his downfall. Apparently worried that, as had been the case after his first ban, he once again turned to EPO; and it was announced in 2010 that he had failed a test on the 20th of September, the day the race had been held.

As a four-year ban hadn't taught him a lesson, the Svenska Cykelförbundet banned him for life.

Anna Blyth

Anna Blyth
(image credit: Prendas Cyclismo)

Anna Blyth, born in Leeds on this day in 1988, began track racing in childhood and was good enough to come to the attention of British Cycling during a race at her school, Benton Park. Having been invited to join their development program, it wasn't long before she began to repay them - in 2005 she won the National Junior 500m Time Trial and sSprint titles and took a silver medal for the Sprint and bronze for Keirin at the Junior Worlds.

She kept her British titles in 2006 and added gold for the Scratch race, took three silver medals in the Nationals racing at Elite level and a bronze in the 500m TT at the European Championships  - and, better still,  silver for the Sprint and gold for the Keirin at the Junior Worlds. 2007 brought gold in the Keirin at the Under-23 European Championships along with two silver medals at the Nationals and another at the Track World Cup, then she won the National 500m TT and Team Sprint in 2008 and the Under-23 Scratch at the European Championships in 2009. 2010 and 2011 have been quieter, her best result a bronze medal for the Scratch at the Commonwealth Games in India; but as she now moves into Elite level racing we are likely to see more victories in the coming years.


Bruno Pires, born in Redondo, Portugal on this day in 1981, had ridden for numerous UCI Continental teams before moving up a level when he was invited to join the emergent LeopardTrek at the end of 2010. LeopardTrek had been founded around the Luxembourgian Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank, who took several riders with them when they departed their previous home SaxoBank. When LeopardTrek merged with RadioShack for 2012, Pires was not one of the riders to make the transition and instead moved to SaxoBank. His best results to date have been winning the 2006 National Road Race Championship and third place overall at the 2008 Vuelta Ciclista Asturias.

Pierre Trentin, a French cyclist born in Créteil on this day in 1944, started racing at the age of 14. Having set up a leather-working business when he left school, he won a Junior National Championship title when he was 17 and a bronze medal for the 1km TT at the 1964 Olympics, then two golds in 1968 - also setting a new Amateur 1km World Record - and another bronze in 1972.

Edy Schütz, born in Tetange, Luxembourg in this day in 1941, won the 1964 Österreich-Rundfahrt and then two years later the Tour of Luxembourg, Stage 18 at the Tour de France and the National Road Race Championship - which he retained for the next five years until 1971.

Other cyclists born on this day: Maurizio Casadei (San Marino, 1962); Hussain Mahmoudi Shahvar (Iran, 1962); Gustaaf de Smet (Belgium, 1935); Anton Gerrits (Netherlands, 1885, died 1969); Masamitsu Ehara (Japan, 1969); Alain van Lancker (France, 1947); Ivan Trifonov (USSR, 1948); Jørgen Marcussen (Denmark, 1950); Tomas Pettersson (Sweden, 1947); Sergey Lavrinenko (Kazakhstan, 1972); Ferdinand Duchoň (Czechoslovakia, 1938); Jaramillo (Colombia, 1951); Piotr Przydział (Poland, 1974); Francisco Valada (Portugal, 1941); Henry Kaltenbrunn (South Africa, 1897, died 1971); Jan Chlístovský (Czechoslovakia, 1934); Alain Moineau (France, 1928, died 1986).

Daily Cycling Facts 14.05.2013

Giovanni Gerbi

The eighth edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1944. The parcours was identical to the previous year, covering 208km between Mons and Charleroi. Marcel Kint won, the second of his three consecutive victories.

The Giro d'Italia has started on this day twice, in 1932 and 1955. 1932 consisted of thirteen stages and covered 3,235km, completed in Antonio Pesenti in a winning time of 105h42'41". It was the last time that Costante Girardengo, two months past his 39th birthday as the race began, took part; he abandoned during Stage 5. Older still was Giovanni Gerbi who, aged 47, became National Veteran Champion that same year. Incredibly, Gerbi rode in the third in the Giro of 1911 and come third. He was also the winner of the 1905 Giro di Lombardia. Sadly, he also would not finish this race.

In 1955, the 21 stages covered 3,861.km and saw an epic battle between Fiorenzo Magni, Gastone Nencini and Fausto Coppi. Coppi's Stage 20 victory would be his last in the Giro, while Magni won overall - then aged 35, he is the oldest rider to have won the race.

Nicki Sørensen
Nicki Sørensen, born in Hillerød on this day in 1975, is a Danish professional cyclist who currently rides for SaxoBank - with whom he has remained, through their various incarnations, since 2001 when he turned down the Linda McCartney team. Prior to that he had ridden with Chicky World and then Fakta, having begun cycling at the age of 19 after a successful amateur career as a runner.

Nicki Sørensen
(image credit: YellowMonkey/Blnguyan CC BY-SA 3.0) 

A all-rounder who performs well on hilly stages, Sørensen has always been capable of gaining good results, such as 4th place in Stage 16 when he rode his first Tour de France in his first year with SaxoBank. Yet, despite having almost certainly had the potential to lead a team when he was younger, he was happy to spend his career as a superdomestique and has been highly valued by a series of General Classification contenders in that role, notably Tyler Hamilton in the 2003 Tour: Sørensen, in a break that looked as though it had a real shot at making it all the way to the finish, was riding well and stood a good chance of winning Stage 16. Instead, he threw away his own prospects for glory and assisted his leader, seeing to it that Hamilton won the stage.

Nevertheless, his palmares is impressive. In addition to a Tour stage win and Combativity award (Stage 12, 2009), several stages in other events and a smattering of victories at one-day races, he was National Road Race Champion in 2003, 2008, 2010 and 2011. Few riders have deserved their titles so much.

SaxoBank team mate Matteo Tosatto, born in Castelfranco Veneto in 1974, shares Sørensen's birthday. Tosatto won a stage at Paris-Nice in 2000, Stage 12 at the Giro d'Italia in 2001 and Stage 18 at the Tour in 2006; as well as a number of successes at smaller events.

Angharad Mason 
Angharad Mason, born in Bridgend, Wales on this day in 1979, is a cyclist who represented her nation at the 2008 Commonwealth Games in India, then won the silver medal at the Welsh Championships a year later and the bronze in 2011; in both cases being beaten by Hannah Rich in first place.

Mason came relatively late to cycling after spending time competing in other sports - she is a karate black belt and at one time ran as many as nine marathons a year. Following the tradition of female cyclists tending to be far better-qualified than the men, she is a qualified physiotherapist and holds an honours degree from the University of Salford.


Born in Eckmannshausen, Germany, on this day in 1949, Klaus-Peter Thaler was race leader for two stages at the 1978 Tour de France after Ti-Raleigh won the team time trial and came 35th overall, his best result from the five times he rode. He was, meanwhile, massively successful in cyclo cross, winning the National title every year between 1976 and 1979, then 1982 and 1986-1988 as well as the World Championships of 1985 and 1987. Today, he organises the Tour of Hope which raises money for childhood cancer charities.

Lars-Petter Nordhaug had already been Nordic Cross CountryMountain Biking Champion at Elite level when he won the Norwegian Under-23 Road Race Championship in 2005 - but the two titles in two disciplines were not enough for Tønsberg-born cyclist, who was born on this day in 1984: so the next year he won the Elite Road Race too. Then, having surrendered the title for four years, he became XC MTB Champion for a second time in 2009 and won two stages, the Points competition and the overall General Classification at the Festningsrittet, one of Scandinavia's most prestigious races. In 2009, having come second overall at the Tour of Ireland, he joined Team Sky and remains with them to this day.

Daily Cycling Facts 13.05.2013

Stefano Garzelli
(image credit: Sebastián García CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Giro d'Italia started on this date five times - 1909 (see below), 1981, 1982, 1995 and 2000. In 1981, the race consisted of 22 stages and covered 3,895km. The winner was Giovanni Battaglin who had also won the amateur version of the race nine years earlier and would go on to win the Vuelta a Espana five months later, one of only three men to have won both races in a single season. The 1982 edition was again 22 stages, but it had grown to 4,010.5km. Bernard Hinault won, then won the Tour de France - the Giro/Tour double being considered a more impressive achievement than the Giro/Vuelta though seven men have achieved it, three of them twice (Hinault became one of them in 1985) and one three times (that, as tends to be the case with unique road racing achievements, being Eddy Merckx).

By 1995, the race had shrunk down to 3,736km but retained the 22 stage format. Marco Pantani had been a favourite but was kept away by injury, which left the unusual spectacle of sprinter and a climber battling one another for victory: Mario Cipollini was the sprinter and Tony Rominger was the climber, and they fought one another tooth and nail but on different stages all the way to the end. In the end, Rominger's secondary ability in the time trials stood him in good stead and he won the race. In 2000 there were 21 stages and a prologue, adding up to 3,676km in total. Stefano Garzelli won with 98h30'14".

The First Giro d'Italia

Luigi Ganna, photographed
shortly after finishing Stage 8
at the first Giro d'Italia

1909 was the very first edition of the Giro d'Italia. Organised like most races of the day to advertise a newspaper (La Gazzetta dello Sport on this case; which like L'Auto, the paper that organised the Tour de France, wanted to out-sell and ideally completely crush a rival title - the difference being that whereas L'Auto's rival Le Vélo was dead and buried within a year of the first Tour, Corriere della Sera sells around 220,000 more copies each day than La Gazzetta.

The race covered 2,445km over eight stages which, despite the daunting prospect of stages an average of 306km in length (the longest was in fact 397km, Stage 1), makes it the shortest edition ever held. Stage racing was a new concept when the Tour started in 1903 and as a result only 60 riders took part - and then only because director Henri Desgrange halved the entry fee and increase the prizes - but six years later the idea was both established and popular with a number of smaller events having sprung up in the intervening years (sadly, none have survived. The Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, first run in 1911, is the world's third oldest stage race), so 123 Italians and four Frenchmen showed up at the start line. Another similarity with the Tour was that the results were decided on points in early editions, rather than on overall elapsed time as is the case today, with the lowest number of points getting the win. Luigi Ganna, born in Induno Olana in 1883, was declared victor with 25 - had it have been decided in the modern manner, his time of 89h48'14" would have seen Giovanni Rossignoli (third place with 40 points) take the honour.

The race started and finished in Milan, the riders setting off on Stage 1 at 02:53 in the morning. Ganna's prize was 5,325 lira, while La Gazzetta editor and race director Eugenio Costamagna was paid the princely sum of 150 lira. La Gazzetta, incidentally, was and still is printed on pink paper - which is why the race leader's jersey, known as the maglia rosa and first adopted in 1931, is pink; just as the Tour de France's maillot jaune is yellow to reflect the yellow paper used by L'Auto.

Marianne Vos - very possibly the greatest
cyclist in the history of the sport
(image credit: Maarten Thys CC BY 3.0)

Marianne Vos
If you've been reading these Daily Cycling Facts and wondering, as I did while writing them, why it is that an apparently smaller number of notable professional professional cyclists were born in May than any other month, here's the reason: when Marianne Vos was born on this day in 1987, she was given the entire month's-worth of talent for several years in either direction.

A native of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, Vos' father and brother were both keen cyclists and, when she was five, she decided that she'd like to have a go too. Her first bike was too big for her, but even then she refused to give up. By the time she was six she was out training two nights a week. A few years later, she was taken to see the Alpe d'Huez stage of the Tour de France and spent much of her time hanging around the hotels to meet riders - it's tempting to wonder any of them remember the little Dutch girl who asked them for their autograph, now that her career has eclipsed all of theirs. In fact, and with the arguable exception of Eddy Merckx, Vos has now eclipsed all those who came before her; she is quite simply a phenomenal athlete and very welcome to younger fans who missed out on seeing the greats of days gone by, riders such as Hinault, Ancquetil, Burton, Bartali, Coppi and, of course, Merckx himself.

Vos has won all of the most prestigious races in women's road cycling including three World Road Race Championships (2004 Junior Championships, 2006 and 2012 Elite Championships, two European Championships, six National Championships and an Olympic Road Race gold medal in 2012. In addition, she has won two National Time Trial championships (despite claiming not to be very good at time trials), more than 70 stages, 18 criteriums and 30 general classifications. By her 26th birthday, on this day in 2013, her total number of victories in road racing, cyclo cross, track and mountain biking added up to 279. Merckx clocked up 525 by the time he retired shortly before his 33rd birthday; at 26 it's entirely likely that Marianne is just about to enter her best years (it's worth noting that when Merckx was 26, he had won around 40 fewer races than Marianne) - the great Belgian has been asked for his thoughts on her by several journalists and makes it clear that he admires her enormously, perhaps even expecting her to beat his tally sooner or later.

Vos is also known for being one of the most personable professional cyclists around. Highly intelligent and articulate, she regularly talks to fans on Twitter and is as popular among the riders who race against her as she is with her supporters. If you don't already follow women's cycling, Vos is one of many reasons to start doing so - all indications suggest that we have not seen her like in professional cycling before, one who is limited not by her own abilities but by the number of races available to her.

Johnny Hoogerland 

Johnny Hoogerland
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Born in Yerseke, Netherlands on this day in 1983, Johnny Hoogerland became one of the stars of the 2011 Tour de France for his repeated attacks, five days in the polka dot jersey as leader of the King of the Mountains classification and a horrific crash that could very easily have ended his career.

Nicknamed The Bull of Beveland due to a large tattoo depicting a bull on his arm, Hoogerland came to international attention when he won the Junior Tour of Flanders in 2001 and then followed it up with numerous wins over the next few years, including the tough GP Briek Schotte - a race designed to reveal those riders who can be aid to be Flandriens, the toughest cyclists of them all, of which Schotte is considered to be the definitive example.

Hoogerland - a Flandrien to the core
(unknown copyright, believed public domain due to widespread use)

It was at the 2011 Tour that Hoogerland proved just how tough he is. During Stage 9, as he cycled alongside Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha, an inattentive driver in France Télévisions official car realised he was about to hit a tree. Rather than slamming on the car's brakes - as all drivers at the Tour are trained to do - he swerved right, hitting the two riders. Flecha hit the road hard and received extensive bruising, but Hoogerland was catapulted into a barbed wire fence hard enough to smash a wooden fence post and become entangled in the wire, which tore his shorts to shreds and left him with deep lacerations to his buttocks and legs.

Both men got back on their bikes and finished the stage. Organisers extended the maximum permitted time so that they could do without being disqualified, then jointly awarded them what must have been the most-deserved Combativity Award for many years. Afterwards, Hoogerland was given 33 stitches.

Peter Longbottom
Peter Longbottom, born in Huddersfield on this day in 1959, was one of those cyclists whom were there any justice in this world would have been a household name. Respected among cyclists for his superb tactical mind, he was for many years in high demand among Tour of Britain teams for his ability to re-organise a team "on the road" according to rider performance, terrain, weather, opponents and a host of variable factors; frequently getting it correct and driving his team mates on to victory even when aware that he himself could not win. His skills saw him ride with Chris Boardman, assisting him at the Commonwealth Games, yet he chose never to turn professional and worked a full-time job even during the racing season.

Longbottom retired from competition in 1996 and spent the remaining two years of his life encouraging young people to take up the sport. On the 10th of February 1998, he was hit by a car on the A64 near York, the impact throwing him onto the opposite carriageway where eye-witnesses say he was hit by several vehicles


Gerrit de Vries, born in Oldeberkoop, Netherlands on this day in 1967 (and, so far as we can tell, no relation to Marijn de Vries of AA Drink-Leontien.nl) shared victory in the 1986 Amateur World Team Time Trial Championship. A a professional rider he took part in six editions of the Tour de France, his best result being 34th overall in 1991.

Eugène Van Roosbroeck was born in Antwerp on this day in 1928. At the time of writing, he is the oldest of the three surviving members of the gold medal-winning road race team at the 1948 Olympics.

Nino Schurter, born in Tersnaus, Switzerland on this day in 1986, was World Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion in 2009.

Other cyclists born on this day: David López García (Euskadi, 1981); Tony Gowland (Great Britain, 1965); Fitzgerald Joseph (Belize, 1967); Morten Sæther (Norway, 1959); Marc Blouin (Canada, 1953); Josef Landsberg (Sweden, 1890, died 1964); Domenico Cecchetti (San Marino, 1941); Eugène Van Roosbroeck (Belgium, 1928); Pavel Cherkasov (USSR, 1972); Edoardo Severgnini (Italy, 1904, died 1969); Thomas Harrison (Australia, 1942); Mark Barry (Great Britain, 1964).

Daily Cycling Facts 12.05.2013

Alfredo Binda

The Giro d'Italia has begun on this date five times; 1928, 1953, 1983, 1986, and 2007. 1928 covered 3,044km over twelve stages, six of them won by Alfredo Binda who led the General Classification from the fourth stage to the end. Albino Binda won Stage 8 after Alfredo, his brother, urged him to attack as the peloton slowed to wait for him to change a tyre. By 1953 the race had adopted the 21-stage format that it has today and covered a total of 4,035km - it also saw the first inclusion of the Passo di Stelvio, at 2,757m the second-highest pass in the Alps, which Fausto Coppi used to his tactical advantage by attacking leader Hugo Koblet and going on to win outright.

30 years later in 1983, the race had increased to 22 stages but shrunk to 3,916km. The winner was Giuseppe Saronni, who had also won Milan-San Remo that year; however, had Saronni not have won stage bonuses, Roberto Visentini would have won - as he did in 1986 when he beat Saronni by more than a minute. Once again, there were 22 stages and the length shrunk to 3,858km; the race being shaken by controversy when the American Greg Lemond made an official complaint to organisers that Italian riders had illegally drafted behind him in the Stage 11 individual time trial and the (Italian) organisers chose to overlook the incident.

The 2007 Giro d'Italia
In 2007, the race was held for the 90th time. Back down to 21 stages, it covered 3,486km and included three stages on Sardinia. Danilo di Luca won the General Classification while Andy Schleck took second place and won the Youth Category. Three doping scandals hit the race that year: Iban Mayo was found to have abnormally high testosterone levels, but the Basque rider was rapidly cleared when his Saunier Duval-Prodir team produced evidence to show that not only was this natural, they'd also already informed the UCI of it and provided evidence from a doctor confirming it.

Danilo di Luca
(image credit: Pitert CC BY-SA 3.0)

A sample provided by Swiss-born Italian Leonardo Piepoli was found to contain 1,800 nanograms per milliliter of the asthma drug Salbutamol, a considerably higher level than would be expected through normal medical usage (the maximum amount permitted in samples provided by athletes who have a genuine medical reason to use the drug is 1,000 nanograms per milliliter), but he was cleared by the Italian Federation (two years later, he would be banned for two years after he confessed to using EPO). Alessandro Pettachi was not so fortunate - he too tested positive for an abnormally high level of Salbutamol with 1,352 nanograms per milliliter. The Italian Federation also refused to sanction him, but although the figure was lower and the Court of Arbitration in Sport found that he had probably not intentionally doped (while declaring him negligent in not observing the "utmost caution" required of all athletes when using medicines), he was stripped of his five stages wins and banned for one year. He was subsequently fired by his Milram team, but would later make a triumphant return to professional cycling with three stage wins at the 2008 Tour of Britain and then, in 2009, two at the Giro. One year after that, he won the Points Competition at the Tour de France.

Winner Danilo di Luca also provided a suspicious sample. Having been found to be clean in a test taken immediately after Stage 17, he was then subjected to a random control some hours later. Doctors claimed that hormone levels in the second sample were like "those of a child," thus leading them to suspect that he was either using a masking agent to disguise the presence of some other, unknown drug or that he had received a blood transfusion in the intervening time after the first test. However, they could not provide sufficient evidence for him to be disqualified and his results remained intact - but 2008 would be a quiet year as many races, loathe to risk scandal, chose not to invite his LPR Brakes-Ballan team to take part. In 2009, they received a wildcard entry to race in the Giro and his luck ran out - he tested positive for EPO after Stages 11 and 18, which led to a two-year ban (reduced on appeal to nine months and seven days) and a €280,000 fine (reduced to €106,400).

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

Beryl Burton
On this day in 1937, Beryl Charnock was born in Halton near Leeds. She was not a healthy child and suffered a series of chronic illnesses, once remaining in hospital for fifteen months with rheumatic fever, a  sometimes fatal disease that can leave patients permanently disabled.

However, Beryl got better and, having been introduced to the sport by her husband Charlie Burton, began cycling. She turned out to have quite a considerable talent for it, too - in fact, she won seven World Championships and more than 90 National titles, in addition to winning a World title in track cycling almost every year for 30 years. In the British time trial scene, Burton was quite literally unbeatable when she was at her best and she remained at her best for a very long time, winning the Road Time Trials Council’s British Best All-Rounder Competition for an incredible 25 consecutive years.

Beryl Burton, 12.05.1937 - 08.05.1996

As well as racing, Burton set new records with around 50 to her name, including 10, 25 and 50-mile records that would not be broken for 20 years, a 100-mile record that stood for 28 years and in 1967 a 12-hour record that still stands today. Whilst setting it, she caught and passed Mike McNamara as he was riding to a new men's 12-hour record and passed him a licorice allsort. McNamara covered 276.52 (445.02km) miles for his record. Burton covered  277.25 miles (446.19km). No man would beat her for two years.

In common with many people who have suffered rheumatic fever, Burton experienced heart complaints throughout her life and had to learn to live with arrhythmia. Yet, it was not in the heat of competition that she died - while out on her bike delivering birthday party invitations on the 8th of May in 1996, four days before she turned 59, she had a heart attack.

Burton was added to the Cycling Weekly's Golden Book of Cycling - a single-copy manuscript that pays homage to Britain's best cyclists - in 1960. By 1991, she had won so many races that it became necessary to give her a second page, something that had never happened before in the book's six-decade history nor in the 21 years since. She is now widely recognised as the greatest athlete Britain has ever produced.

Cath Swinnerton
Burton was not the only successful female British cyclist born on this day - 21 years after she was born, Cath Swinnerton came into the world at Fenton in Staffordshire. Swinnerton was twice a bronze medal winner at the National Road Race Championships and twice silver - and won the gold in 1977 and 1984.

With her brother Paul (a racing cyclist himself) and their extended cycling family, she now runs Swinnerton Cycles - a chain of bike shops established by their grandparents in 1915. The first shop is still in business and can be found at 69 Victoria Road, Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent (53° 0'6.74"N 2° 9'41.86"W).

Adelin Benoit, 12.05.1900 - 18.06.1954

Belgian Adelin Benoit, born in Châtelet (where René Magritte spent much of his childhood) on this day in 1900, was an all-but-unknown newcomer at the 1925 Tour de France. The peloton was therefore surprised when he held the maillot jaune through stages 3, 4, 5 and 6, then  took eleven minutes from the great Ottavio Bottecchia in the Pyrénées to wear it for a fifth and final day. He never managed anything quite so spectacular again, though three stage wins in later editions and one victory at the 560km one-day Bordeaux-Paris are impressive.

On this day in 2002, Frenchman Eric Barone set a new record for highest downhill speed achieved on a standard production bicycle at 163kph on the slopes of Cerro Negro, a volcano in Nicaragua. The record would not be beaten until 2011, and then by less than 2kph. Barone holds the current record for custom-built bikes too, having reached 222kph in 2000.

Damian McDonald was an Australian cyclist born in Wangaratta, Victoria in 1972 and a gold medalist in the 2004 Commonwealth Games. He died on the 23rd of March 2007 in the Burnley Tunnel Explosion that occurred after a crash and fire in the Melbourne tunnel.

On this day in 2012, rumours began to circulate in public that RadioShack-Nissan boss Johan Bruyneel had served with a subpoena as he stepped off his plane and onto US soil this week on his way to the Tour of California. Many people believed that the subpoena was part of an ongoing investigation into doping at the US Postal team during the time of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France victories - as in fact turned out to be the case when Armstrong was stripped of his seven victories. As of this date in 2013, the case is still ongoing.

Other cyclists born on this day: Andreas Hestler (Canada, 1970); Suwan Ornkerd (Thailand, 1941); Lieselot Decroix (Belgium, 1987); Jozef Schoeters (Belgium, 1947); Gunnar Andersen (Denmark, 1911, died 1981); Zeragaber Gebrehiwot (Ethiopia, 1956); Gustaaf Hermans (Belgium, 1951); Héctor Palacio (Colombia, 1969); Jürgen Barth (Germany, 1943, died 2011).