Daily Cycling Facts 26.10.2013

Sarah Storey
Born in Manchester on this day in 1978, Sarah Storey began her career as an athlete in swimming and, by the age of 14, was chosen to take part in the 1992 Paralympic Games in Barcelona - she won one bronze, three silvers and two golds, and swam in the following three editions of the Games. 2004 would not be her final appearance at the Games, though, because in 2005 she decided to concentrate on cycling - and at the 2008 Games, she won the Individual Pursuit.

Sarah Storey (left) with Victoria Pendleton at the 2012
Olympics and Paralympics Parade

Storey's left hand does not function, having been tangled in the umbilical cord while she was in the womb; it was noted at the 2008 Games that, had she have taken part in the same event at the Olympic Games that year, she'd have come eighth. Eight days after the Games, she took part in the 3km Pursuit at the National Track Championships, competing against non-disabled athletes, and won. Two years later, she went to the Commonwealth Games, the first ever disabled cyclist (and only the second athlete) to represent England at the Games.

Storey rode with the winning Pursuit team (with Wendy Houvenaghel and Laura Trott) at the Cali round of the 2011 Track World Cup, a victory that was widely expected to guarantee her a place on the 2012 Olympic team; however, she was informed that her performance had not been as good as had been hoped and was dropped from the team. "So this is the end of the journey for me with the GB pursuit team," she said, remaining philosophical but with an undertone of apparent bitterness. Nevertheless, she was still able to compete in the Paralympic Games and, in the Individual Pursuit won Great Britain's first gold medal - the first of four, as she would also win the 500m Time Trial, the Individual Road Time Trial and the Road Race.

Storey is married to cycling coach and tandem pilot (sighted rider for blind cyclists, thus enabling them to compete in cycling events) Barney Storey. Together, they will operate a British women's team in 2014. They have a daughter named Louisa Marie, born on the 30th of June 2013.

Paul Martens

Paul Martens, seen in 2004

Paul Martens, born in Rostock, Germany on this day in 1983, took third place at the Junior National Road Race Championships in 1999 and was Junior National Madison Champion two years later. More good results came in the following years; then, in 2004, he won a silver medal at the Under-23 National Individual Time Trial Championship - which earned him a trainee contract with T-Mobile, who were searching for new time trial talent, for 2005. He won the U-23 National ITT Championship that year, which brought him his first professional contract from Argos-Shimano the next year, when he won the 183km Stage 2 at the Tour of Luxembourg.

He stayed with Argos-Shimano in 2007 and was second at the Ster Elektrotoer, then switched to Rabobank (he has stayed with the team - known as Belkin since Rabobank ended its support of the men's team in 2012) in 2008 and rode his first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia - he finished the 265km Stage 6 in fourth place, and was 78th overall. In 2009 he was third on Stages 1 and 4 at the Tour du Limousin and third at the GP Ouest France. In 2010 he mounted his first full Classics campaign and was 15th at Milan-San Remo, eighth at the E3 Harelbeke, fourth at the Brabantse Pijl, 11th at the Amstel Gold Race and 15th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège; later that same year he won the GP de Wallonie and was 25th at the World Road race Championships.

Another Classics campaign in 2011 brought him 14th at the Brabantse Pijl, 10th at the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne and 13th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège; later, he was eighth on Stage 12 at the Vuelta a Espana, finishing the race in 119th place overall. He was 16th at the Flèche Wallonne in 2012, then fourth in the National Road Race Championship and won Stage 4 at the Vuelta Ciclista a Burgos Romana de Clunia.

Now aged 30, 2013 has been perhaps his best year to date. It got off to a good start with Stage 1 victory at the Volta ao Algarve, then he was third on Stage 5 and fifth on Stage 11 at the Giro d'Italia before going to the Tour of Luxembourg where he was sixth on the Prologue, third on Stage 2, fourth on Stage 3, second on Stage 4 and won the overall General Classification, More good results followed at the Tour de Region Wallonne and the Arctic Race of Norway.


Marcus Ljungqvist
Born in Falun, Sweden on this day in 1974, Marcus Ljungqvist was National Road Race Champion in 1996 while still an amateur, then signed his first professional contract with Cantina Tollo-Alexia Alluminio in 1998 - and won Stage 2 at the Tour of Japan, rode with the winning squad at the National Team Time Trial Championships, came third overall at the Postgiro Open and won Nordisk Mesterskab. The following year he was again with the victorious time trial team at the Nationals and, still with Cantina Tollo, went to his first Grand Tour - the Tour de France, where he managed 25th and 26th on Stages 13 and 14, completing the race in 131st place.

In 2000, Ljungqvist was with the victorious team in the Relay Road Race at the Nationals, his only win that year; in 2001 he won Stage 1 at the Tour of Rhodes, Stage 5 at the Tour de Normandie, first place at Solleröloppet, won Stage 3 at the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt and, best of all, became National Road Race Champion. In 2002 he won the Tour of Luxembourg, then in 2004 was second in the National Road Race Championship and completed the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France; he would ride two Grand Tours - the Tour and the Vuelta a Espana again in 2005, but in 2006 and 2007 he limited himself to the Vuelta and came first 53rd and then 43rd. His fourth place finish at the 2005 World Championships was the best ever recorded by a male Swedish rider (female riders from Sweden have bettered fourth numerous times: Tullikke Jahre was second and the first Swede to podium in 1980, Marianne Berglund was the first Swedish World Champion in 1983, Madaleine Lindberg was third in 2000, Susanne Ljungskog won in 2002 and 2003, Emma Johansson was third in 2011 and second in 2013).

In 2009, his final year as a professional cyclist, Ljungqvist was 30th at Paris-Roubaix and won the National Road Race Championship for the last time. Following retirement at the end of the season, he was recruited by Team Sky as a directeur sportif, and he remains with the team to this day.

Bernd Drogan
Born in Döbern, East Germany on this day in 1955, Bernd Drogan was a highly successful rider who would have enjoyed many more successes had it not have been for his regular crashes and the technical difficulties faced by athletes from Eastern Europe and the USSR wishing to attend events in the rest of the world during his era.

Bernd Drogan

His first notable victory was with the winning squad at the Junior National Team Time Trial Championship in 1971. He won another gold medal in the same event a year later, but also won the Individual Pursuit - and, on road, the Junior Championship, marking the start of his transition into road racing. Four years later, as an Elite level athlete, he was second at the National Hillclimb Championships and on Stages 9 and 6 at the Tour of Poland and won the DDR Rundfahrt.

In 1977, Drogan was second at the National Individual Time Trial Championship, won the National Hillclimb Championship and won Stages 1 and 10 at the Tour of Slovakia. He also made his first appearance in competitions on the other side of the Iron Curtain, winning the Tour du Vaucluse in France; he would return to France in 1978 to win the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe before also winning the National ITT Championship, the National Hillclimb Championship and the DDR Rundfahrt. A year later he won the DDR Rundfahrt again, then - with Falk Boden, Hans-Joachim Hartnick and Andreas Petermann - the Amateur World 100km Team Time Trial Championship.

Drogan competed at the 1980 Olympics, and his results for that year show that he was on excellent form - he was part of the team that won the Team Time Trial. Perhaps inspired by that success, his performances moved into a higher league over the next few years as he was spurred on by the thought of competing in the 1984 Games: in 1981 he won the Amateur and Professional ITT Championships, another National TTT Championship and three other races; in 1982 the National Criterium Championships and ten other events including the Road Race at the Amateur World Championships; in 1983 the Tour of Slovakia and, before the Games in 1984, the Sprint classification at the Tour de Normandie.

He must have been devastated when it was announced that, influenced by the USSR, 14 Eastern Bloc nations including East Germany had declared their intention to boycott the 1984 Games that would take place in Los Angeles, in response to the USA's decision to boycott the 1980 Games in Moscow. He was able to compete at the Friendship Games, an unofficial "alternative Olympics" hosted by the USSR and eight other Communist nations and which turned out to be more successful than had been expected when numerous non-Eastern Bloc countries - including West Germany, Great Britain and, most surprisingly, the USA - sent their reserve teams of athletes who had not qualified to compete in Los Angeles; nevertheless, he seemed to lose his passion afterwards and retired from professional cycling to work in coaching and accountancy, though he made a brief comeback and took second place overall at the Tour de la Yonne in France in 1987.


George Arnould Maton, born in Lille on this day in 1913 some sources say 25th November), won a bronze medal for France in the Tandem event at the 1936 Olympics. Maton was a member of the legendary Athlétic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt, one of the most successful amateur sports clubs in the world and later home to Jacques Anquetil and a plethora of foreign riders who went to France to carve out cycling careers, including Stephen Roche, Phil Anderson, Seamus Elliott, Robert Millar and Sean Yates. He died at Champigny-sur-Marne on the 6th of July in 1998.

Maurice Perrin, born in Paris on this day (or possibly a day later, sources vary) in 1911, won a gold medal riding in the Tandem event with Louis Chaillot at the 1932 Olympics. He died at Plaisir on the 2nd of January 1992.

Louis Bastien

Louis Bastien, born in Paris on the day in 1881, won a gold medal for the 25km track race at the 1900 Olympic Games. He died on the 13th of August 1963 at Châteauroux.

Aidis Kruopis, a Lithuanian rider born on this day in 1986, has been collecting good results since starting his amateur career in 2007 - including ninth at the Ronde van Drenthe in 2010, which earned him his first professional contract with the ProContinental Landbouwkrediet team for 2011 - when he was eight in the Ronde van Drenthe. In 2012 he went to Orica-AIS and won Stages 1 and 2 and the Points classification at the Tour du Poitou-Charentes, and in 2012 - still with Orica - he won Stage 2 at the Tour of Turkey.

Cyclists born on this day: Tony Lally (Ireland, 1953); Arulraj Rosli (Malaysia, 1940); Morris Foster (Ireland, 1936); Aleksandr Yudin (USSR, 1949, died 1986); Josef Hellensteiner (Austria, 1889, died 1980).

Daily Cycling Facts 25.10.2013

Claude Rouer, born in Paris on this day in 1929, rode with Jacques Anquetil and Alfred Tonello in the Team Road Race at the 1952 Olympics, months after he'd finished the Amateur National Road Race Championships. The team won a bronze medal and Rouer was invited to turn professional with the Mercier-A. Leducq team - however, other than second place at a race called the Boucles de la Gartempe, Rouer's first season was not at all successful and he became Lanterne Rouge at the Tour de France. The following year he managed to find a place with La Perle-Hutchinson, but when that year passed without notable results his short-lived professional career came to and end.

Lauren Tamayo, born in Barto, Pennsylvania on this day in 1983, was US Under-23 Road Race Champion in 2005 and rode with the winning team at the National Team Pursuit Championship in 2012. In 2013, she rode with Exergy-Twenty16; she will move to United Healthcare for 2014.

Viktor Kapitonov, born in Kalinin, USSR on this day in 1933, was National Road Race Champion in 1958 and won the Indvidual Road Race at the 1960 Olympics. Over the course of his career, Kapitonov won four stages at the Peace Race; he was also one of the very few Soviet athletes to get a chance to compete against the West's professionals, as in 1962 when he finished third in the General Classification at the Tour de Saint-Laurent in Canada and in 1963 when he took second place at the end of Stage 4 at the Tour de l'Avenir.

Vendramino Bariviera, who was born in Rome on this day in 1937, same second at the National Road Race Championships in 1963. That same year, he won Stages 5, 6 and 17 at the Giro d'Italia; then in 1964 he won Stage 6 and in 1966 Stages 5 and 22.

Mark Gornall, a British rider born on this day in 1961, won the GP Faber and Lincoln International in 1989 and Stage 6 at the Milk Race in 1991. He also rode at the Olympics in 1988, placing 62nd in the Road Race. Following his retirement from competition, Gornall became a farmer at Pendleton in Lancashire; in 2007 his name once again appeared in the news after a barn collapsed while he was inside it - he escaped with minor cuts and bruises.

Petrus "Piet" Michaelis van der Horst, born in Klundert, Netherlands on this day in 1963, won a silver medal when he rode with the Dutch pursuit team at the 1928 Olympics.

Other cyclists born on this day: Maik Landsmann (Germany, 1967); Nadir Haddou (France, 1983); Hugo Daya (Colombia, 1963); Huỳnh Châu (Vietnam, 1960); Cristiano Citton (Italy, 1974); Bernt Scheler (Sweden, 1955); Ladislav Ferebauer (Czechoslovakia, 1957); Evaristo Oliva (Guatemala, 1945); Christian Cuch (France, 1943); Vilmos Radasics (Hungary, 1983); Cai Yingquan (China, 1966); Wacław Latocha (Poland, 1936, died 2006).

Daily Cycling Facts 24.10.2013

Octave Lapize
Born in Montrouge, Paris on this day in 1887, Octave Lapize had already been Elite National Cyclo Cross Champion, Amateur National Road Race Champion, won a stage at the Tour of Belgium (1907), won Paris-Auxerre and been third in a 100km race on the track at the Olympics in London (1908) by the time he turned professional with Biguet-Dunlop in 1909. When he did so, his manager Paul Ruinart warned the cycling world that they should prepare themselves for some crushing defeats because Lapize was, he said, "the best rider of his generation. He can and must win everything, because he has all the gifts of a perfect cyclists."

He was indeed a phenomenal all-rounder, able to sprint, climb, endure the inhumanly long stages of the era and - perhaps most importantly - had the intelligence to outwit his rivals at a time when most stage racers relied on the simple method of riding as fast as possible for as long as possible. During the first few months of his professional career it looked like Ruinart had been right when the rider won a bronze medal at the National Cyclo Cross Championships and enjoyed victory on the road at Milan-Varese, Paris-Dreux and Paris-Roubaix; his opponents must, therefore, have felt some relief when he dropped out of his first Tour de France that summer after suffering badly in the freezing, snowy conditions that hit the race that year. However, Lapize went away and began immediately preparing for the next edition and when he rolled up to the start line in 1910 he had become an altogether different rider - leaner, fitter, meaner. These were factors that would stand him in good stead because, after seven years in which Tour director Henri Desgrange had kept his race away from the high mountains (which, he worried, would prove impossible to ride and where bears might eat the riders), the parcours was taking the peloton over the highest roads in the Pyrenees.

Lapize on Tourmalet, 1910

The man who had persuaded Desgrange that high mountain stages should be added was Adolphe Steinès, who had designed the route every year since the first Tour in 1903. In 1905 he had convinced Desgrange that a smaller mountain, Ballon d'Alsace, would add spectacle and it had proved popular with fans; this year, following a January fact-finding mission in which he was warned by locals that the col was barely passable in July (and would probably have died if a search party hadn't found him after he tried to make it over the pass in heavy snow and fell into a ravine), he'd talked the director into letting him add the 2,115m Col du Tourmalet, almost 1,000m higher than Ballon d'Alsace. Rivals of L'Auto, the newspaper Desgrange edited, said that the parcours was "dangerous" and "bizarre," and when it was first published no fewer that 26 riders asked for their names to be taken off the start list. Nevertheless, the mountains stayed and the Tour entered a new era - though Desgrange was still sufficiently worried that the experiment would prove a disaster that, when the race reached the Pyrenees in Stage 9 and he saw how much the riders struggled, he temporarily made Victor Breyer director just in case the whole affair descended into embarrassing farce on the harder climbs in the next stage.

The tall, powerfully-built Luxembourgian François Faber, who had won the Tour the previous year after such an impressive performance in the first half of the race (including five consecutive stage wins, still a record 103 years later) that organisers asked him to ease off a bit to make the race appear more interesting, now found himself at a serious disadvantage - no matter how much of a lead he could gain on the flat stages, he lost it all on the big climbs where the smaller, lighter riders left him far behind. Nevertheless, he did extraordinarily well despite a dog causing him to crash in tage 7 and led the race for ten stages from Stage 2, even winning on the small mountains of Stage 4 - but when the peloton reached the Pyrenees in Stage 9 Lapize beat him, then did so again the following day when they climbed Tourmalet. Lapize was the first man to the top, but could only get there by dismounting and pushing his bike; Gustave Garrigou, who ended the race in third place, was the only man to ride to the top and earned a bonus of 100 francs for doing so. According to legend, when Lapize passed the race officials waiting at the top, he hissed one single word at them: "Assassins!" In fact, those who were there to hear it remembered that it was "Vous êtes des assassins! Oui, des assassins!" - and that he shouted it, rather than hissed.

Lapize on Tourmalet, 1910

Faber had done sufficiently well in the earlier stages to maintain his lead and hoped to add to it in the flat stages to come, but then when he had a puncture in Stage 12 Garrigou helped Lapize to attack; Lapize thus became race leader with three stages to go. Lapize also won Stage 14; by the final stage, Stage 15, he was six points ahead of the Luxembourgian - the outcome of the race in those days being decided according to a points system (still used, in modified fashion, to decide the Points competition run alongside the General Classification and King of the Mountains to this day). When Lapize punctured shortly after the start of the final stage, Faber tried to seize his chance and sprinted away, hoping to gain an insurmountable lead and win back the race. However, he too punctured; he finished the stage in fourth place, beating sixth place Lapize by 6'01", but this only won him back two points - Lapize had won the Tour.

Lapize also won Paris-Roubaix in 1910, then he won it again the next year and became the first man to have won three times and three times consecutively - Gaston Rebry would match him with a third victory a quarter of a century later, but it would be 70 years until Francesco Moser managed to match the three consecutive victories (to date, nobody else has done so). He also won Paris-Tours, Paris-Brussels and became National Road Race Champion in 1911, a title he successfully defended in 1912; that year, he won Paris-Brussels again and also Stage 6 at the Tour. In 1913 he won Paris-Brussels for a third time, a record both for total wins and consecutive wins that has been matched once (Félix Sellier, 1924) and beaten once (Robbie McEwen, 2008), then in 1914 he won Stage 8 at the Tour.

On the same day that the 1914 Tour de France began, the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo and the First World War began. A week after the Tour ended, Germany invaded Belgium and declared war on France. Lapize joined up to fight, becoming a fighter pilot. He survived until the 14th of July in 1917 - that day, he was shot down over Flirey in Meurthe-et-Moselle near the German border and died shortly afterwards in hospital, aged 29 years.

Emilia Fahlin
Born in Örebro on this day in 1988, Emilia Fahlin entered her first bike race when she was 12 years old. Only four other riders took part, and she was the fourth to finish - however, she caught the racing bug and, four years later in 2005, she became Junior Road Race Champion of Sweden, also taking second place in the Junior National Individual Time Trial Championship. The following year she lost her title (but won a bronze medal); however, good results in stage races brought her to the attention of the T-Mobile team. She signed her first professional contract with them for 2007 and stayed as the team gradually transformed into HTC-Highroad before dissolving at the end of 2011.

Right from the start of her professional career, Fahlin was successful. In her first year she won the Under-23 Skandisloppet in Sweden, finished Stage 3 at the Tour of Poland in third place and was second at the Sparkassen Giro. In 2008 she won Stage 3 at the Redlands Classic, took the Elite National Road Race Championship title and then dominated the U-23 Svanesunds 3-dagars by winning three of the total four stages (and coming second on the one she didn't win). The year after that she won the Tour of California Women's Criterium and the National Individual Time Trial Championship, then in 2010 she won the National ITT and Road Race Championships. She kept the ITT title in 2011 and was third in the Road Race; then won the Prologue and Stages 2, 5 and 6 at the Tour de l'Ardèche but was unable to make it into the Emma Pooley-led top 5 overall finishers.

Following the demise of Highroad, Fahlin joined Specialized-Lululemon and helped towards the team's victory in the team time trial at the Energiwacht Tour. She took second place in the Road Race and third in the ITT at the Nationals, then came 19th in the Road Race at the Olympics before finishing the season with good top ten results at the Route de France and Lotto-Decca Tour. In 2013 she moved on to Hitec Products-UCK and, in June, became National Road Race Champion.

Levi Leipheimer

Leipheimer in 2005

Born in Butte, Montana on this day in 1973, Levi Leipheimer was for many years one of the most popular riders in the ProTour peloton: partly for his longevity (he remained competitive in the Grand Tours right up until 2012, when he was 37 years old) and excellent results (he was third at the Tour de France in 2007) but also for his caring nature - he supports animal welfare organisations and, with his wife Odessa Gunn (also a professional cyclist), runs a sanctuary for mistreated animals at home in California.

As a youth, Leipheimer was more interested in skiing than other sports and didn't start cycling until an accident kept him away from the slopes. As has been the case with a surprisingly large number of riders who came to cycling by accident, he showed promise right from the start and, in 1995, was signed up as a trainee with the British MS Maestro-Frigas team. He won the Tour de la Province de Namur with them but although the team continued in 1996, under the new name Sit&Sit-FS Maestro, his contract was not extended; instead he split his time between racing as an  Independent and for the Einstein team. He enjoyed one victory that year - a criterium at Burlingame in the US, but also failed a doping test when a sample he provided at the National Criterium Championships turned out to be positive for ephedrine. He was, therefore, stripped of the title and had to give back the prize money he'd won at the event, but claimed that the drug had got into his system via an antihistamine medicine he'd used to combat hayfever; race rules have since been altered to allow riders to use the drug with a doctor's note. In 1997 he was picked up by the Comptel Data Systems team and enjoyed seven victories in American races, then in 1998 and 1999 he went to Saturn Cycling and won another seven times, including two General Classifications  at the Tour of Beuce in Canada. Now very much on the international professional cycling radar, Johan Bruyneel's US Postal came calling; Leipheimer rode alongside Lance Armstrong with the team in 2000 and 2001.

In 2001 Leipheimer rode the Vuelta a Espana, his first Grand Tour, as a domestique for Roberto Heras - but then performed so well in the final stage, a time trial, that he overtook Heras and took third place in the General Classification and the Points competition. He was the first American rider to have ever finished the Vuelta in the top three. Heras, who had won in 2000, was fourth and not at all impressed with what had happened, but Leipheimer had done enough to earn himself a more lucrative contract with Rabobank for 2002: the year that he made his debut at the Tour de France and finished in eighth place. In 2003 he was eighth at the Critérium du Dauphiné but otherwise performed poorly all year, managing only 58th place at the Vuelta; he experienced a return to form in 2004 and was ninth at the Tour, then departed the team for Gerolsteiner with whom he was sixth at the Tour de France and won the General Classification and the King of the Mountains at the Tour of Germany. In 2006 he won the Critérium du Dauphiné and was 13th at the Tour de France; in 2007 he returned to Johan Bruyneel, riding for the team now known as Discovery Channel Pro Cycling, and won the Tour of California and Stage 19 at the Tour de France before his third place finish. Bruyneel became manager of Astana for 2008 and 2009 and Leipheimer moved with him; in 2008 he won the Tour of California again and took two stages at the Vuelta, where he was second overall, then in 2009 he won the Tour of California (for a record third time), the Vuelta Castilla y Leon and the Tour of the Gila, also taking sixth place at the Giro d'Italia. He didn't finish the Tour de France that year, breaking his wrist in a crash in Stage 12 while he was in fourth place in the General Classification.

Leipheimer in 2011

Leipheimer moved with Bruyneel in 2010 to RadioShack. He won the Tour of the Gila again, then came 13th at the Tour de France before winning the Tour of Utah; in 2011 he won the Tour de Suisse, the Tour of Utah and the USA ProCycling Challenge. In 2012 he joined Omega Pharma-QuickStep and won the Tour de San Luis before finishing his tenth Tour de France in 31st place. At the Tour of California that year, Bruyneel had been served with a subpoena as part of USADA's investigation into doping at US Postal. The full extent of the investigation at that time was not known; however, within a few months it had exploded into perhaps the biggest doping scandal to have ever hit cycling and led to Bruyneel's dismissal as manager of RadioShack-Nissan. Leipheimer  was one of the riders who gave evidence against Lance Armstrong, who was subsequently stripped of his seven Tour de France victories, and in doing so admitted the truth about his own doping before accepting a six month ban to expire in March 2013 - he was also stripped of all his race results gained between June 1999 and July 2006, as well as for July in 2007.

Other cyclists born on this day: Caroline Buchanan (Australia, 1990); Chris Carmichael (USA, 1961); Jill Kintner (USA, 1981); Peter Rogers (Australia, 1974); Emil Richli (Switzerland, 1904, died 1934); Joseph Farrugia (Malta, 1955); Marie-Hélène Prémont (Canada, 1977); Mario van Baarle (Netherlands, 1965); Koichi Azuma (Japan, 1966); Roland Königshofer (Austria, 1962); Rudolf Juřícký (Czechoslovakia, 1971); Rodolfo Caccavo (Argentina, 1927, died 1958); Johann Summer (Austria, 1951); Ezio Cardi (Italy, 1948).

Daily Cycling Facts 23.10.2013

Charles Crupelandt

Charles Crupelandt

There are a plethora of sad stories in cycling: riders whose dreams were smashed, riders whose bodies were smashed, riders who lost everything due to drugs, drink, gambling and bad business decisions and, of course, many who lost their lives while serving their countries during the two conflicts that brought European racing to a halt in the 20th Century. Other than those riders who died early in their careers, before they had chance to reach their full potential, the saddest of them all is surely Charles Crupelandt, a French rider born in Wattrelos on this day in 1886. He first raced as a professional with the French Radiator team in 1904, then spent a year as an Independent before signing to La Française for 1906 and riding in the Tour de France (he abandoned in Stage 2); the team didn't keep him on at the end of the year and so in 1907 he was back among the Independents - that year he again abandoned the Tour, this time in Stage 3, but began performing rather well elsewhere with two victories at Belgian criteriums and second place at Paris-Brussels. Two slow years followed, then in 1910 he was taken on by Le Globe-Dunlop and Stage 1 at the Tour de France in 1910, leading the race for a day before finishing in sixth place overall. In 1911 he returned to La Française, now named La Française-Diamant, and won Stages 4 and 7 at the Tour, finishing in fourth place overall; in 1912 he won Paris-Roubaix, then Stage 1 at the Tour again. The year after that he was third at Paris-Roubaix and the National Road Race Championships and won Paris-Tours; in 1914 he was third at Milan-San Remo, became National Champion and won what would be the last edition of Paris-Roubaix until after the First World War.

Crupelandt in 1912

Crupelandt fought during the war and became a hero, winning the Croix de guerre medal. However, at some point, be found himself in trouble with the law - there is a lack of clarity concerning the year this happened, with various sources claiming 1914, 1917 and 1921/2; whichever it was, he was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison and the Union Vélocipédique handed him a lifetime ban from competition, almost certainly after being pressured into doing so by Crupelandt's rivals. Once freed he was able to continue racing under the aegis of another organisation and won the unofficial National Championships in 1922 and 1923, but it spelled the end of a career that Henri Desgrange once predicted would lead to victory in the Tour de France. As the Vélocipédique gained greater control over the sport in France, Crupelandt's opportunies to race became fewer and fewer and he was unable to earn his living: by the time he died in great poverty on the 18th of February in 1955 he had lost everything, including both his legs and his sight.

To mark Paris-Roubaix's centenary in 1996, the commune of Roubaix laid a 300m stretch of cobbles along the centre of the Avenue Alfred Motte on the final approach to the velodrome that hosts the finish line. Set among the cobbles are inscribed stones commemorating all of the riders to have won what has become known as the hardest race in cycling, which has caused it to become popularly known as Chemin des Géants, Road of Giants; its official name is Espace Charles Crupelandt.

Chris Horner

Chris Horner

Born in Bend, Oregon on this day in 1971, Chris Horner turned professional with the American Nutrafig team in 1995 and won three races, then stayed with them the following year to win ten times and come second at the Redlands Classic and third at Fitchburg Longsjo. Those results were good enough for him to go to Europe and join Française des Jeux but, as is often the case when a rider unaccustomed to the level of competition in European racing makes the move, the next three years were a disappointment with third place at the 1997 GP Ouest France being the only notable result from the period; in 2000 he went to the second-category US based Mercury team and won the Redlands Classic, also picking up three other victories and an excellent third place stage finish at the Critérium International, then in 2001 he won the Solano Classic and four other races but switched to the third-category Prime Alliance team towards the end of the season - an unusual move for a rider whose career appeared to be starting to build up steam, but one that worked out very well for him because, with Prime in 2002, he won Fitchburg Longsjo, the Red River Classic, Redlands, the Sea Otter Classic, Solano and the season-long National Racing Calendar as well as taking second place at the Nature Valley Grand Prix and the Elite National Individual Time Trial Championship.

Horner began 2004 with another US team, Webcor, and won Redlands, the Sea Otter, the Tour de Toona and the National Racing Calendar. In October he received an invitation to join Saunier Duval-Prodir and, four years after his previous attempt failed, he returned to European racing. This time he was a very different and vastly more experienced rider - at the Tour de Suisse he won Stage 6 and was second in the King of the Mountains, then he went to the Tour de France and finished two stages in the top ten before coming 33rd overall. He went to Davitamon-Lotto for 2006 and won Stage 1 at the Tour de Romandie, finished the Tour de France in 64th place and the Vuelta a Espana in 20th, then came 15th at the Tour and 36th at the Vuelta the next year.

Horner in 2011

Rather than being an also-ran, as he must once have feared was his destiny, Horner had now proved himself to be a stage racer of considerable repute; this being a fact not missed by Astana, which signed him for two years in 2008. Since he was with the team primarily to act as domestique for Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, the results Horner added to his palmares while at Astana were not especially impressive; however, he was apparently more than content to have realised his ambition of competing in the biggest cycling events in the world - it was during this time that he became a highly popular rider with fans, who nicknamed him "Smiler" after noticing his constant cheerfulness and enjoyment of his sport. Then, at the Cascade Classic that year, Horner earned his place as one of the greatest characters in the history of cycling: when he saw that a rider named Billy Demong had crashed 2km from the finish at the Cascade Classic, he rode up to him, stopped and said "Hey dude - hop on!" before giving him and his broken bike a "backie" over the line.

In 2010 Horner joined RadioShack, the team for which he still rides, and won the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco before taking ninth place at the Critérium du Dauphiné; he also made his return to the Tour de France and finished in 10th place overall. In 2011, aged 40, he won the Tour of California, then in 2012 he was second at Tirreno-Adriatico and 13th at the Tour de France.

By the end of the 2012 season when, now that he was aged 41, it looked as though career would soon reach its end, much to the disappointment of the many fans who believe that he deserved a Grand Tour victory.

Then, in 2013, something quite simply remarkable happened - Horner won the Vuelta a Espana, thus becoming the oldest man to have ever won a Grand Tour. He did it in spectacular style, attacking hard during the last kilometre of Stage 3, becoming the oldest rider to ever win a Grand Tour stage (and the oldest to lead the General Classification, though Vincenzo Nibali took the lead the following day). Then he beat that record by winning Stage 10, which gave him an overall advantage of 43" - until the next day, when he fell into fourth place overall and Nibali once again took over. By finishing Stage 14 in third place (behind winner Daniele Ratto and Nibali) he moved up into second overall again, but with a 50" deficit to Nibali, which he reduced to 28" in Stage 16 and then 3" in Stage 18. In Stage 19 he finished in fifth place, 6" ahead of 9th place Nibali, and once again was leading the race, this time with an advantage of 3". Second place 28" ahead of Nibali on Stage 20 turned that into a 37" advantage and, with the final stage into Madrid traditionally a ceremonial affair without challenges to the leading rider, the race was his. He had also taken second place in the Points and King of the Mountains competitions, as well as first in the Combination classification that measures a rider's performance across all other classifications.

In January 2014, it was announced that Horner, by then 42 years old, had signed to Lampre-Merida for the forthcoming season.


Beat Breu, born in St. Gallen, Switzerland on this day in 1957, won the Tour de Suisse in 1981 and  again in 1989. He also enjoyed some success in the Grand Tours, winning Stage 20 and finishing eighth overall at the Giro d'Italia in 1981, then Stages 13 and 16 (on the Alpe d'Huez) at the Tour de France a year later for sixth place overall; and in cyclo cross - he was National Champion in 1988 and 1994.

Nariyuki Masada, born in Sendai, Japan on this day in 1983, was second at the National Road Race Championship in 2012. He will ride for the Cannondale ProCycling team, the successor to Liquigas-Cannondale, in 2013.

Alessando Zanardi, known as Alex, was a successful racing car driver from the late 1990s until a crash in 2001 resulted in the amputation of both his legs. Nevertheless, he was racing again less than two years later and also later took up handcycling. At the 2012 Paralympics in London, he won the gold medals for the Individual Road Race and Time Trial and a silver in the Team Relay; his performance later being declared one of the top twelve highlights of the Games.

Art Longsjo Jnr., born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on this day in 1931, rode for an hour and a half to get to the first race he ever entered and then once there won the 1-mile, 3-mile and 25-mile events; he was also a successful speed skater and, in 1956, competed in the cycling at the Summer Olympics and the skating at the Winter Olympics. In 1958, when he was 26, he won the Tour of Somerville but shortly afterwards he died in a road accident - the inaugural Fitchburg Longsjo Classic was organised in his memory two years later and has been held every year since.

Otto Weckerling, who was born in Kehnert, Germany on this day in 1910, dreamed of becoming a professional rider when he was a child. The heavy bike he used to ride to get to the farm where he worked as an apprenticeship gave him the legs to become one: he won his first race in 1927, beating his closest rival by four minutes, seven years later took second place at the Amateur National Championships - which earned him a contract with the Dürkopp team. In 1937 Weckerling won Stage 8 at the Tour de France and the General Classification at the Tour of Germany, then he won Stage 17 at the Tour de France in 1938 before the Second World War brought the race to a temporary end. He survived the conflict and, realising what lay ahead following the establishment of the German Democratic Republic and despite having recently finished building a new home, he moved his family from Madgeburg in the East to Dortmund in the West in 1950. Only weeks afterward, free movement in the Soviet-controlled GDR became impossible.

Other cyclists born on this day: Toivo Hörkkö (Finland, 1898, died 1975); Arturo García (Mexico, 1946); Mats Gustafsson (Sweden, 1957); Hiromi Yamafuji (Japan, 1944, died 1984); József Peterman (Hungary, 1947); Joseph Evouna (Cameroon, 1952); Alexis Méndez (Venezuela, 1969); Carlos Roqueiro (Argentina, 1944); Sven Höglund (Sweden, 1910, died 1995); Lionel Kent (New Zealand, 1928).

Ken Kifer

Ken Kifer

Cycling - not just racing, but in all its many forms - has long been inhabited by characters and eccentrics; a prime example of which was the writer, scholar, transcendentalist, self-sufficiency advocate and above all touring cyclist Ken Kifer, who was born in the USA on this day in 1945. Kifer's website is considered an authoritative source of information and advice on touring, but is equally known for his anecdotes and insights regarding life, love, work and a vast array of other matters.

Though something of a hippy, his essays on what he calls The New World ("simple living, organic gardening, T-groups, natural childbirth, progressive education, and lots of adventure") are well-thought-out and based largely on common sense; as when he advises that those who live in some parts of the USA and wish to go foraging for wild foods in the forest do so only with an experienced guide - having actually lived the sort of life he advocated, his concept of the "harmony of nature" was somewhat more practical than most who share his ideals and left him under no illusion that hippies are not likely to be viewed as tasty and easy meals by bears.

Kifer completed numerous tours thousands of miles long in his life, but was only six miles from his home when he was killed by a drunk driver on the 14th of September in 2003.

"One day, returning to Alabama by bike, I stopped to wash my clothes in Roanoke, Virginia. Two fellows were also doing laundry. They admired my courage and physical fitness, and one of them said, 'I'd like to do something like that, if I were as young as you are.' 'How old are you?' I asked. He said, 'forty-three.' I said, 'I'm almost fifty-one' ... I never lift weights, I never condition my abs, I never stretch, I never diet, I seldom see a doctor, I just walk and ride my bike ... Cycling keeps me lean, fit and healthy, and happy. I know that my own move back to the bike was the best decision I ever made." - Ken Kifer, 23.10.1945-14.09.2003

Daily Cycling Facts 22.10.2013

Mark Renshaw

Renshaw at the Tour Down Under, 2011

Born in Bathurst, New South Wales on this day in 1982, Mark Renshaw started out as a track cyclist and won four National Championship titles in the Under-17 category in 1998, then two more as an U-19 in 1999 (when he also rode for the winning Pursuit team at the Worlds) and another four as an U-19 in 2000 (when he again rode with the winning Pursuit team at the Worlds and became World U-19 Kilo Champion). In 2001 he became Elite National Individual Time Trial Champion and in 2002 Elite National Scratch and Points Champion, riding with the winning Pursuit team at the Nations, the Manchester round of the World Cup and the World Championships.

Renshaw undoubtedly had a glittering career on the track ahead of him and with consistently excellent results in 2002 it looked as though that was indeed where his destiny lay; yet it was that same year that he made the switch into road racing. The process began with an invitation to join the FDJeux development team which, after he finished Stage 4 at the Herald Sun Tour in second place, was upgraded to a traineeship in the team's ProTour squad the following season. Victory at the Be Active Criterium Series and good results at several other races that year (having not turned his back entirely on track, he also became National Madison Champion alongside Graeme Brown) brought him a full professional contract with the team in 2004, the year he finished two stages at the Tour de l'Avenir in second place. In 2005 he rode his first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia, and finished one stage in eighth place before coming 144th overall; then at the end of the year he announced he would be moving to Crédit Agricole and, in his first season with them, won a stage at the Jayco Bay Classic, won the Tro-Bro Léon, impressed with third and second place stage finishes at the Tour Méditerranéen and Sachsen Tour, rode at but did not finish the Vuelta a Espana and then took two second place stage finishes at the Circuit Franco-Belge. In 2007, still with Crédit Agricole, he won the General Classification at Jayco Bay, won Stage 2 at the Tour de Picardie and returned to the Vuelta, this time finishing top ten twice and completing in 144th place. 2008 was his final year with the team; after winning Jayco Bay again he went to the Tour Down Under and won Stage 1 before coming third overall in the Points competition, then rode at but did not finish his first Tour de France.

A devastatingly fast sprinter in his own right, Renshaw has found his greatest fame not by winning races but as the most specialised of domestiques - a lead-out man. When he moved to Columbia-HTC in 2009, he found himself riding alongside a young sprinter who, at 24 years old, was showing signs of the potential to become something extraordinary - his name was Mark Cavendish, and the two men formed a partnership that, at the Tour de France that year, led to an incredible six stage wins for the Manxman. They worked together again in 2010 to win five stages (Cavendish won the final stage for a second consecutive year, the first rider in the history of the Tour to have done so); then again in 2011 when Cavendish won another five stages, taking first place in the Points competition and once again winning the final stage. To some, it seems a strange job - putting in so much effort to enable someone else to take the glory - but it had its advantages: before long, Renshaw was being called the best lead-out man in cycling whereas he'd only ever have been a very good sprinter, and of course he had his opportunities to win races for himself, as was the case when he won the General Classification at the Tour of Qatar and Stage 5 at the Tour of Britain in 2011. That year, when the team became known as HTC-Highroad, owner and manager Bob Stapleton announced that he was experiencing difficulty in securing sponsorship for 2012 with several of the companies he approached hinting that they were reluctant to become involved with a sport perceived by many as being rife with doping; this being especially unfortunate in Highroad's case because, following the transition to Stapleton's ownership after the troubled years when the team raced as T-Mobile (home to a number of riders to be implicated in high profile doping cases), it had been the first team to introduce its own anti-doping rules and procedures that were stricter and more stringent than those already required by the UCI. Nevertheless, at the end of the season, both the men's and women's teams were dissolved - a reminder that, despite all that had been done since the bad old days of the Festina Affair and Operacion Puerto, cycling still suffered the effects of what had happened in the past.

It was widely expected that Cavendish and Renshaw would remain together, continuing their partnership at a team that could afford them both, but this was not the case - following several months of somewhat hyped-up, media-delighting uncertainty, Cavendish went to Team Sky and Renshaw to Rabobank. Cav, whom some believed would be unable to win without Renshaw's help, won three stages at the Tour de France, including the final stage for a fourth time; Renshaw went to Rabobank where he rode once again with his old Madison partner Graeme Brown. Now permitted more chances to ride for himself, he finished top ten 25 times that season, including a victory on Stage 4 at the Tour of Turkey when he beat his fellow Australian Matthew Goss (one of the few sprinters able to take on Cav), three top ten stage finishes at the Giro d'Italia and one at the Tour de France (which he abandoned in Stage 12, suffering pain from four crashes earlier on during the race).

Renshaw leading Cav

At the end of the year, when the full extent of USADA's investigation into Lance Armstrong and the huge doping program at US Postal in the late 1990s and early 2000s became apparent, Rabobank announced that after 17 years it would be ending its association with professional cycling, claiming that it no longer had confidence in the UCI's ability to combat the problem. The organisation said that, as it was too late for riders to secure new contracts elsewhere, it would honour its contracts and continue to provide financial support for the team in 2013 though without its name being used; Renshaw will, therefore, see out his two-year contract with the team, which following a period of time without a named sponsor (when it was known as Blanco) became Belkin, despite showing some signs of unhappiness at his team's decision to support their General Classification contenders rather than their sprinters. Meanwhile, Cav - having experienced a similar situation at the Tour de France when Sky threw their full weight behind Bradley Wiggains, announced he ride for Omega Pharma-QuickStep in 2013. In August 2012, Renshaw told Cycling News: "You never know what can happen, I told [Cav] that when I left, it's a small world and there could be a chance that we hook-up again. I enjoyed working with him. I'm never going to rule out riding with him again." In 2014, we may see the return of the greatest double act in cycling.


Born in Ramnäs, Sweden on this day in 1965, Marie Höljer became Junior National Individual Time Trial Champion in 1982 and then came second at the Elite National Road Race Championship a year later, when she also rode with the winning Elite time trial team (as she would again in 1986, 1987, 1989 and 1990). She became Elite National Individual Time Trial Champion in 1984 and 1991 and was Elite Road Race Champion again in 1988, 1989 and 1991; also taking either second or third in each competition in several of the intervening years before retiring in 2000.

Aad de Graaf, born in Rotterdam on this day in 1939, was Dutch Amateur Sprint Champion in 1960, 1961 and 1962, then came second in 1963 and 1964. In 1965 he turned professional, winning silver for the Sprint at the Elite National Championships that year and the next.

Other cyclists born on this day: Maxime Bally (Switzerland, 1986); Paul Schulze (Germany, 1882); Tim Carswell (New Zealand, 1971); Donna Wynd (New Zealand, 1961); Rudolf Franz (Germany, 1937); Pascal Robert (France, 1963); César Marcano (Venezuela, 1987).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.10.2013

Fred de Bruyne

Alfred de Bruyne, born in Berlare, Belgium on this day in 1930, became the dominant Classics and Monuments rider of the late 1950s. Like many Classics specialists, his powerful sprint made him a formidable stage winner too, though he never stood a chance of challenging the General Classification of the long stage races: winning the Independents Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1953 earned him a place at his first Tour de France - he finished Stage 5 in 3rd place. The next year, he won Stages 8, 13 and 22.

In 1955, de Bruyne finished two stages at the Tour in the top three and was second at the Giro di Lombardia. In 1956 he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Paris-Nice and Milan-San Remo, then came second behind Louison Bobet at Paris-Roubaix before winning Stages 2, 6 and 10 at the Tour. He also won the Desgrange-Colombo, a season-long competition run by L'Équipe, Het Nieuwsblad/Sportwereld, La Gazzetta dello Sport and the now-defunct Les Sports newspapers that formed an early version of today's UCI ranking system; he would win it again in 1957 and 1959 - the Swiss Tour de France winner Ferdinand Kübler had won it three times too, but de Bruyne is the only rider to have won it three times consecutively.

De Bruyne could ride well on the track too, winning the Six Days of Gent with Rik van Steenbergen in 1957 prior to achieving one of the rarest and most prestigious doubles in cycling: winning the notoriously difficult Ronde van Vlaanderen and then, a week later, Paris-Roubaix - a feat that in almost a century (Paris-Roubaix began in 1896, the Ronde in 1913), only ten other riders have managed. He finished the season with victory at Paris-Tours, then got 1958 off to a good start when he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Paris-Nice for a second time. In 1959 he won Liège-Bastogne-Liège again and was second at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. From that year, de Bruyne's performance began to tail off and in 1960 he won only one event, a derny race at Zedelgem. The following year was to be his last as a professional rider, but he went out on a high with victory at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.

De Bruyne retained his links to cycling after retiring, writing books on the careers of van Steenbergen, Rik van Looy, Patrick Sercu, Peter Post and himself - they were well-received and remain worth seeking out today. He also served as a manager, later an official spokesperson, for the Ti-Raleigh team when it was at the the height of its legendary success, then became a TV sports commentator before his death aged 63 in 1994.

Schorn at the 2012 Giro

At the 2012 Giro d'Italia where his NetApp team made their Grand Tour debut, Daniel Schorn (born in Zell am See, Austria on this day in 1988), managed to avoid a crash 400m from the Stage 5 finish line and then out-sprinted several older and more-experienced sprinters to take fifth place. In 2013 he managed three top 20 finishes at the Vuelta a Espana; now aged 25, he seems a rider to watch in the coming years.

Luke Parker, born in Melbourne, Australia on this day in 1993, rode with the winning Sprint team at the Junior National Championships in 2010 and 2011. In 2012 he won the Austral Wheel Race, the oldest track competition still held anywhere in the world; in 2013, riding with the OCBC Singapore Continental team, he won Stage 2 at the Tour of the Philippines.

Kari Myyryläinen, born in Hyvinkää, Finland on this day in 1963, became National Champion in Cyclo Cross, Road Racing and Individual Time Trial in 1983, then successfully defended the ITT title and added the Points Race Championship in 1984. In 1985 he was Road Race and ITT champion again and won the GP de France; then he won the Road Race Championship in 1986, the Cyclo Cross Championship in 1991 and 1992, the ITT Championship in 1993 and the Cyclo Cross Championship in 1994 and 1995.


Other cyclists born on this day: Albert Kruschel (USA, 1889, died 1959); Orlando Rodrigues (Portugal 1969); Neil Ritchie (New Zealand, 1933); Ivan Valant (Yugoslavia, 1909); Bent Hansen (Denmark, 1932); Kathlyn Ragg (Fiji, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 20.10.2013

Lucien van Impe

At the Tour de l'Avenir in 1968, The Eagle of Toledo - also known as Federico Bahamontes, who in the opinion of many fans was the greatest climber cycling has ever produced - watched a young Belgian rider who was doing rather well on the mountain stages; sufficiently well that he won the King of the Mountains overall. The rider's name was Lucien van Impe, and he'd been born almost 22 years earlier in Mere. The Eagle was so impressed by his performance that he spoke to Jean Stablinski, another rider of considerable repute who had since become general manager of the Sonolor-Lejeune team, and the next season van Impe had his first professional contract with them.

He let them know that they'd made the right decision with twelfth place in the General Classification at the Tour de France, an incredible result for a rider on his first attempt; and a year later he was sixth after finishing top ten on five stages - including one second and one third place; then in 1971 he finished seven stages in the top ten, was third overall and won the King of the Mountains, and he won it again in 1972, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1983, saying that he felt he could have won for a seventh time but that he was unwilling to beat Bahamontes' record set in 1964 ("I was proud of my record, he said, "I shared it with my idol"). His General Classification results remained impressive, too: he was fourth in 1972, fifth in 1973, third in 1975 and 1977, ninth in 1978, 11th in 1979, second in 1981 and fourth in 1983. In 1976, he won.

Van Impe entered the Tour de France fifteen times in total and completed each of them - only Joop Zoetemelk and the legendary Jens Voigt have ridden in more (sixteen each; Viatcheslav Ekimov and Guy Nulens have also made fifteen appearances). He has been at the centre of a number of interesting incidents, both as a rider and since his retirement. The first - and the one that everyone knows - came at the Tour in 1976, by which time Solonor had become Gitanes-Campagnolo and was managed by Cyrille Guimard: the story goes that Guimard repeatedly told van Impe to attack Joop Zoetemelk and became so frustrated at his refusal to do so that he eventually threatened to order the driver of the team car to run him over if he didn't. Guimard, notoriously hot-tempered at times (and more than successful enough as a rider and manager to be well used to getting what he wants), claims that this is what won van Impe the Tour that year, while Van Impe denies that it ever happened. Another comes from a year later, when van Impe was the easy favourite to win the King of the Mountains, which he did eventually win - but only after losing the lead on the Alpe d'Huez when he somehow forgot to eat, rapidly running out of energy on his way up the mountain. The house in which he lives, in Impe, is named Alpe d'Huez.

In 2004, Richard Virenque beat Bahamontes with a record seventh King of the Mountains. Although he had been implicated in the Festina Affair and was proved a liar, Virenque remained enormously popular among the French fans who, nearly two decades since Bernard Hinault had been the last, were desperate for a French rider to win the Tour. However, van Impe - who, incidentally, never missed nor refused an anti-doping test and passed every one to which he was subjected - said that in his opinion Virenque was an opportunist rather than a great climber. Bahamontes agreed in part, saying that it was a pity Virenque would now be considered the greatest climber because he was not a "complete" rider; then added that he did not consider himself to be the greatest, either - he believed that Charly Gaul and van Impe were both better than he had been.

Patrik Sinkewitz
Born in Fulda, Germany on this day in 1980, Patrik Sinkewitz won numerous races during his early career and rode his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, with QuickStep-Davitamon in 2003, coming 73rd overall. He stayed with the team until the end of 2005, riding the Vuelta again (and failing to finish) in 2004, then rode his first Tour de France in 2005 and came 59th overall.

Patrik Sinkewitz in 2006

Having switched to T-Mobile for 2006, he returned to the Tour and was 23rd; inspiring fans to wonder if he might be a future winner. In 2007 he crashed into a spectator during Stage 8 and, while seeming unhurt initially, did not start Stage 9 following the first rest day. Then, a day later, it was announced that a sample he provided had been found to contain a suspiciously high level of testosterone and he was suspended. When he declined his right to have his B sample tested T-Mobile sacked him, the decision being announced on the last day of July - in November, he admitted that he had also doped with blood transfusions and EPO; since this was his first offence, he was banned for one year.

In 2009, Sinkewitz returned to competition with the ProContinental PSK Whirlpool-Author team. Victory at the Sachsen Tour and a stage win at the Volta a Portugal brought a better offer from ISD-Neri, whom he joined for 2010; that year he was sixth overall at the Tour of Britain. Early in 2011 the UCI revealed that he had failed another test, providing a sample at the GP di Lugano in February that had turned out to be positive for human growth hormone. This time, he requested that his B sample be tested, but it too was positive - he thus became the first rider to be suspended for using HGH but insisted that he was innocent of the charge. An investigation conducted by the German cycling union subsequently found evidence that cast serious doubts on WADA's guidelines on HGH testing and cleared him of wrong-doing in June 2012, following which he joined Meridiana-Kamen. A few months later he took seventh place at the Tour du Gévaudan in France. With the same team in 2013, he won Stages 1, 2 and the General Classification at the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda.


Yves Hézard, born in Donzy, France on this day in 1948, was National Military Road Race Champion in 1969, won Stage 7 and came seventh overall at the Tour de France in 1972 and became National Pursuit Champion in 1977.

Marcel Duchemin, born in Laval, France on this day in 1944, was second overall in the Milk Race (as the Tour of Britain was then known) in 1971 and 1972.

Pierfranco Vianelli, who was born in Provaglio d'Iseo, Italy on this day in 1948, won the Individual Road Race at the 1968 Olympics.

August Meuleman, born in Soumagne, Belgium, raced between 1928 and 1950 but was professional for just two years, riding for Depas Cycles in 1932 and 1933. In 1929 he came second in the Independents Ronde van Vlaanderen and in 1937, 1938 and 1948 he was National Stayers Champion, but other than a few criterium victories he endured long stretches without winning.

André Pousse, born on this day in 1919, was a French actor who starred in a number of successful films including Un Flic, Drôles de zèbres and Les Égouts du paradis. Usually, he played a gangster. As a young man, he was also a notable cyclist, winner of a record eight editions of the Six Days of Vél d'Hiv event at Jacques Goddet's Vélodrome d'hiver - the record will remain unbroken as the Vél d'Hiv was demolished following a fire in 1959.

Other cyclists born on this day: Scott Moninger (USA, 1966); José Pascoal Jr. (Brazil, 1988); Diomedes Panton (Philippines, 1960); Arturo Romeo (Philippines, 1941); Luigi Tasselli (Italy, 1901, died 1971); Erik Kjeldse (Denmark, 1890, died 1976); Abdul Bahar-ud-Din Rahum (Malaysia, 1949); Scott Erwood (Canada, 1987); Martin Steger (Switzerland, 1948); Gary Mandy (Zimbabwe, 1959).