Daily Cycling Facts 28.09.2013

Léon Devos

Today is the anniversary of the 1919 edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the ninth ever held and the latest calendar date in the 120-year history of the race - as the first in the wake of the First World War, many of the riders who had been on the start lines before racing in Europe was halted by the conflict were no longer around. The parcours was 237km in length and winner Léon Devos also spelled De Vos, took 9h20'30" to complete it after battling through snow to get there.

Trixi Worrack
Born in Cottbus, East Germany on this day in 1981, Trixi Worrack became Junior World Individual Time Trial Champion in 1998, then came third in the same event and second in the Junior World Road Race Championship a year later.

In 2000, she signed her first professional contract with Red Bull Frankfurt and finished Stage 4 of the Women's Challenge in third place. She remained with the team the following year and won Stage 7 at the Women's Challenge, was third at La Flèche Wallonne and fourth in the National Elite ITT Championship. From 2003 to 2009 she rode for Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung; in 2003 she became National Road Race Champion and was second in the Holland Ladies' Tour, then in 2004 she won the Tour de l'Aude, the Krasna Lipa and the Giro della Toscana. In 2005 she won the Primavera Rosa (the women's version of Milan-San Remo); in 2006 he was second at the Holland Ladies' Tour for a third time, also coming second in the World Road Race Championship; in 2007 she was second at the Tour de l'Aude; in 2008 she became National Points Race Champion and in 2009 she won Stage 8 at the Giro Donne and the National ITT Championship.

Worrack at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt, 2012

Worrack joined German team Noris Cycling for 2010 and dominated the Czech Tour, winning all five stages and the General Classification; then in 2011 she raced for AA Drink-Leontien.nl and came fourth at the Trophée d'Or Féminin and won Stage 5 at the Giro della Toscana. She moved on to Specialized-Lululemon for 2012 and has been an instrumental rider in a spectacular first year for the team, starting off the season with a Stage 2 victory and second place overall at the Tour of Qatar, then came third at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and won Stage 3 at the Gracia Orlova and Stages 3 and 4 and second place overall at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt. She also rode with Lululemon's victorious squad at the World Team Time Trial Championship and took eighth place at the World ITT Championship. At the London Olympics, she was ninth in the ITT.

In 2013, Worrack became National Cyclo Cross Champion. On the road, still with Lululemon, she came second on Stage 2 and fifth overall at the Tour of Qatar and second at the Classica Cita di Padova during the Spring races, then came second in the time trial and first in the road race at the National Championships and was sixth overall at the Boels Rental Ladies Tour. Lululemon quite literally dominated the team trials in almost every race they entered throughout 2013, frequently beating even their nearest rivals Orica-AIS and Rabobank-Liv/Giant by large margins; Worrack was an integral part of the squad, riding with them in their successful time trials at the Open de Suede Vargarda, the Lotto-Belisol Belgium Tour, the Boels Rental Ladies Tour and again at the World Team Time Trial Championships, where they beat Rabobank into second place by 1'11.09".


Anthony Ravard, born in Nantes, France on this day in 1983, won three stages at the Tour de Normandie in 2008, his first professional year. In 2011 he won Etoile de Bessèges and finished the World Road Race Championships in 13th place and in 2012 he was fourth at the GP Fina - Fayt-le-Franc.

Broadcaster and journalist Jon Snow is familiar to Britons as the presenter of ITN's flagship 10 o'clock News. He is less well-known as a cyclist, except to members of the Cyclists' Touring Club - having become president of the organisation in 2007. Snow was educated at the University of Liverpool but was rusticated (expelled) due to his part in an anti-apartheid protest. He once found himself seated next to a sleeping Idi Amin aboard a Ugandan presidential jet and seriously considered taking the revolver from Amin's belt and killing him with it; stopping only because of the risk to other passengers.

Frances Willard

Frances Willard, born in Churchville, New York on this day in 1839, was a suffragist, social activist and temperance campaigner who, in addition to her work towards getting women the right to vote, was involved in the fight for free school meals, benefits for the poor, workers' rights to join trade unions, municipal organisations devoted to public health and sanitation, state-funded education for the children of poor families and limitations on the hours employees could be made to work, as well as backing new laws against child abuse and rape. Like Susan B. Anthony, she was also a keen advocate of the bicycle which she saw as means of enabling women to travel when and where they wished. In 1895, she wrote A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, in which she describes her own cycling journeys and the stories of other women she met while completing them. Although it suffers a little from a typically Victorian tendency to ramble, the book is often funny, always interesting and still well worth a read today; best of all, it's out of copyright and can be read online and downloaded free.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jesús Hernández (Spain, 1981); Guus Bierings (Netherlands, 1956); Paweł Kaczorowski (Poland, 1949); Eddie Fiola (USA, 1964); Robert Thompson (Great Britain, 1882); Waldemar Bernatzky (Uruguay, 1920); Maurice Renaud (France, 1900, died 1968); Francesco Del Grosso (Italy, 1899, died 1938); Carlos Coloma (Spain, 1981); Piet Peters (Netherlands, 1921); Paul Réneau (Belize, 1960); Walter Martin (USA, 1881); Jean Brun (Switzerland, 1926, died 1993); Martin Willock (Canada, 1954); Gilbert de Rieck (Belgium, 1936).

Daily Cycling Facts 27.09.2013

Clara Hughes

Hughes at the Thüringen Rundfahrt, 2012

Born in Winnipeg, Canada on this day in 1972, Clara Hughes - in common with so many other riders - began her career as an athlete in speed skating, which she took up at the age of 16 after seeing Gaétan Boucher win gold at the 1988 Olympic Games. A year later she started cycling; only three years later, in 1992, she became National Road Race Champion. In 1994 she won the Women's Challenge, one of the hardest and most prestigious events in the sport, then in 1995 she was fourth overall at the Tour de France Féminin and won the National Individual Time Trial Championship and in 1996 she won bronze medals in the Road Race and the Individual Time Trial at the Olympics.

Hughes took a hiatus from cycling and returned to speed skating as the 1998 Winter Olympics approached, concentrating on it for several years and winning more Olympic medals - she thus became the second woman and one of only four athletes to have won medals in both the Summer and Winter Games, and in 2006 became the only athlete to have won more than one medal at both Games. In 2005, she set a new 10,000m World Record at 14'19.73" - it has since been beaten, but remains a Canadian record at the time of writing. Following the 2006 Winter Games, she took inspiration from fellow speed skater Joey Cheek who had donated his gold medal to Right To Play and gave $10,000 of her own money to the humanitarian organisation.

Hughes at the 2012 Olympics

At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Hughes worked as a cycling commentator for CBC. This inspired her to make a return to cycling, which she did in 2010; less than a year later at the PanAmerican Games she won the Road Race with an advantage of 1'18" and the Individual Time Trial with 28", then the National Individual Time Trial Championship by 28". She also won the Tour of the Gila and La Visite Chrono du Gatineau, then came fifth at the World Individual Time Trial Championship, but for many fans her most impressive achievement was her long solo breakaway at the World Road Race Championship, enlivening a race that many found otherwise boring. Having won La Flèche Wallonne and another National ITT Championship in 2012, Hughes qualified for the Olympics and was fifth in the Individual Time Trial.

Alongside Cindy Klassen, another speed skater from Winnipeg, Hughes is the joint most successful Canadian Olympian of all time. In recognition of her athletic achievements and humanitarian activities she has been awarded the Order of Manitoba, is an Officer of the Order of Canada and has two honourary degrees from the Universities of Manitoba and New Brunswick.

Wouter Weylandt

Wouter Weylandt, 27.09.1984 - 09.05.2011

Born in Ghent, Belgium on this day in 1984, Wouter Weylandt scored some good results prior to 2004, then that year came third at the Under-23 Paris-Roubaix and earned himself a trainee contract with QuickStep-Davitamon. In 2005, riding with a full professional contract from the same team, he won the GP Briek Schotte after starting the season with mononucleosis; then in 2006 the Points competition at the Tour of Poland. In 2007 he won seven races and in 2008, having been third at Gent-Wevelgem, he rode the Vuelta a Espana - his first Grand Tour, where he won Stage 17. The following year started with a tragedy when his close friend Frederiek Nilf, aged just 21, died of a heart attack while he slept between stages at the Tour of Qatar; later in the season Weylandt nearly repeated his earlier Vuelta success when he was second on Stage 4 but he left the race after Stage 16, then in 2010 he won Stage 3 at the Giro d'Italia.

He was, in the opinion of his fellow riders and fans, a rider destined for greatness; if not a Grand Tour victory, at least a Grand Tour Points competition. When he signed for 2011 to LeopardTrek - a new team consisting of some of the most promising young riders in the world, including Andy Schleck who was hotly tipped to win the Tour de France that year, some of the established greats including Fabian Cancellara, and some highly experienced older riders such as the legendary Jens Voigt - it seemed that there really couldn't be a better place for a rider such as him to develop his talents and learn the fine art of winning bicycle races.

On the 9th of May, at the Giro d'Italia which just one year previously had been disrupted when riders protested against poor safety conditions, he 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.

Pedro Horrillo
It's often said - with some truth - that academic qualifications are few and far between in the men's professional peloton (the same is very much not true among the women: since few female cyclists will ever make a living from their sport, few ever considered it as a future occupation and only took it up while at university). Pedro Horillo, born in Eibar on this day in 1974, is a retired Basque cyclist and an exception: he had already earned a degree in philosophy from Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, the Basque national university, when he became a professional rider with Vitalicio Seguros-Grupo Generali in 1998 and after his retirement he became well-respected for his intelligently-written articles on cycling and doping.

Horrillo at the 2009 Tour of California

Horrillo spent his first three years with Vitalico Seguros and, in his second, rode in the Tour de France for the first time and scored a handful of decent stage finishes for a debutant, including 18th on Stage 1, then came 135th overall. In 2001 he went to Mapei-QuickStep and finished four stages at the Vuelta a Espana in the top ten; then in 2002, with the same team, he won Stage 2 at Paris-Nice and was third on Stage 13 at the Vuelta. The following year he went to Rabobank, with which he would spend the remainder of his career; he won Stage 3 at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya that year and Stage 1 at the Sachsen Tour the next. While he had many more good results (and rode the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in 2007), they would be the final victories of his career.

He retired in 2009 following a horrific crash at the Giro in which he hit a railing and plunged over it into a ravine, falling 60m and suffering a broken neck, knee and thigh as well as a punctured lung. He was unconscious when the medics got to him, then awoke while in the ambulance and was placed in an induced coma. The following day - when riders mounted a protest at safety conditions in the race, just as they would the following year and again following the death of Wouter Weylandt in 2009 - he was brought back to consciousness for scans which, thankfully, revealed no brain injuries. He spent the next five weeks in hospital, then made a full recovery but never took part in another race, finding that he was no longer able to perform at his previous level. However, he still follows cycling and is especially keen on the Hell of the North, Paris-Roubaix: ""If I could only have ridden one race as a pro, that would have been it - and if possible, in the rain because that's the real Roubaix when it rains," he says.

Beth Heiden
Elizabeth Lee Heiden Reid, known as Beth Heiden, was born in Madison, Wisconsin on this day in 1959 and is probably the only World Road Race Champion who wasn't really a cyclist. She played tennis and soccer while at school, then also took up running in 1975 and set a national record for her age group that same year. She was also a speed skater and, the following year, qualified for the Olympics where she was 11th in the 3,000m. In 1979, she became World Speed Skating Champion after winning all four of the constituent races.

Left to right: Sara Doctor, Connie Carpenter, Beth Heiden

Many cyclists have competed in speed skating in the past, with Marianne Vos and Clara Hughes being perhaps the two most famous examples; but invariably they concentrated on cycling after discovering their proficiency at it. Heiden did not: she took up cycling as part of her cross-training preparation for the speed skating events at the 1980 Winter Olympics and never fell in love with the bike, nor became a true cycling, like Vos and Hughes did - in fact, when she became the first ever American to win the UCI World Road Race Championships in 1980, beating Greg Lemond by three years, she did so almost as an afterthought. Having done so, she returned to speed skating, then took up cross-country skiing and never went back to cycling again. Who knows what she might have achieved if she had done?


Born in Australia on this day in 1974, Nigel Barley fell three metres from a roof and landed on a hammer; aged 26, he was a paraplegic. After spending a year learning what he could do - and techniques to do what he couldn't - he decided to take up handcycling, then two years later set a new handcycle World 24-hour record when he covered 462km; three years after that he rode the 4,437km between Perth and Sydney. In 2009 he won the Road Race and the Individual Time Trial at the National Championships. Silver and bronze at the 2011 World Cup and several good results during the first half of 2012, as part of the World Cup and the Paracycling Tour, qualified him for the Paralympic Games in London, where he won silver in the Individual Time Trial.

Alfred Haemerlinck, the most successful
rider you've never heard of

Alfred Haemerlinck, born in Assenede, Belgium on this day in 1905, won Stages 1 and 6 at the Tour de France in 1931, which earned him the maillot jaune for a single day. Those two stages were the most prestigious victories of his decade-long professional career, but he is chiefly remembered for the enormous number of smaller, less-well-known races that he entered and won: according to some apparently reliable estimates, as many as 493 - higher than some estimates for Eddy Merckx.

Benoni Beheyt, born in Zwijnaarde, Belgium on this day in 1940, won Gent-Wevelgem and the World Road Race Championship in 1963 and Stage 22a at the Tour de France, the General Classification at the Ronde van België and the National Road Race Championship in 1964.

Ángel Casero, born in Albalat dels Tarongers on this day in 1972, was Spanish Road Race Champion in 1998 and 1999. In 2000 he was second overall at the Vuelta a Espana, then in 2001 he won it.

Giovanni Fidanza, born in Bergamo, Italy on this day in 1965, won the overall Points competition at the Giro d'Italia and Stage 20 at the Tour de France in 1989, then Stage 2 at the Giro in 1990.

Heinz Wengler, born in Germany on this day in 1912, shared victory for Stage 17b (a 37km road race) at the 1937 Tour de France with the Adolph Braeckeveldt. His nickname was Herr Schmal on account of his diminutive stature and five years later, when he was 30, he was killed in action on the Eastern Front.

Enrico Zaina, born in Brescia on this day in 1967, won Stage 17 at the Vuelta a Espana in 1992, Stage 11 at the Giro d'Italia in 1995 and Stages 9, 20 and second place overall at the 1996 Giro.

Other cyclists born on this day: Raúl Saavedra (Colombia, 1969); Cosme Saavedra (Argentina, 1901, died 1967); Chartchai Juntrat (Thailand, 1951); Alexey Kolessov (Kazakhstan, 1984); Mauno Uusivirta (Finland, 1948); Rebecca Henderson (Australia, 1991); Mitsuteru Tanaka (Japan, 1971); Michael Andrew (Malaysia, 1943); Kris Gerits (Belgium, 1971).

Daily Cycling Facts 26.09.2013

Mirjam Melchers-van Poppel

Mirjam Melchers-van Poppel

Born in Arnhem, Netherlands on this day in 1975, Maria Wilhelmina Johanna 'Mirjam' Melchers-Van Poppel signed to Rabobank in 1998 and won three races, including Stage 4 at the prestigious Holland Ladies' Tour. In 1999 she won Stage 5 at the same race and was second at the National Road Race Championship; in 2000 she won Stage 2 at the Tour de France Féminin and second place overall at the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin and was victorious at the Nationals and the Holland Ladies' Tour. She also qualified for the Olympics that year and was 11th in the Individual Time Trial and 12th in the Road Race.

In 2001, riding with Acca Due O-Lorena Camichi, Melchers-van Poppel won the Thüringen-Rundfahrt; she then went to Farm Frites for three seasons from 2002, winning six times that year, 14 in 2003 (including the General Classification at the Emakumeen Bira, the Damesronde van Drenthe and the RaboSter Zeeuwsche Eilanden) when she was also second at the Worlds Championship and adding the National Cyclo Cross Championship, the Vuelta Castilla y Leon, the National Individual Time Trial Championship, a second Holland Ladies' Tour and seven other victories in 2004. She joined Buitenpoort-Flexpoint Team in 2005 and stayed with them for five years; that year, she won the Ronde van Vlaanderen, the Emakumeen Saria, Stage 5 at the Giro Donne, the General Classification at the RaboSter Zeeuwsche Eilanden and nine other victories.

The 2006 season started well with second place at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and another win at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, but she was in a serious crash at the Euregio Tour that left her with a broken jaw, hip and pelvis; she had recovered sufficiently to return to racing the following year, but was apparently still suffering some pain and won five times, more than many riders can even dream of winning in a year, but an uncharacteristically low figure for a rider of Melchers-van Poppel's calibre. By 2008 she was fully recovered and won the National Cyclo Cross Championship for a second time (beating Daphny van der Brand, who had won it for nine of the previous ten years and would win again in 2009 and 2010) and the National Individual Time Trial Championships. In 2009, she won only one race - a cyclo cross event at Sint-Michielsgestel - but was second behind van der Brand at the CX Nationals and seventh at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. She was seventh at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad again in 2010, having signed to the Cervélo TestTeam for that year, and retired at the end of the season.

Melchers-van Poppel's husband, Jean-Paul van Poppel, was one of the Netherlands' most successful sprinters and won the Points competition at the Tour de France in 1987. Their three children are all cyclists: Boy achieved four podium finishes  and won the Points competition at the 2012 Tour of Britain, Kim was National Debutant Cyclo Cross and Novice Road Race Champion in 2006 and Danny won two stages at the Under-23 Thüringen-Rundfahrt in 2012.

Frankie Andreu
Born in Dearborn, Michigan on this day in 1966, Frankie Andreu started out as a track rider and by 1984 was good enough to become Junior National Individual Pursuit Champion. One year later he was National Madison Champion and had won silver in the Points race and Team Pursuit at the same Championships, then in 1988 he won two road races, the Capitola and the Pepsi Series, and qualified for the Olympics where he was eighth in the Road Race, which inspired him to concentrate on road racing from that point onwards. The following year he signed to 7 Eleven, with whom he rode at the Giro d'Italia and finished the race; in 1990 he achieved five victories in American events.

In 1991, 7 Eleven became Motorola. Andreu scored no victories that year nor the next; however, in 1992, he rode the Tour de France for the first time. He rode it again in 1993 and was second on Stage 18, then again in 1994 and was second on Stage 21- the two best Tour results of his career. His best overall Tour result was 58th in 1998.

In August 1992, Motorola had signed a promising young rider named Lance Armstrong; Andreu would find his greatest fame riding as the Texan's domestique and was there with him when he won his first Tour stage in 1993, then moved with him to Cofidis in 1997 and to US Postal in 1998 - and when he won his first Tours in 1999 and 2000, after which Andreu retired. Six years later, Andreu changed from faithful domestique to nemesis: he and his wife, Betsy, testified during a court hearing involving Armstrong and SCA Promotions (a company that was attempting to back out of paying a $5 million bonus due to suspicions that Armstrong had doped at the Tour) that, in their presence in 1996, Armstrong had admitted to doctors during his cancer treatment that he had used growth hormones, steroids and EPO. A settlement in which SCA paid $7.5 million (the bonus and legal fees) was reached before a ruling was made. "It's over. We won. They lost. I was yet again completely vindicated," Armstrong told the press, also saying that he believed Betsy may have become confused when she overheard him discussing the drugs he was given by doctors following treatment (which included steroids and EPO); yet both she and Frankie have stuck to their story ever since - and, since Armstrong was stripped of all his seven Tour wins, it looks as though they had good reason to do so. Later in 2006, Frankie admitted that he too had doped, using EPO when training for the 1999 Tour. He also said that his first introduction to doping had come in 1995 at Motorola.

After his retirement, Andreu became a race commentator and still serves in that capacity to this day. He was employed as a director at the Toyota-United team but was sacked for not fulfilling the obligations of his contract in 2006, then the following year became a director at Rock Racing but resigned in 2008 before working with the women's team Proman.

Max Bulla

Bulla at the 1932 Tour

Max Bulla, born in Vienna on this day in 1905, rode the Tour de France as a touriste-routier (independent riders, not signed to a national team and in some cases without sponsorship - though not in Bulla's case, as he had some limited sponsorship from the Faggi-Pirelli team) in 1931 and won Stage 2 despite having started ten minutes behind the professional riders, taking the maillot jaune for one day and thus becoming the only touriste-routier to lead the race in Tour history, as well as the first ever Austrian to win a Tour stage and wear the maillot jaune. He later won Stages 12 and 17 and came 15th overall, the best placing in the touriste-routier category.

Henri Desgrange, the director of the Tour, was so impressed by what Bulla had achieved that he persuaded the German federation to send a mixed team rather than a national team to the Tour in 1932 so that Bulla would benefit from the support that came with it. The team proved to be much stronger than the French, Belgians and Italians had expected and got two of their riders into the top ten - Bulla, however, was not one of them, finishing 19th and 1h38'23" behind winner André Leducq who had led since Stage 3 (when he took the maillot jaune from Bulla's team mate, the German Kurt Stöpel, who finished second overall). He raced again, in 1933 and 1936, but abandoned both times.

Bulla was Austrian Road Race Champion in 1926 and 1927 and in 1933 he won the Tour de Suisse. He also won Stages 8 and 10 and was fifth overall at the Vuelta a Espana in 1935.

Frédéric Moncassin
Born in Saubens, France on this day in 1968, Frédéric Moncassin was a sprint specialist who became famous for his aggressive tactics in the rough, tough bunch sprints (what some riders term "shitfights") at races including the Tour de France (where he won Stages 1 and 19 and came second in the Points competition in 1996), Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (which he won in 1995) and the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (second in 1994).

Moncassin at Paris-Nice, 1997

Moncassin won 33 professional victories, and probably could have won more were it not for the Festina Affair of 1998. He was not implicated in the scandal, but his attacks on the then darling of French Cycling Richard Virenque - he once memorably told French newspaper La Dépêche "he's an arsehole and you can quote me" - saw him become increasingly isolated, one of several riders to be given the cold shoulder in the peloton for "spitting in the soup." He was third at Milan-San Remo in 1998, then retired at the end of 1999 having gone without victory for almost two years.


Cyril Gautier, born in Plouagat, France on this day in 1987, was European Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2008 and won the Youth category at the Critérium International in 2012.

Other cyclists born on this day: Gabriel Cuéllar (Mexico, 1942); Malcolm Simpson (New Zealand, 1933); Derek Horton (Guam, 1972); Cyril Bos (France, 1972); Libardo Niño (Colombia, 1968); Danilo Heredia (Venezuela, 1927); Tino Conti (Italy, 1945); Michael Matthews (Australia, 1990).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.09.2013

Rasa and Jolanta Polikevičiūtė

Rasa Polikevičiūtė

Born in Panevėžys, Lithuania on this day in 1970, Rasa and Jolanta Polikevičiūtė are identical twins who established their nation as one of the most respected in women's cycling. They took up the sport at the age of 13; Rasa had won the Gracia Orlova, the Masters Féminin and the Women's Challenge and taken second place at numerous high-profile events including the World Road Race Championships and Jolanta had come fifth in the Road Race and seventh in the Individual Time Trial at the 1996 Olympics by the time they both turned professional with Elby in 1998. That year, Rasa was second at the Tour de l'Aude and Jolanta won the Trophée d'Or.

Jolanta won stages at the Trophée d'Or (and was second overall) and the Women's Challenge in 1999, but neither twin won a race outright; in 2000 Rasa was third at the World ITT Championship and Jolanta won Stage 11 at the Tour de France Féminin. In 2001 Rasa became World Road Race Champion and a year later Jolanta won Stage 1 at the Giro Donne - as did Rasa in 2003, with Jolanta right behind her for second place. They competed together at the 2004 Olympics with Rasa coming 29th in the Road Race and 23rd in the ITT while Jolanta was 31st in the Road Race; then neither won a race until 2008 when Rasa won Stage 5 at the Tour de France Féminin and Jolanta won the Lyon Vaise - with Rasa taking second place.

Jolanta Polikevičiūtė

Rasa and Jolanta spent their entire professional careers riding for the same teams, going to Entente Panevezys-Casteljaloux for a year after Elby, then Acca Due O from 2000 to the end of 2002 when they joined Team 2002 Aurora RSM for a season. In 2004 they signed to USC Chirio Forno d'Asolo and remained for a year before going to Bianchi, then returned to USC Chirio Forno d'Asolo in 2007. Rasa retired in 2008, Jolanta kept going for another year.

Michele Scarponi
Michele Scarponi, born in Filottrano, Italy on this day in 1979, turned professional with Acqua & Sapone in 2002 and came 18th at the Giro d'Italia, then rode for Domina-Vacanze in 2003 and 2004 - in the first year he was 16th at the Giro and 13th at the Vuelta a Espana, then in the second he was 32nd at the Tour de France. In 2005 he went to Liberty Seguros-Würth and remained with them after the team became Astana in 2006; during that time he came 11th at the Vuelta.

Scarponi at the 2012 Tour de France

During 2006, his name was among those connected to Operacion Puerto but he escaped charges and once again signed to Acqua & Sapone. Then, in 2007, he was once again implicated and was given a provisional suspension; when it ended in August 2008 he was taken on for two seasons at Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni-Androni Giocattoli. He won nothing in 2008, then won the General Classification at Tirreno-Adriatico and Stage 18 at the Giro d'Italia in 2009 and was kept on for another year during which he was second at Tirreno-Adriatico and won the General Classification at the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda and Stage 19 plus fourth place overall at the Giro.

In 2011, Scarponi signed to Lampre-ISD and he remains with them to this day; that year, he won the Points competition at Tirreno-Adriatico and was second in the General Classification and the Points competition at the Giro. In 2012, he was fourth in the General Classification and the Points competition at the Giro and 24th overall at the Tour de France and in 2013 he was fourth overall at the Giro, second at the Italian National Championships and 15th at the Vuelta Espana.


Dainius Kairelis, born in Utena, Lithuania on this day in 1979, won the Baby Giro in 2003 and became National Road Race Champion in 2006.

Sara Symington, who was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela on this day in 1969, is a retired British cyclist who won the 1998 National Circuit Race Championships. Prior to becoming a full-time cyclist, she was a member of the national triathlon team. In 2000 she was 10th in the Road Race at the Olympic and in 2001 she finished the National Road Race Championship in third place; she also won Stage 7 at the Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin in 2002 and Stage 4 two years later.

Mike Kluge, born in Berlin on this day in 1962, was World Amateur Cyclo Cross Champion in 1985 and 1987, then World Professional Cyclo Cross Champion in 1992. In 1992 he established Focus Bikes, a manufacturer of high-end road racing and mountain bikes; he became National Champion on a Focus CX machine in 1993 and in 2005 Hanka Kupfernagel rode one to win the World Championships.

Roger Beufrand, who was born in Paris on this day in 1908, won a gold medal in the Team Sprint (then known as the Olympic Sprint) at the Olympics in 1928. From the 21st of April in 2005 until his death on the 14th of March in 2007, he was the oldest surviving Olympic gold medalist in the world.

Other cyclists born on this day: Amousse Tessema (Ethiopia, 1931); Anton Gödrich (Germany, 1859, died 1942); Giorgi Nadiradze (Georgia, 1987); William Harvell (Great Britain, 1907, died 1985); Kyle Bennett (USA, 1979); Ramiro Martins (Portugal, 1941); Ricardo Vázquez (Uruguay, 1932); Erica Green (South Africa, 1970); Stanisław Szozda (Poland, 1950); Anatoly Olizarenko (USSR, 1936); Sergio Mantecón (Spain, 1984); Gábor Szűcs (Hungary, 1956).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.09.2013

Victoria Pendleton

Victoria Pendleton

Born in Stotfold on this day in 1980, Victoria Louise Pendleton is a multiple World, European, National and Olympic Champion and one of the few female British cyclists to have become a household name at home and around the world. Her father, Max, was once National Grass-Track Champion, Victoria began her career in the same discipline, riding her first race - a 400m event - at Fordham near Cambridge when she was nine years old. Aged 16, she was spotted by a coach from British Cycling but chose instead to complete her education, not becoming a professional rider until she'd graduated in Sport Science at Northumbria University.

In 2003, Pendleton won the Scratch race at the Sydney round of the World Cup, also coming second in the Sprint; the latter being the event in which she would later specialise and which she won at the Manchester round a year later. In 2005 she won the Keirin at Los Angeles, then the Sprint at the World Championships and at Manchester, and in 2006 at the Commonwealth Games. 2007 would be her real break-through year, starting off victories in the Sprint, 500m TT and Keirin at Manchester, followed by the Sprint and Keirin (and Team Sprint, riding with Shanaze Reade - whose birthday falls one day before Pendleton's) at the World Championships, the Sprint and 500m at the Nationals and Keirin at Sydney. in 2008, again riding with Reade, she won the Team Sprints at Copenhagen and the Worlds, also winning the Individual Sprint at the Worlds and the Olympics; at the Nationals she won the Sprint, Team Sprint and Keirin and at Manchester the Sprint, 500m and Keirin. 2009 was a quieter year with two victories - the Sprints at Copenhagen and the Worlds. She successfully defended the latter in 2010 and won the Keirin and Team Sprint (with Jess Varnish) at the Cali round of the World Cup, then rode with Varnish again to win the Team Sprint at the 2011 European Championships where she also won the Keirin.

Pendleton and Shanaze Reade

Since the 2008 Olympics, when Anna Meares got through to the finals due to the relegation of Guo Shang, she and Pendleton have been rivals. Lurid tales of sworn enmity and blistering hatred have been somwhat over-embellished by the media - presumably, these are the journalists who don't bother to actually watch women's racing and thus have to invent drama rather than reporting the real drama taking place on the track, but it's probably safe to say that they don't exchange Christmas cards. As a result, when they competed against one another in the Sprint in London at the 2012 Games, the race was immediately termed a grudge match, the decider and all sorts of other poetic things. It did not pass without incident: during the race, Pendleton veered very slightly out of her lane, crossing into Meares'. Meares reacted by pushing her away, using her elbow on Pendleton's leg. Some fans - mostly British, but a fair few from elsewhere including Australia - were initially angry at the judges' decision to relegate the British rider; however, once the slow-motion replay had been aired, all but the most die-hard Pendleton fans admitted that Meares had won fair and square. Pendleton had announced that, after many years of hinting that she would retire after the Games, this would be her last race; it was not the best note upon which to leave. However, having won the Keirin four days earlier and the Sprint at the Worlds in Melbourne in April, she undoubtedly left cycling at a highpoint in her career.

Whilst Pendleton is widely admired in the media - often as much for her looks as for her athletic achievements - her career has not been without controversy. Her decision to appear in glamourous photo shoots published by FHM and Esquire magazines, at a time when many female athletes are demanding to be taken seriously for their sport and not depicted as sex symbols, was widely criticised. Likewise, she has occasionally been accused of appearing on too many TV shows and advertisements; however, she has also been congratulated for raising the profile of women's cycling in this way.


Oenone Wood

Oenone Wood in 2007

Born in Newcastle, New South Wales on this day in 1980, Oenone Wood won the silver medal at both the National Road Race and Individual Time Trial Championships and was third overall at La Flèche Wallonne and the Trophée d'Or Féminin in 2003, then in 2004 she won both the National titles, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, the Bay Classic, the Geelong Tour, Stage 1 at the Giro Donne and the World Cup. The following year, she turned professional with Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung.

In 2005, she won the World Cup, the National ITT Championships and Geelong for a second time, Stages 1, 3a and 6 at the Tour de l'Aude and Stages 1b, 2 and the General Classification at Le Tour du Grand Montréal; in 2006 - still with Nürnberger Versicherung - a third Geelong, the GP International Dottignies, Stage 8 at the Giro Donne and a silver medal for the Road Race and a gold for the ITT at the Commonwealth Games. She then moved to T-Mobile for 2007 and won Le Tour du Grand Montréal. Wood remained with the team, which began the year as Highroad and ended it as Columbia Women, through 2008; winning another National Road Race Championship and two stages as well as second place overall at the Tour of New Zealand. She retired at the end of the year, having achieved 81 podium finishes in her short professional career.



Michelle Ferris, born in Warrnambool, Australia on this day in 1976, won silver in the Women's Sprint at the Olympics in 1996 and 2000.

Erich Maechler, born in Hochdorf, Switzerland on this day in 1960, won Stage 21 at the Tour de France in 1986. The following year he won Milan-San Remo, then returned to the Tour and wore the maillot jaune for six days. Over the course of his career he also won stages at the Tour de Suisse, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Stef Clement, born in Tilburg, Netherlands on this day 1982, was National Individual Time Trial Champion in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011.

Other cyclists born on this day: Neurouth (France, 1881, died 1914); Michel van Haecke (Belgium, 1971); Donald Allan (Australia, 1949); Jorge Mariné (Spain, 1941); Karsten Stenersen (Norway, 1971); Dirk Heirwegh (Belgium, 1955); Ivano Maffei (Italy, 1958); Marie Purvis (Great Britain, 1961); Morten Therkildsen (Denmark, 1983); Jacques Gestraut (France, 1939); Lorenzo Bosisio (Italy, 1944); Gunnar Sköld (Sweden, 1894, died 1971); Charles Hewett (USA, 1929).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.09.2013

Emma Johansson

Emma Johansson at the 2012 National Championships

Emma Karolina Johansson, born in Sollefteå, Sweden on this day in 1983,  began her athletic life as a cross-country skier, then won the Junior National Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships in 2000 before successfully defending it and adding the Junior National Individual Time Trial Championship a year later. She gained a place at a specialist cycling school in Skara, then moved to Spain in order to pursue her dream of becoming a professional. Unfortunately, she soon discovered that women's cycling was underdeveloped in Spain so, with help from her old cycling club Härnösand CK back home in Sweden, she moved to the Netherlands. In 2005 she won the Elite National ITT Championship, then turned professional with the Basque team Bizkaia-Panda Software-Durango in 2006. The following year, with Vlaanderen-Capri Sonne-T Interim, she won the National ITT Championship for a second time; in 2008 she won it again, took a silver medal at the Olympics, was third at the National Road Race Championship and won the Trophée d'Or Féminin.

Johansson won the Ronde van Drenthe in 2009, which put her into the lead in the World Cup - she was only the second Swedish cyclist ever to have done so. She then had an excellent year at the Classics in 2010 with a victory at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, fourth in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and third in La Flèche Wallonne before going on to win a second Trophée d'Or Féminin. In 2011 she joined Hitec Products-UCK which - now known as Hitec Products-Mistral Home - and won the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad again, regained the National Road Race title and then won the Thüringen-Rundfahrt der Frauen; in 2012 she won the Tour de Free State, the National ITT and Road Race Championships and Stage 9 and fifth place overall at the Giro Donne.

2013 brought a move to a new team, Orica-AIS, and Johansson became the second most successful female rider in the world when she proved herself able to rival Marianne Vos: in fact, for a brief time late in the year (and, to be fair, partly due to the way that the UCI work out rankings), she actually took over from Vos at the top of the UCI world rankings - the first time Vos hadn't occupied the top place for several years. Johansson had come second to Vos several times, but she had also scored some very impressive wins, including a few in which she beat the Dutch woman when she was favourite - her greatest triumphs were the Emakumeen Bira and the Thuringen Rundfahrt, in both of which she won two stages as well as the General Classification.

Shanaze Reade
Shanaze Danielle Reade was born in Crewe, Great Britain, on this day in 1988. When she was 10 years old, she became bored of shot put and 100m sprint running, the sports in which she'd previously competed, so she bought a second-hand BMX for £1 and started racing it. Twelve years later, she was a four-time World Champion.

She'd also picked up one unique honour: in 2006, she had become 19 & Over Elite Men British National Number One after racing in the Men's National Series through 2005 - not only is she a woman, she was also only 17 years old. Some of the men didn't like it, but most were happy to have such a talented rider competing alongside them: "some spit their dummies out but I just let them get on with it! It's really quite fun to watch when I kick their booties," she said.

Reade also won her first World Championship title in 2006, coming first in the Junior class; in 2007, 2008 and 2010 she was World Champion at Elite level and, in 2007 and 2008, also won the Elite Woman Supercross Championship. Famous in BMX for her explosive power, Reade started track racing in 2007 - her first race was the Team Sprint at the Manchester round of the World Cup, where she teamed up with Anna Blyth to take second place behind Willy Kanis and Yvonne Hijgenaar of the Netherlands, they beat Kristine Bayley and track racing superhero Anna Meares of Australia; however, the outcome might have been very different - the Dutch team made a false start, causing commissaires to restart the race, but Reade had not heard their signal and had already completed one lap at full sprint pace when she realised. Just over a month later she was selected at the last moment to replace Blyth and rode with Victoria Pendleton to win the Team Sprint at the World Championships - Hijgenaar and Kanis were second, Bayley and Meares third again.

Reade and Pendleton, 2008

In 2008, when BMX became an Olympic sport for the first time, Reade decided to take a break from track racing - she was the only female British rider to compete in the event. After crashing in the first qualifier, she set the fastest time in the second heat and went through to the quarter-finals where she crashed again but took enough points to race in the final. After spending much of the race holding onto Anne-Caroline Chausson's rear wheel, she crashed out of the race. She returned to the track the following year and was selected for the British squad at the World Championships, once again riding with Pendleton in the Team Sprint; this time, they lost out to the Australian team made up of Meares and Kaarle McCulloch and took silver. She competed in BMX again at the 2012 Olympics but, despite being favourite, finished in sixth place.


Born in Abergavenny on this day in 1972, Julian Winn is a Welsh cyclist who since 2005 has served as coach at Beicio Cymru, the Welsh cycling federation. Winn was second in the Manx International in 1997 and won a stage at the Prudential Tour (formerly the Milk Race, now the Tour of Britain) a year later; then turned professional with the Linda McCartney team in 1999 and found success at a number of races. In 2003 he signed to the Danish Fakta team and went to the Giro d'Italia where he finished two stages in the top 20 and came 83rd overall; the best result of his career came in 2002 when he won the British National Road Race Championships.

Martin Elmiger, born in Hagendorn, Switzerland on this day in 1978, was National Road Race Champion in 2001, 2005 and 2007. In 2007 he won the Tour Down Under.

Other cyclists born on this day: Geoff Smith (Australia, 1942); Michael Rich (West Germany, 1969); Behrouz Rahbar (Iran, 1945); Yoshio Shimura (Japan, 1940); Zsolt Vinczeffy (Hungary, 1974); Karen Strong-Hearth (Canada, 1953); Ambrogio Beretta (Italy, 1908, died 1988); Harry Lodge (Great Britain, 1967); Alois Holík (Czechoslovakia, 1947); Robert Varga (France, 1941); Henri Andrieux (France, 1931, died 2008).

Daily Cycling Facts 22.09.2013

Eddy Planckaert

Born in Nevele, Belgium on this day in 1958, Eddy Planckaert is the youngest of three brothers who created a cycling dynasty now into its second generation. He had already won three National Championship titles in the Novices and Junior classes when he won the Omloop Het Volk for Elite riders without a contract in 1980; shortly afterwards he began his professional career with Mini Flat-Vermeer Thijs.

In 1981, Planckaert went to the Tour de France and won Stage 12b - other good finishes, including two fourths, two thirds and a second put him on course for a good overall placing until he abandoned after Stage 14. He entered again in 1982, 1984 and 1986 but it wasn't until 1988 that he completed the race, winning the Points competition; he then failed to finish again in 1989 and 1990. However, although brother Willy won the Points competition 22 years before Eddy and Walter won a stage in 1978, the Tour wasn't really their sort of race - they came from rough, tough Flanders stock, hardmen who rode best in the always difficult and sometimes near-impossible Northern Classics. All three of them did well in those races, but Eddy was the best because in 1990 he won the Hell of the North, Paris-Roubaix - perhaps the hardest and most difficult race of all. He won it against Steve Bauer in a photo finish that proved his advantage at the finish line to be less than 10mm.

Planckaert's pavé on the Chemin des Géants, leading into
Roubaix Velodrome

He also achieved more wins overall than his brothers with around 123 in total, despite a much shorter career (12 years; Walter was a professional for 17 years and Willy for an incredible 24). Among them were five stages at the Vuelta a Espana and the GP Briek Schotte in 1982; a stage at Paris-Nice and the Brabantse Pijl in 1983; the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad as well as stages at the Tour de Suisse, the Tour Méditerranéen, Paris-Nice and the General Classifications at the  Etoile de Bessèges and the Ronde van België in 1984; a second Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and stages at Paris-Nice and the Vuelta a Espana in 1985; the E3 Harelbeke and a stage at the Giro d'Italia in 1987; the Ronde van Vlaanderen, often called the second hardest Classic after Paris-Roubaix, in 1988 and a second E3 Harelbeke in 1989.

Eddy retired in 1991. In 2002, Flanders' biggest TV station Vlaamse Televisie Maatschappij began broadcasting The Planckaerts, a "real-life" show focusing on Eddy's life and familu. It ran to twelve seasons and over a hundred episodes before ending in 2009, after which Eddy starred in M!LF (Man! Liberation Front) on rival station 2BE.

Philip Hindes
Philip Hindes was born in Krefeld, Germany on this day in 1992, the son of a British Army officer and a German mother. He holds dual nationality and raced for the country of his birth as a junior, having earned a place at a specialist sports academy, then switched to British Cycling in 2010. He began competing in road race events aged 15 but, after two years, decided to concentrate on track sprinting.

In 2012, Hindes competed for Britain at the Olympic Games and caused a row after he crashed at the start of the Men's Team Sprint, then told the BBC ""We were saying if we have a bad start we need to crash to get a restart. I just crashed, I did it on purpose to get a restart, just to have the fastest ride. I did it. So it was all planned, really." Olympic and UCI regulations state that a races "can be re-started if one of the riders suffers a “mishap”, but it must be a mechanical fault or genuine accident;" not if a rider deliberately crashes. Hindes then retracted what he'd said earlier, then told reporters "My back wheel slipped and totally lost control and I couldn’t handle the bike any more and just crashed." British Cycling explained that Hindes, for whom English is a second language, had not meant to say what he originally said - and, rather surprisingly, the Olympic judges believed them.

Giuseppe Saronni

The tifosi - the obsessive Italian fans - love a good cycling rivalry: Binda and Guerra, Bartali and Coppi, Moser and Giuseppe Saronni, who was born in Novara on this day in 1957. Saronni came to note in 1974 when he won the Sprint at the National Junior Championships and came second in the same race at the European Championships; he successfully defended his National title the following year. In 1977 he won eight times, including the General Classifications at the Giri di Puglia and Sicilia, then a year later he won 25 times - including the General Classification at Tirreno-Adriatico and Stages 2, 7 and 8 at the Giro d'Italia, where he was fifth overall. In 1979, among 30 victories, he won the Tour de Romandie and three stages, the Points competition and the General Classification at the Giro.

In 1980, Saronni became National Road Race Champion and won the Waalse Pijl along with seven stages and the Points competition at the Giro; he won the Points competition for a third time the following year. In 1982 he won the Tour de Suisse, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Giro di Lombardia and the World Championship at Goodwood, where he beat Greg Lemond and Sean Kelly after a sprint so fast it earned him the nickname "The Goodwood Rifleshot." The following year saw him win Milan-San Remo and come second at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, then win three stages, a fourth Points competition and a second General Classification at the Giro.

Saronni never achieved results quite as impressive ever again, though he would win four more stages at the Giro for a total of 24 - the sixth highest in history and only one fewer than Eddy Merckx (though far short of Mario Cipollini's 42, the Grand Tour record). He retired in 1990 and later became manager of the Lampre-ISD team until he was forced out in 2011 when his name was one of the 32 implicated in the Mantova doping scandal.

Audrey Cordon

Audrey Cordon was born in Pontivy, France on this day in 1989. In 2008 - the year that she was third in the Individual Pursuit at the Elite National Track Championships - she signed to Vienne Futuroscope, the team for whom she has ridden ever since; in 2011 she was third at the Elite National Individual Time Trial Championships and in 2012 she won the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire and was second at the National Individual Time Trial Championships, showing that she had the potential to become real contender at one-day and stage races in the coming years - and then in 2013, when she won the Tour de Bretagne, she proved it.

Giovanni Valetti, born in Vinovo, Italy on this day in 1913, won the Giro d'Italia in 1938 (when he also won the Tour de Suisse) and 1939. In 1939, he faced stiff competition from Gino Bartali who took the race lead in the mountains; Valetti then took it back with one stage to go and managed to match Bartali's attacks in the final stage.

Bernard Gauthier, born in Beaumont-Monteux, France on this day in 1924, won the single-day 560km Bordeaux-Paris in 1951, 1954, 1956 and 1957 and the National Road Race Championship in 1956. He rode the Tour de France eight times and won Stage 20 in 1948; two years later he held the maillot jaune for seven days and finished in 17th place. He also performed well at the other Classics, coming second at the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1952 and at Milan-San Remo in 1955.

Yukiya Arashiro

Yukiya Arashiro, born on this day in 1984 in Ishigaki, Japan, siged for two years with BBox-Bouygues Telecom in 2009 and was selected by the team to ride that year at the Tour de France where he and Fumiyuki Beppu became the first Japanese riders to have ever completed the race. The following year he was selected for the Giro d'Italia, came third on Stage 5 and became the first Japanese rider to have completed two Grand Tours. He signed to Europcar for two years in 2011.

Fritz Scheller, born in Nürnberg on this day in 1914, was National Amateur Road Race Champion in 1932, 1936 and 1937, then turned professional with Adler in 1938 and finished the Elite Road Race Nationals in third place that year and again in 1940. In 1942 he joined Express, with whom he spent the remainder of his career, becoming National Criterium Champion in 1946. Scheller rode for Germany at Olympics of 1936, the year that the Games were taken over by the Nazis and used as a propaganda machine; he shared fourth place with Frenchman Robert Dorgebray and Charles Holland - who was one of the first two British riders to compete in the Tour de France.

Sergi Escobar, born in Lleida, Spain on this day in 1974, is a Pursuit (individual and team) rider who became National Champion in 2003, 2004 (when he was also National Madison Champion with Antonio Miguel Parra and won two bronze medals at the Olympics), 2006 and 2007 (also National Points Champion). In 2004 he was World Pursuit Champion. Escobar has also had some notably good performances in road racing including a bronze medal at the 2001 National Individual Time Trial Championships, four top 20 stage finishes at the 2005 Giro d'Italia and a silver medal at the 2008 National Road Race Championship for Elite riders without contract.

Ben Jacques-Maynes, born in Berkeley, California on this day in 1978, won the Nature Valley Grand Prix in 2004, Cascade Cycling Classic and Mount Hood Cycling Classic in 2007 and the King of the Mountains at the Tour of Utah in 2012. He currently rides for Bissell which, until the end of 2011, was also home to his identical twin Andy.

Other cyclists born on this day: Peter McDonald (Australia, 1978); Werner Malitz (Germany, 1926); Lars Nordwall (Sweden, 1928, died 2004); Stefan Denifl (Austria, 1987); Georg Warsow (Germany, 1877); Raúl Montana (Colombia, 1972); Remigijus Lupeikis (Lithuania, 1968); Søren Lilholt (Denmark, 1965); Ramón Zavaleta (Peru, 1959); Tim Klinger (West Germany, 1984); Beat Meister (Switzerland, 1965); Tassy Johnson (Australia, 1916, died 1981).