Daily Cycling Facts 07.11.2013

James Moore (right) with an 1869 model S-Works Venge

The very first Paris-Rouen race took place on this day in 1869, making it one of the oldest official and organised bicycle races in history - and, it's believed, the first bike race to be held between two cities.

The winner, taking 10 hours and 40 minutes to complete the 123km, was James Moore, an Englishman who had been born in Bury St.Edmunds in 1849 but grew up in Paris; he received a huge prize of 1,000 gold Francs. 120 people, among them two women, started the race, but 24 hours after the start only 32 had finished - including one of the women, who had entered as Miss America (she was in fact English, and her real name was Mrs. Turner - bicycle racing, in Britain and elsewhere, was not considered to be a sport befitting gentlemen, never mind ladies, and the idea of women taking part in public athletic competition was widely frowned upon; Mrs. Turner therefore felt the need to conceal her identity - a great pity, as it means we know nothing more about her) and crossed the line in 29th place after 22 hours and 50 minutes. The race had been inspired by the popularity of a shorter event at St-Cloud in Paris the year before, an event that Moore also won and which is often - despite convincing evidence of earlier events - said to have been the first organised bike race in the world. A day after that, he won Britain's first organised race at Brent Reservoir, near to which he is believed to be buried.

The race - which imposed some strict rules, such as banning riders from being towed by dogs or fitting sails to their bikes - was organised by a magazine, Le Vélocipède Illustré, and businessmen the Olivier Brothers who are usually credited as being the first to realise the commercial potential of the bicycle and the first to begin mass-producing them after going into partnership with Pierre Michaux. Michaux, a blacksmith, had invented the velocipede (briefly also known as a "Michaudine") when he came up with the idea in the early 1860s of adding pedals* to the draisienne, the hobby-horse that had changed little in the half-century since Karl Drais** invented it - curiously, Moore had befriended the Michaux family in Paris during his youth.

*Just as nobody knows for certain if the race in St-Cloud was the world's first or where Moore is buried, nobody really knows if Pierre Michaux really was the first to think of fitting pedals to a draisienne to make a velocipede. It might have been his son Ernest, or even by Pierre Lallement who may have come up with an earlier design and later had connections to the Olivier brothers, and possibly even worked for Pierre Michaux for a while.

**For that matter, we don't know for certain that Drais invented the hobby-horse, either. He might have been copying something he'd seen.

Antonella Bellutti

Bellutti at the 1996 Olympics

Born in Bolzano on this day in 1968, Italian Antonella Bellutti was a distinguished athlete in her youth, winning seven Junior National titles for the 100m hurdles and setting a national Junior record. Later, she fell in love with cycling and took second place in the Individual Pursuit at the National Track Championships in 1992, then won the event and the National Individual Time Trial Championship on road two years later. In 1995, she won the Pursuit at the Manchester round of the World Cup and at the National Championships where she also won the 500m, then came second in the Pursuit at the World Championships and managed ninth place at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda.

1996 would be an excellent year: she won the Pursuit at the Cali round of the World Cup, the Pursuit and 500m for a second year running at the National Championships, took second place in the National ITT Championships, third place in the Pursuit at the World Championships and won the Pursuit at the Olympics, beating Marion Clignet and Judith Arndt.

In 1997, Bellutti win the Pursuit at the Adelaide, Cagliari, Fiorenzuola d'Arda and Cali rounds of the World Cup and began to dominate in the Points race too, winning it at Athina and Cali. She also won the Omnium at the European Championships before going to the Nationals, where she won the Pursuit, Points, 500m and Sprint, and kept the Pursuit and 500m National titles the following year, also winning the Pursuit and Points at Cali.

Bellutti made a return to road racing in 1999 and won the Giro Pordenone shortly after taking a bronze in the Points at the Moscow round of the Track World Cup. The middle part of the year was based on the track again and she won the 500m, Points and Sprint, then went back to the road and came third at the Chrono Champenois. In 2000, having won the 500m and Pursuit (and come second in the Points) at the National Championships, she went to the Olympics and won gold in the Points race before calling an end to her cycling career - two years later, at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, she came seventh in the two-woman bobsleigh event with Gerda Weissensteiner.

In addition to showing talent in several very different sports, Bellutti has turned her hands to some very different jobs: between 1992 and 1995 she was a physical education teacher, then some years later she contributed several articles to newspapers and was included on the national register of journalists. In 2001 she was elected to a position on the Italian Olympic Commission and, a year later, became technical director of the men's national track team (a role she gave up as it was seen to conflict with her role at the Commission). In 2003, she was athletes' representative at the national anti-doping agency, and since 2012 she has been one of the chief organisers of the XXVI World Universities Winter Games, due to be held in December 2013.


Happy birthday to Tanya Dubnicoff, the retired Canadian track cyclist who represented her country in three Olympics and won four gold medals in the Pan-American Games. She now lives in California where she works as a cycling coach, training the Canadian national squad among many other teams.

Hilton Clarke, who was born in Ormond, Australia on this day in 1979, has won a large number of events primarily at home, in New Zealand and in North America. In 2011, he became the first rider to win the CSC Invitational) twice. Known as a sprinter, he has ridden for United Healthcare since 2011.

Tom Meeusen, born in Brasschaat on this day in 1988, won the Debutant's race at the National Cyclo Cross Championships in 2004 and the Junior National Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships of 2005 and 2006. In 2007, he won the tough Junior competitions at the Ruddervoorde and Koppenbergcross cyclo cross events, then in 2008 he became Under-23 National Cyclo Cross Champion and in 2009 he came third in the U-23 European Championships. 2010 was his first year at Elite level and he was third in the National 'Cross Championships. In 2011 he made a return to mountain biking and won a race at Averbode in Belgium, then another at Apeldoorn in 2012; in 2013 he kept up both disciplines and won a 'cross race at Zonnebeke, an MTB race at Steenwik and then in October the 'cross race at Marianne Vos' hometown Den Bosch. Meeusen has ridden for Telenet-Fidea throughout his career.


This day in 2004 saw the inauguration of Sri Lanka's Cyclone, a mass participation bicycle rally aimed at establishing cyclist's rights and promoting the bike as a means of transport in the Asian nation.

On this day in 1942, Fausto Coppi set a new Hour Record at 45.798km at the Vigorelli track.

More cyclists born on this day: Per Kærsgaard Laursen (Denmark, 1955); Kenji Takeya (Japan, 1969); Emil Beeler (Switzerland, 1937); Pat Murphy (Canada, 1933); Harald Wolf (East Germany, 1955).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.11.2013

Frank Vandenbroucke

Frank Vandenbroucke

Born in Mouscron, Belgium on this day in 1974, Frank Vandenbroucke - known as VDB - was one of the bad boys of professional cycling, but initially a charming and colourful one who was supported by legions of adoring fans. Sadly, that likable personality, along with the enormous talent he demonstrated early in his sporting career, would be destroyed by a succession of emotional and drug problems, and he died a tragic and early death.

Aged four, Frank was hit by a car while riding his bike in the village of Ploegsteert and suffered injuries serious enough to require four operations and to give him problems for the rest of his life, yet his mother remembered years later how he hadn't cried until a doctor cut his beloved cycling shorts in order to be able to examine his leg. As a teenager, he tried athletics and showed talent, winning a regional schoolboy's championship, but cycling remained his true love: in 1989 he received his first racing licence, and won his first race. An unnamed rider, speaking to journalist Philippe van Holle, recalled meeting him during a race soon afterwards (as published originally in ProCycling):

"It must have been when I was about 19 or 20 and went out training with a friend on the Belgian borders. As we spun along, out of nowhere this skinny blond kid was on our back wheel. He looked about 14. He was still there 15 minutes later, so we picked up speed. He just sat there, so we picked up the pace again. It was still no problem for him. I looked over my shoulder and he gave me a half-mocking, half-friendly grin. In the end, we went as hard as we could to try to get rid of him and teach the little brat a lesson, because by now he was getting a bit too cocky for our tastes. But whatever we did, he still hung on. After about an hour, we came into a village called Ploegsteert, at which point he came alongside with real arrogance and said 'OK, I'm back home now, so 'bye. By the way, I'm Frank Vandenbroucke.' Neither of us had ever met a kid like him."

In 1991, Vandenbroucke won the National Novices Championship, in 1992 the National Juniors Championship and two Junior races; then in 1993 the National Junior Madison Championship and three races, which earned him a trainee contract with Lotto-Caloi (Jean-Luc, his uncle, was directeur sportif) for the final part of the season. It was upgraded to a professional contract the following year and he won two more races, including Stage 6 at the Tour Méditerranéen, his most prestigious yet. He started 1995 with Lotto but moved to Mapei-GB early in the season, enjoying his best year to date with seven victories, but then smashed it with 17 victories including the General Classifications at the Tour Méditerranéen and Österreich-Rundfahrt as well as first place at the tough Scheldeprijs Classic in 1996. In 1997 he won the Tour de Luxembourg and entered the Tour de France for the first time, stunning the cycling world with two second place stage finishes (2 and 16). In 1998, he won the Paris-Nice stage race and Gent-Wevelgem, another tough Classic in which riders battle against powerful and, frequently, icy-cold winds blasting in off the North Sea. Now there was no doubt that a major new talent - perhaps, even, the new Eddy Merckx that Belgian fans had hoped for for so long - had arrived. Cofidis, a French team, snapped him up for 1999 with a 30 million Belgian Franc (£340,000; 397,000 Euros; $546,600) salary over three years as the bait.

It was an enormous sum to a 24-year-old, and it would start up the machinery of his downfall and eventual demise. At Cofidis, Vandenbroucke met two riders with whom he shared much in common, the Frenchman Philippe Gaumont and the the Maltese-born British rider David Millar. None of the three knew it, but there were dark days ahead for all three of them - Gaumont would be changed with doping (though the case was dismissed) in 1998 and again, as part of the investigation into the notorious "Dr. Mabuse" Bernard Sainz (who wasn't a doctor but never corrected people who believed him to be one, and was later sentenced to three years' imprisonment for illegally practicing as one), a year later. During the second investigation, in an attempt to save his own skin, Gaumont named names, listing riders he believed or knew to be doping, including Millar who was subsequently banned for two years. Gaumont, who burnt every possible bridge back into cycling with the publication of his Prisonnier du dopage, never returned to the sport and died having spent a month in a coma following a massive heart attack in 2013, when he was 40 - heart attacks at relatively young ages being one side-effect of EPO, which thickens the blood by increasing the number of red cells and in doing so strains the heart. Millar, who sunk into the depths of depression and alcoholism, somehow found the mental strength necessary to drag himself back out; he returned to cycling and enjoyed many successes, becoming a highly respected spokesman for the peloton and an authority on anti-doping, and is popularly considered to have become the most honest man in the sport. Vandenbroucke got on with Gaumont and they became friends; he did not like Millar and would not speak to him. It was Gaumont, Vandebroucke said, who first introduced him to recreational drug use, teaching him how to "trip" by mixing nonbenzodiazepine sleeping aid Zolpidem with alcohol, which is reported to create mild euphoria and hallucinations, and to Sainz. He described how he first took the drug in his autobiography:

"After our daily work-out, training for Calpe, we all met in a hotel room to do something that was entirely usual at Cofidis: drinking beer, listening to music and other things. Gaumont put a pill in my mouth, I asked him what he was doing. "Stilnoct," he said [Stilnoct is a brand name of Zolpidem - JO], "here - have one!" I didn't really see much point in taking a sleeping pill at a party. "No thanks," I told him, "perhaps later, when I go to bed." He laughed. "You innocent," he told me, taking another sip of his drink. "We don't take these to sleep, we take them to hallucinate. Come on, have two and some alcohol, then in a quarter of an hour you'll be tripping. You gotta try it, man!" I hesitated. "C'mon, jump in," he said. It was at that very moment that it all started - the machine was switched on, all because I said yes when faced with the question of whether or not I would take those pills."

That 1999 was the beginning of the end is made even more heartbreaking by it also having been Vandenbroucke's most successful year as a rider - and even more so by it being the year that his first daughter, Cameron, was born. He won nine times in total, including highly prestigious events such as the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (one of the most prestigious of the Classics after the five Monuments), Liège–Bastogne–Liège (which is a Monument and, as the oldest of them, is considered the greatest by some - and his victory, 30" ahead of second-place Michael Boogerd, was simply spectacular) and two stages plus the Points classification at the Vuelta a Espana. He and Cameron's mother, Clotilde Menu, were said to have a difficult relationship and were not married; they broke up that year.

He remained with Cofidis in 2000, but already his results were sliding - he came second in the National Championships, but otherwise could not distinguish himself all season, and his contract was not extended into 2001. Instead, he moved to Lampre-Daikin which probably thought it'd found a bargain, but in April a car in which he was travelling was stopped by police. Driving the car was a certain Bernard Sainz, who was unable to provide the police with insurance documents, so they searched the vehicle - and found what they believed to be a very large amount of illegal doping products. In fact, the drugs were homeopathic remedies (some sources, apparently incorrectly in view of Sainz escaping prosecution, say that they were in fact EPO, morphine and bronchodilator clenbuterol, which would later be the reason for Alberto Contador's ban; Sainz still claims to this day that he only ever supplied homeopathic drugs), but Sainz was by that time under so much suspicion that, after he claimed to have spent the night at Vandenbroucke's home, the property was searched. Small quantities of various drugs were found, which the rider claimed had been prescrived by a veterinary surgeon for his dog (as Cycling News later put it, "there have also been no reports of VDB's dog kicking the bucket after" the drugs were removed for analysis). Sainz, incidentally, claimed to have hardly known the rider; he could not be connected to the drugs at Vandenbroucke's home and was not charged.

Vandenbroucke was dragged in handcuffs to a police station to be questioned, prompting fans to start a petition protesting at what they saw as unnecessarily harsh treatment - among the 2,500 people to sign it was his sworn rival Peter van Petegem; nevertheless, he was given a provisional ban of six months, but found a new contract - with a vastly reduced salary - riding for Domo-Farm Frites in 2002, where he rejoined his old friend Johann Museeuw and manager Patrick Lefevère, both of whom he had met at Mapei. That year, he won the Mere road race in Belgium, but was stopped twice for drink-driving in his sports car. Compounding Vandenbroucke's problems was another unsuitable romantic pairing, to an Italian model named Sarah Pennachi; while the couple seem to have loved one another - and had a daughter, Margaux, in 2001 - friends and family termed the relationship "diabolical," saying that when they were together they fought, but when they were apart became depressed. She frequently left him, returning to Italy; he frequently left her, staying with friends at Eeklo. On one occasion, when they argued on the phone, Vandenbroucke pretended to commit suicide by firing a shotgun into the air.

Lefevère evidently believed that Vandenbroucke could save himself and wanted to give him that chance, because when he started QuickStep-Davitamon in 2003 he offered the troubled rider a place. Incredibly, despite his declining mental health, Vandenbroucke was second at the Ronde van Vlaanderen (another Monument, widely considered the hardest after the brutal Paris-Roubaix). With some justification, he considered second place to be a perfectly adequate result, but Lefevère believed he could have won had he have made the effort. Vandenbroucke walked out, and his second place proved good enough to enable him to secure a new contract with Fassa Bortolo for 2004. Before signing his contract, he asked the team not to pay him unless he won - which can be seen as a desperate attempt to force himself to pull his life back together in order that he could carry on in the sport he loved. It didn't work: after failing to win a single race and not even managing to show up at most of those he was entered for, he was sacked halfway through August. How he managed to persuade the managers of Mr. Bookmaker.com-Palmans that he was worth signing up is one of the great unanswered mysteries of cycling, but somehow he did and when he won the 160km Zwevegem race a month later, he secured himself a place on the team for 2005 - even though he finally admitted to police in December 2004 that he had used EPO, steroids, morphine and amphetamines.

Once again, Vandenbroucke missed most of the races for which he was entered in 2005. promoting the team's directeur sportif Hilaire van der Schueren to demand he proved he was still a racing cyclist. When matters did not improve and he failed to keep managers informed of his progress and whereabouts, he was sacked. Also that year, he was sentenced following his 2004 confession, declining his chance to receive a light sentence in return for naming his drug supplier, but the court showed some leniency - presumably due to his obvious addiction problems - and handed him 200 hours of community service. He appealed; another court fined him 250,000 Euros. Even at that point, the promise he'd once shown brought him a contract - he started 2006 with Unibet but left the team - amicably, apparently - in July, then went to Acqua e Sapone a little over a month later. During 2006, Vandenbroucke and Penacchi finally divorced and he returned to live with friends at Eeklo, telling people that he was seeking to build a new, quieter and more peaceful life for himself

Vandenbroucke experienced one of the most bizarre episodes of his life - at an amateur race unaffiliated with either the UCI or the Italian federation, he was recognised by an official. He'd been racing with a licence in the name of Francesco del Ponte, Frank of the Bridge. While he admitted to using the licence and racing with it, claiming that he "needed" to race and was unable to function without it, he was strangely unclear when asked who had made it or suggested the name. "It's inappropriate," he argued. "In Flemish, broucke means pants. I would have called myself Francesco del Pantalone. I don't know who did it and I don't want to know." The photo on the licence depicted Tom Boonen. "I would certainly not have used a photo of Tom," he insisted (it is notable that Boonen was the protege of Vandenbroucke's friend Museuuw, and had already by that point enjoyed all of the successes that Vandenbroucke once seemed destined to win. Could it be, perhaps, that he wished he was Boonen, and wanted to keep quiet rather than be forced to admit it?)

Early in 2007, Vandenbroucke published his autobiography Je ne suis pas Dieu, I'm Not God. It made for worrying reading, leaving no doubt that its author was a man who had experienced a full mental breakdown.

To Stilnoct and amphetamines, I added Valium... Sometimes I didn't sleep a second in five days. I started seeing things, people who didn't exist. Like people hiding around me in the bushes with telephoto lenses. I used to hear them coming, with their combat-shoes; they got out of their bus parked in front of the house. They were coming to arrest me. Shit, my dope! I ran to the bathroom to throw my stock of amphetamines down the toilet and the syringes into the waste bin... Sarah didn't used to see them and tried to get me to understand. But how couldn't she see them, those policemen, dozens of them, and their flashing lights! She must be crazy. But was she making it up: could she see them really?"

In June, four months after the book was published, Vandenbroucke attempted suicide following a year in which he described himself as having been more depressed than ever before. He would later write:

"I went to fetch the most expensive bottle of wine from my cellar, a magnum Château Petrus 1961. I poured it out and I drank a toast to my life. I'd asked the advice of a doctor. Insulin would do it.
I wrote a farewell letter: it knew it was clumsy [lâche] but for me it was the best solution...
"There's no need for an autopsy. I injected 10cc of Actrapid. Please, don't let them open my eyes."
...I was alone. I put on my world champion's jersey, I injected myself and then I went to lie on my bed and I waited to die. I was so happy. No more worries at last... Deliverance at last. It was my mother who found me later that day."

Acqua e Sapone manager Palmiro Masciarelli went to see him in hospital and reported back that he was gravely ill. During the period when he was between Unibet and Acqua e Sapone, then Mitsubishi-Jatarza for the first four months of 2008, he won nothing and was known to be in bad health and, as a result, he could not find a new team for the remainder of 2008, then returned in 2009 with Cinelli-DownUnder. That he won two races that year - Stage 2 (15km ITT) at Les Boucles de l'Artois and Olen - evidence either that he had either backed away from the brink or that he was now using so much doping that his health no longer mattered. That year, on holiday in Senegal, he got drunk and checked into a hotel at 2am on the 12th of October in the company of a Senegalese woman. At 4am, the woman called for a mop and bucket, saying that he had vomited. By 1pm the next day, he had not been seen; by 8pm he was reported as dead. He was 34 years old. Two days later, the Senegalese woman and two other individuals were arrested and charged with stealing two mobile phones and some money from the dead cyclist. One month later, his family requested that no further tests to establish whether he'd been using drugs at the time of his death be carried out.

Vandenbroucke was the son of Jean-Jacques Vandenbroucke, a professional rider with Hertekamp-Magniflex in 1970, and the nephew of Jean-Luc Vandebroucke who was professional between 1975 and 1988 and winner of the GP des Nations in 1980, the Tour de Picardie in 1981, the Tour de l'Aude in 1986 and the prologue of the 1987 Vuelta a Espana. His brother-in-law Sebastian Six was a very successful amateur rider and his cousin Jean-Denis Vandenbroucke was professional between 1996 and 2000.

Hugo Koblet

It was on this day in 1964 that Le Pedaleur de Charme Hugo Koblet died in a car crash that may have been suicide. Koblet's career was enormously successful with eight National Championships and General Classification victories in the Giro d'Italia (1950) and Tour de France (1951). However, he could not resist giving into the playboy lifestyle made possible by his success, remarkably good looks and charm - Victor Godder, directeur of the Tour, called him "the perfect specimen for demonstrating the miraculous power of the human race," no less, and he might have won even more races had it not have been for a number of beautiful women, countless parties and, eventually, debt.

His death, at the wheel of his Alfa-Romeo sports car when he was 39 years old, was witnessed by a man named Emile Isler. Isler claimed he'd see the cyclist driving at 120-140kph along a stretch of road, then drive back in the opposite direction more slowly while looking at the roadside Then, he turned round again, accelerated to high speed and drove directly into a pear tree.

More on Koblet here.


Heiri Suter

Heiri Suter

Not so well known nowadays is Heiri Suter, another Swiss cyclist who became the first man to ever win Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders in a single year in 1923. Born on the 10th of July 1899 at Granichen, Suter was also unofficial world champion in 1922 and 1925 after winning the Grand Prix Wolber (which served as an unofficial World Championships at that time), official Swiss road champion five times during the 1920s and multiple winner of several Classics including the now defunct Züri-Metzgete (six times in ten years) and Paris-Tours (twice) and the first non-Belgian to win the Tour of Flanders. He died on this day, aged 79, in 1978.


Cherise Taylor-Stander
Born in Pretoria on this day in 1989, Cherise Taylor-Stander came second in the Junior National Championships of 2006, then second in the Junior World Championships a year later. In 2008, she won Stage 4 at the Tour of Chongming Island, then won the National Championships at Elite level before signing her first professional contract, with MTN, for 2009.

As is often the case, the shift into professional cycling proved something of a shock and Taylor went for a season without victory, then left the team at the end of the year. In 2010, however, she won another National Championship and was seventh overall at the Tour of New Zealand, bringing an offer of a door into European cycling with a place on the repected Lotto-Belisol team. With them, she performed well at Chongming Island, the Giro Donne and the Holland Ladies Tour, also winning the Individual Time Trials at the National and African Championships that same year. In 2012, after successfully defending her National ITT title, she scored her biggest victory in Europe to date when she won Stage 2 at the Route du France. She had aimed to take a place on South Africa's Olympic team that summer, but was prevented from doing so by the national Olympic federation.

In May 2012, Taylor married elite mountain biker Burry Stander. Less than one year later, on the 3rd of January as he returned to his bikeshop after a training ride, Burry was hit and killed by a taxi.


Urs Freuler
Urs Freuler, born in Bilten, Switzerland on this day in 1958, Urs Freuler was primarily a track rider (he was World Points Champion from 1981-1987 and then again in 1989, National Points Champion in 1981, 1986 and from 1989-1992, European Sprint Champion in 1981, National Individual Pursuit Champion in 1985, World Keirin Champion in 1983 and 1985 and won a total of 21 six-day races) but also performed well in road race sprints, which is why Ti-Raleigh approached him for their Tour de France team when Jaan Raas was unable to compete in 1981 and nobody on the team was able to replace him - the rules at that time permitting teams to take on unsigned riders for a specific race. However, because he was a track rider and would be embarking on a full season of racing that winter, Ti-Raleigh manager Peter Post agreed that Freuler would ride only the flat stages until the race reached the Alps, then would retire. He was with the team when it won the two Team Time Trial stages, then he won Stage 7 too; but he never again rode in the Tour.

He did, however, ride in future editions of the Giro d'Italia, and he did very well indeed, winning Stages 5, 6 and 11 (and Stage 2 at the Tour de Suisse a little later) in 1982; finishing top three four times in 1983 (he won stages at the Giro di Trentini and Giro di Sardegna, plus two at the Tour de Suisse); Stages 2, 7, 8, 11 and the overall Points classification in 1984; Stages 1, 13 and 18 plus second place in the Points classification in 1985; Stage 9 in 1987; Stage 21a in 1988 (and Stage 10 at the Tour de Suisse) and Stages 7 and 11 in 1989 (plus Stages 3a and 5 at the Tour de Romandie and Stage 10 at the Tour de Suisse).


Paul Manning
Born at Sutton Coldfield on this day in 1974, Paul Manning was another rider who performed well on road and track. He seemed to have prefered road early on his career but, when it became apparent that he was going to have his greatest success on track, concentrated on that instead.

Manning's first big victory was at the Duo Normand in 1996, which he rode with Chris Boardman; a year later he won Stage 4b at the Postgirot Open, and in 2000 he won Stages 4 and 6 at the Circuit de Lorraine. That year, he also rode with the British Team Pursuit squad at the Olympics and the World Championships, winning a bronze medal at the first event and a silver at the second - they took another silver at the 2001 World Championships (and Manning won Stage 4b at the Sachsen Tour), a bronze in 2002, then another silver in 2003 (when he became National Individual Pursuit Champion and won Stage 8 at the Herald Sun Tour). In 2004, the British team once again won silver in the Pursuit at the Worlds, but won the gold at the Manchester and Sydney rounds of the World Cup; Manning would win the Individual Pursuit at Sydney and at the Nationals. In 2005 he won the Individual Pursuit at the Manchester round of the World Cup and the team won the gold - then they repeated their success with another gold-winning ride at the World Championships. Still riding road races, Manning was a part of the winning team at the National Team Time Trial Championships and won the Tour of the Peak. A year later, he was with the Pursuit team to win at the Commonwealth Games (where he also won the Individual Pursuit), the Moscow, Manchester and Beijing rounds of the World Cup and at both the National and World Championships, and in 2008 he was there when they won the Team Pursuit at the Copenhagen round of the World Cup, at the World Championships and at the Olympics.

Manning's career is interesting because it coincides with the period during which British track cycling transformed itself from neglected, niche sport to near national obsession status, and turned previously little-known riders into gold medal-winning superstars. Though he retired immediately after the 2008 Olympics, he has continued to contribute to the now enormous success of the British track team, becoming coach of the women's pursuit team - and under his tutelage, they have smashed six world records including at the 2012 Olympics when they won gold, beating the US team in the final by more than five seconds.

Marino Vigna

Marino Vigna. The Vitadello jersey
dates the jersey to 1966 or 1967

Born in Milan on this day in 1938, Marino Vigna was a professional rider between 1961 and 1967. In 1960, he rode with the winning Pursuit team at the Olympics, which were held in Rome that year. Three years later he won Stage 14 in his home province of Lombardy at the Giro d'Italia, and in 1964 he won Stage 2 at the Tour de Romandie. Following retirement from racing, Vigna worked for many years as a coach and later for the Bianchi bike firm, where to this day he still manages relations between the company and the various teams that use its products.

Vigna rode the Giro three times in total, abandoning not long after his stage win in 1963 but returning to finish 73rd in 1965 and 62nd in 1966. He rode Milan-San Remo in 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966 and 1967 (best: 12th, 1965); Paris-Roubaix in 1964 (52nd) and 1965 (40th); Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 1965 (26th) and the Giro di Lombardia in 1967 (12th).


In 2005, Marianne Vos won the Elite European Cyclo Cross Championships on this date.

On this day in 2007, bike component manufacturer SRAM purchased the wheel and component manufacturer ZIPP Speed Weaponry.

More cyclists born on this day: Kārlis Kepke (Russia, 1890); Saleh Al-Qobaissi (Saudi Arabia, 1964); Ernie Crutchlow (Great Britain, 1948); Craig Merren (Cayman Islands, 1966); Severo Hernández (Colombia, 1940); Michal Hrazdíra (Czechoslovakia, 1977); Jerome Steinert (USA, 1883, died 1966); Luca Bramati (Italy, 1968).

Daily Cycling Facts 05.11.2013

Tommy Godwin
Born in Connecticut on this day in 1920, Tommy Godwin moved to Britain when his British parents returned to their native country in 1932. Desiring extra pocket money, he found a job with a Birmingham grocery shop named Wrensons and was supplied with a heavy bike to carry out deliveries to customers. Other groceries had their own delivery boys, equipped with their own delivery bikes; it was, therefore, entirely natural that unofficial competition took place between them - and Tommy was the fastest (Godwin's namesake, the Tommy Godwin who was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1912, began cycling in very similar circumstances).

The 1936 Olympics - Arie van Vliet's gold-winning ride in the 1km time trial in particular - showed Godwin that he might be able to build on his natural talent and make some sort of career out of cycling. Three years later he started racing, then set the fastest time over 1km of the 1939 season at the Alexander Sports Ground which was in those days used by the Birchfield CC and is now known as the Perry Barr Stadium and used for speedway and greyhound racing. Immediately, he became "known" - and was invited to attend trials to find British cyclists for the 1940 Olympics.

Tommy's chances of winning a gold medal were ruined because his best years coincided with the Second World War - working as an electrician at BSA (as a reserved occupation, he was not called up to fight), he was able to enter only thirteen events in a three-year period from 1940-1942. However, from 1943 onwards as the Allies began to gain an upper hand, the British Government realised that far from being an unnecessary expense, sport was a highly effective way to improve public moral and encouraged it. More bike races were held; Godwin won the Cattlow Trophy that year, then successfully defended it in 1944 - and later in 1944, he won the 5-mile race at the National Championships. In 1945 he won it again and added the 25-mile (he also won the BSA Gold Column that year at the Herne Hill track, which is still used for cycling races to this day and is one of the oldest velodromes in the world), winning the latter event for a second time in 1946.

Finally, when the Games came to London in 1948, Godwin got his chance to compete at the Olympics and won two bronze medals; one in the 1km time trial and one in the Team Pursuit. It was widely considered that the British riders would have done far better in the Pursuit had it not have been for a row between coaches in the run-up to the Games, but Godwin and team mates Dave Ricketts, Robert Geldard and Wilfred Waters managed to turn things around after just scraping through in the qualifier, improving their time by 17" to win the medal - which gave them a faster time than was set by the gold-winning French team in the final round. Tommy's medal in the time trial is no less remarkable, because he was selected to compete in the race with only two days' notice and no training. Later in life, he would remember how differently Olympic athletes were treated in those days, even at a company such as BSA which, as a manufacturer of bikes, could have made profitable use of his success: "Somebody there said, 'Oh you won a medal,' and I said yes. He said, 'Well, the job we're doing today is so and so.' That was it," he recalled.

Godwin retained his links to cycling all his life and became manager of the British cycling team at the 1964 Olympics, where his efforts were to inspire future four-time World Pursuit Champion Hugh Porter. Later, he became British Cycling's first paid coach, and President of the organisation.

From 1950 until the middle of the 1980s, Godwin owned and ran a cycling shop; in 2010, when the Herne Hill track came close to closure after 119 years, he was instrumental in efforts to save it. That year, he was rediscovered by the British public after being interviewed as part of the BBC's "London 2012: Two Years To Go" television programme - instantly likable as he always was (and with his two Olympic medals to show to the cameras) he was at long last given the national hero status he had always deserved. In 2012, the year of the Games, he was chosen to be a torch bearer during the Relay, carrying it on a 300m stretch through Solihull on the 1st of July. Four months and two days later on the 3rd of November, he died at the age of 91.


Ben Swift

Ben Swift

Ben Swift, born in Rotherham on this day in 1987, won the Tour de Picardie in 2010 and was World Scratch Race Champion in 2012. Beginning his cycling career at the age of 12 with Mossley CRT in 1999, he immediately made a mark and, less than four years later, was second in the Scratch at the Under-16 National Championships. In 2004, he became Junior National Points race Champion, then Junior National Scratch race Champion a year later - when he also competed in the Elite Scratch and won bronze.

In 2007, Swift launched his professional road racing career with Barloworld, a now-defunct British-registered team backed by a South African brand management firm, showing potential as a climber by winning the King of the Mountains at that year's Tour of Britain. In 2008, he came fourth in the Under-23 World Road Race Championships, which attracted the attention of Katusha to whom he signed for 2009. Katusha realised that, despite his success at Barloworld, Swift was not going to be a climber (as was confirmed by low placings on the mountainous stages at that year's Giro d'Italia, but very good placings on flat and hilly stages in numerous races); instead, the team's coaches began to remodel his training regime to resemble that of an all-rounder.

Swift leading a sprint at the Tour de Romandie

In 2010, despite his contract with Katusha still being in force, he moved to the new British team Sky (the transfer, kept secret for some time, was revealed when the Wielerland cycling stats website obtained a photo of him training in Sky kit). Before long, Sky's coaches decided he wasn't cut out to be an all-rounder either - because he showed far too much potential as a sprinter. He won Stage 2 at the Tour de Picardie in a nine-man sprint, and won the Points jersey - also known as the sprinter's jersey - too (and the General Classification). In 2011, Swift won Stages 2 and 6, both bunch sprints (with some of the finest sprinters of all time, including Robbie McEwen and Mark Renshaw), and was fourth overall; he would also ride his first Tour de France that year and finished Stage 15 in sixth place (the stage was won by Mark Cavendish, who would also ride for Sky in 2012).

In 2012, Swift became the first ever British World Scratch race Champion and won silver in the Points and Madison. He was fourth at the National Road Race Championships, won two stages and the Points classification at the Tour of Poland and finished Stage 2 in third, Stage 18 in second and four others in the top ten at the Vuelta a Espana. In 2013, he won bronze at the National Individual Time Trial Championship - not bad for a rider who once said ""My weakness is in the time trial - I don't like doing them and I'm not really that good at them," but perhaps not so surprising for one seems to have what it takes to do well in any discipline.

Matthew Harley Goss

Goss at the 2013 People's Choice Classic

Born in Launceston, Tasmania on this day in 1986, Matthew Goss is another highly successful young sprinter. Like Swift, Goss first made his name on the international cycling stage with his results on the track, but he had already had a taste for road racing success as far back as 2002 when he won the Novices race at the Australian National Club Championships. A year later he proved himself to be one of the country's up-and-coming track stars with second place in the Junior Scratch race at the National Championships; in 2004 he won Junior Madison (with Miles Olman) and the Junior Team Pursuit (with Olman, Simon Clark and Michael Ford) at the World Championships, and the Points race and Road Race at the Commonwealth Youth Championships, adding the Launceston International Classic road race later in the season. In 2005, his final year as an amateur and now taking part at Elite level, he rode with Nathan Clarke, Stephen Rossendell and Mark Jamieson to win the Team Pursuit at the National Championships, also taking silver in the Points race at the same event.

2005 saw Goss start to concentrate on road for the first time since the early days of his career and brought him victory in Stage 1 at the Tour of Japan, followed by two further wins at the Australian Ulverstone and Devonport criterium races. He would enjoy more success in 2006, winning the Under-23 GP Liberazione and a stage at the U-23 GP delle Regione, two stages at the Vuelta Ciclista a Navarra and, most notably, Stage 3 at the Baby Giro, which brought him his first professional road racing contract with Team CSC for 2007. Having spent most of the season adjusting to the top level of the sport (but still grabbing some impressive second places along the way), he won Stage 3 at the Tour of Britain.

Goss remained with CSC - by then called CSC-SaxoBank - through 2008 and then 2009, when it became SaxoBank. He won Stage 2 at the Tour of Britain, the Herald Sun Classic and Stage 1 at the Herald Sun Tour in 2008, then came third at Gent-Wevelgem in 2009 before going on to ride his first Grand Tour - the Giro d'Italia, where he was fifth on Stage 6, seventh on Stage 7 and fourth on Stage 9; he would also win Stages 3 and 5 at the Tour de la Région Wallonne and was first at Paris-Brussels. In 2010 he moved to HTC-Columbia, a team with a well-deserved reputation for turning promising youngsters into world-beaters, and during his two seasons with them he won Stage 9 at the Giro d'Italia and the GP Ouest France (2009) and Stages 1, 4 and the General Classification at the Bay Classic, Stage 1 and the overall Points classification (plus second in the General Classification) at the Tour Down Under, Stage 2 at the Tour of Oman, Stage 3 at Paris-Nice, first place at Milan-San Remo, Stage 8 at the Tour of California, second place on Stage 6 at the Tour de France and then second again at the World Road Race Championships just behind the man who has been named the greatest sprinter of all time, Mark Cavendish.

At the 2009 Eneco Tour

Like a large percentage of Australia's finest cyclists, Goss signed to the new GreenEdge-AIS team for 2012. With them, he won Stage 3 at the Giro d'Italia and was second on Stage 5, then sixth on Stage 13 - after which he withdrew from the race in order to be able to concentrate on the Tour de France, where he came third on Stages 2, 6 and 20 and second on Stages 5 and 18 at the Tour de France (and was fourth on Stage 4), earning third place in the Points competition with 268 - it was notable that second-placed André Greipel had picked up only 12 more points, and that Goss would have been second had he not have been docked 30 points for dangerous riding that nearly took down green jersey winner Peter Sagan during Stage 12.

GreenEdge became Orica-AIS for 2013. Goss remained onboard and won Stage 2 at Tirreno-Adriatico, but with the exception of his shared victory in the Stage 4 Team Time Trial at the Tour de France, his season was otherwise without victory. Nevertheless, numerous podium places including at the Tour Down Under and the Giro d'Italia show that he is still a very worthy adversary in a sprint finish.


Maarten Tjallingii
Maarten Tjallingii is a Dutch rider with one of the most unusual names in professional cycling (somewhat disappointingly, it's pronounced exactly as spelled - Tcha-ling-gee). Born in Leeuwarden on this day in 1977, Tjallingii started his cycling career as a mountain biker and came third at the prestigious Groesbeek race in 1998, then began to make inroads into road racing.

Maarten Tjallingii

He showed promise in his amateur days with third place overall and a stage win at the 2001 Tour du Faso, which he would win outright two years later after winning Stage 1 and taking second on Stages 3, 7 and 11. In 2006, with Skil-Shimano, he won Stage 1 and overall at the Ronde van België, then Stage 7 and overall at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, and in 2007 he was second overall at the Ronde van België. Then, for no obvious reason and as they sometimes do for professional cyclists who had previously seemed destined for the top, the wins stopped coming: he did not enjoy another victory until 2012 - though third place in the 2011 Paris-Roubaix, the most brutal race in cycling, was an impressive achievement and showed why it was that Rabobank had continued to pay his wages since he signed to them for 2009.

His 2012 victory was the Profronde van Almelo, but might not have been his only success that year - fifth at the National Individual Time Trial Championship and 22nd place on Stage 2 at the Tour de France suggest he had good form; however, following a crash in Stage 3 - after which he rode 40km to the end of the stage, left him with a broken hip and he did not start the next day. It was followed in 2013 by another respectable finish - 18th place - at Paris-Roubaix and then victory at the World Ports Classic. Rabobank, following the exposure of Lance Armstrong as a drugs cheat, declared that it no longer wished to be associated with Elite cycling (after some consideration - and a little persuasion from the world's most successful cyclist Marianne Vos, who it definitely did want to continue sponsoring - it decided it would continue to support women's Elite cycling) and the former Rabobank became Blanco temporarily, until new sponsor Belkin took over. Tjallingii, who is now 36 years old, will continue with them in 2014. He is one of a very small number of vegetarian professional cyclists.

Koos Moerenhout
Jacobus "Koos" Moerenhout, who was born in Achthuizen, Netherlands on this day in 1973, began his cycling career as a trainee with the US-based Motorola team in 1994 having won a handful of amateur victories including, in 1994 prior to signing his trainee contract, overall at the Tour de la Province de Liège and Stage 1 at the Tour of Austria.

In 1996, Moerenhout moved up a level to Rabobank's Elite squad and won the Circuit Franco-Belge; then in 1997 he won Stage 8 at the Rheinland Pfalz Rundfahrt. In 1998 he was entered for the first time in the Tour de France and, while he finished better than top thirty on just one stage - sixth, Stage 13 - finished in 44th overall, a very respectable place for a rider making his Grand Tour debut and one that makes it something or a surprise that he remained a domestique for his entire career, these being the results of a man who might have had the potential to finish a Grand Tour in the top ten. In 1999 he won Stage 4 at the Tour of the Basque Country before departing Rabobank for Farm Frites, with whom he would remain through its various incarnations en route to becoming Davitamon-Lotto in 2005. Early in 2000 he won Stage 1 at the Tour Down Under, then raced the Giro d'Italia (abandoned) and Tour de France (77th overall), winning a silver medal at the National Road Race Championships in between.

Moerenhout didn't have a good year in 2001, but finished the Vuelta a Espana in 72nd place in 2002. In 2003, he rode the Giro and the Tour again, finishing the former in 53rd place and the latter in 128th. He score more podium places at the Tours of Qatar and Austria early in 2004, then came second again in the National Championships before taking 100th place overall at the Tour de France. In 2005, when he concentrated largely on the Vuelta, he showed some of that same potential he'd showed in his first Tour de France with his best ever Grand Tour result, 12th overall. A year later, riding for Phonak, he was 62nd at the Tour, then in 2007 he returned to Rabobank and came 70th at the Giro and 42nd at the Vuelta - but won the National Championships in between.

He would remain with Rabobank for the rest of his career, riding three more Grand Tours: the Tour de France in 2008, where he was 34th overall and came closer to a stage win than ever before with fourth place on Stage 11; the Vuelta in 2009 (the same year he won the road race at the National Championships again, and was second in the Individual Time Trial) and, finally, his seventh Tour de France in 2010, where he finished Stage 19 in sixth place and came 52nd overall.

Moerenhout maintained close links to cycling and to Rabobank after retiring, serving as one of the team's managers. He is married to Edith Klep, who was also a professional cyclist and took second place at the Sparkassen Giro in 2001.


Giuseppe Ogna, who was born on this day in 1933 at Sant'Eufemia della Fonte in Italy, rode for Bianchi from 1957 to 1961 and then for Ignis from 1962 to 1968. He was Amateur National Sprint Champion in 1954, Amateur World Champion in the same discipline in 1955 and then became Elite National Sprint Champion in 1958. Ogna also rode in Tandem events and was Amateur National Champion (with Celestino Oriani) in 1954, then rode with Cesare Pinarello at the 1956 Olympics and won a bronze medal.

Claudio Iannone, born in Argentina on this day in 1963, became National Road Race Champion in 1990.


Cyclists born on this day: Martin Mortensen (Denmark, 1984); George Artin (Iraq, 1941); Paula Gorycka (Poland, 1990); Bruno Pellizzari (Italy, 1907, died 1991); Marcos Mazzaron (Brazil, 1963); Bob Broadbent (Australia, 1904, died 1986); Spyros Agrotis (Cyprus, 1961); Liu Xin (China, 1986); Lyndelle Higginson (Australia, 1978); Richard Pascal (Cayman Islands, 1967 - not to be confused with French rider Pascal Richard); Geoffrey Burnside (Bahamas, 1950).

Daily Cycling Facts 04.11.2013

Dirk Demol

He may not have won Paris-Roubaix the most glorious way,
but win it he did - Dirk Demol's pavé

Dirk Demol, born in Kuurne, Belgium on this day in 1959, won Paris-Roubaix in 1988 after breaking away on the cobbles just outside Roubaix from a lead group made up of relatively unknown riders that had itself broken away from the peloton 27km into the race. He then stayed out in front all the way without challenge.

It was, however, not a glorious victory. When he left the lead group, Thomas Wegmuller of KAS-Canal 10 went with him but then got a plastic bag entangled in his gears just as arrived at Roubaix. The team car came to his aid and a mechanic was able to remove the bag, but his gears still didn't work. Knowing that if he stopped to change bikes Demol would sprint away to certain victory, Wegmuller decided to carry on; Demol took full advantage of this by wheel-sucking him all the way to the velodrome and then accelerated away to win.


Born in Kuldīga, Latvia on this day in 1939, Emīlija Sonka won the Road Race at the 1964 World Championships at Salanches in France. She beat Galina Yudina, also riding for the USSR, and Rosa Sels of Belgium.

Uwe Peschel, who was born in Berlin on this day in 1968, won the National Individual Time Trial Championship in 2002 and was second at the World Individual Time Trial Championship a year later.

Born in Oyannax on this day in 1960, Éric Barone is a French cyclist who has set a number of downhill speed records and, at the time of writing, holds the World Records on gravel (172kph; set on Cerro Negro volcana, Nicaragua in 2002 - Barone crashed shortly after reaching the record speed and was badly injured) and on snow (222kph; set at Les Arcs, France in 2000).

Other cyclists born on this day: Wesley Kreder (Netherlands, 1990); John Otto (USA, 1900, died 1966); Lal Bakhsh (Pakistan, 1943); Evgeniya Radanova (Bulgaria, 1977); Leo Karner (Austria, 1952); Luis Díaz (Colombia, 1945); Jamie Wong (Hong Kong, 1986); Vasileios Reppas (Greece, 1988); Róbert Nagy (Slovakia, 1972); Lauri Aus (Estonia, 1970, died 2003); Federico Ramírez (Costa Rica, 1975); Ken Caves (Australia, 1926, died 1974); Ferenc Pelvássy (Hungar

Daily Cycling Facts 03.11.2013

Brian Robinson

Today, British cyclists have made their mark forever on cycling's greatest race the Tour de France - Tom Simpson was the first to play the media and become a star, then became an even bigger star when he died on Mont Ventoux; Barry Hoban won eight stages; Robert Millar came fourth and won the King of the Mountains; David Millar earned time in all the different classification leaders' jerseys; Cav shattered Hoban's record with 23 stage wins, set a host of records, was declared the greatest sprinter the Tour had ever known and became a pin-up and then in 2012 Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner in the 109 year history of the race. Brian Robinson, born in Huddersfield on this day in 1930, wasn't the first Briton to enter the race (that had been Charles Holland and Bill Burls, who took part and failed to finish when Robinson was six years old in 1937) but he was the first to become a true Tour rider and the first to finish the race; in so doing blazing a trail that all those who came after him would follow.

Robinson was born into a cycling family, his father and older brother being members of the Huddersfield Road Club. He was permitted to join them for strictly non-competitive club rides from the age of thirteen and became a member when he reached the minimum age of fourteen; however, his father didn't allow him to begin racing for another four years. His father relented: Robinson's first attempt was a 25-mile individual time trial on a hilly parcours in March 1948 when he was seventeen and he completed in 1h14'50", a very respectable time for any rider making his debut, but he had already fallen for the glamour of European racing by this time and dreamed of a future in mass-start stage events - unfortunately, at that time the British League of Racing Cyclists (formed by Percy Stallard to establish and promote mass-start road racing in Britain) was still waging war with the National Cycling Union (which had banned mass-start road racing in Britain ever since the late 19th Century, fearing police would ban all bicycles from public roads). Robinson was an NCU member and was thus limited to the few NCU mass-start events that took place, all of them in very restricted circumstances such as on roads in public parks during the hours when the park was closed; he raced many times at Sutton Park in Birmingham where races had to stop before 09:30 when the public were allowed in.

Road racing was not banned on the Isle of Man, which as a self-governing nation had its own cycling union, and after taking third place in the Road Time Trials Council's National Hill Climb Championships and fifth in the NCU's mass-start closed circuit championships the previous year, Robinson went there in 1951 to come seventh at the prestigious Manx International. It wasn't banned in Ireland either; that same year he won Dublin-Galway-Dublin. In 1952 he entered the Route de France as part of a joint NCU/Army team whilst completing his mandatory national military service and did well, taking fifth place overall until the race reached the Pyrenees with three days to go - "I'd never seen mountains like that before" he said afterwards, having fallen into 40th place. That summer he and older brother Des were selected for the British team going to the Olympics; Brian finished in 27th place and Des in 26th. Jacques Anquetil, who would go on to become the first man to win the Tour five times and is still considered by many to be the greatest cyclist France has ever produced, was 12th; a month later at the World Championships Robinson raced against him again and they tied for eighth place. In 1954, having finished his national service, he signed to a team sponsored by Ellis Briggs as an independent; he was second overall in the Tour of Britain and won Stage 6 at the Tour d'Europe, a race held that year and again two years later before vanishing.

Later in 1954, Robinson was invited to join Hercules, a team that had originally been set up to break cycling records with riders including Eileen Sheridan but had later been approached by Derek Buttle who had been racing in France since 1952 with a plan to set up a road racing team. He accepted and, in 1955, he formed part of the first British team in the history of the Tour de France (Holland and Burl, back in 1937, had ridden for a British Empire team that included a Canadian rider). With many members of the team having little or no experience of racing in Europe and none at all of a Grand Tour, the race soon proved itself to be much, much harder than any of them had expected: only Robinson and Tony Hoar could finish, and Hoar was Lanterne Rouge. Robinson, meanwhile, proved himself - he was a respectable 29th, yet Hercules were not encouraged by his success to continue their racing program and the team dissolved at the end of the 1955 season. The following year, he demonstrated that he really was a rider able to take on the best Europe had to offer by performing well at the Vuelta a Espana (where he rode with a Swiss-British team led by le pédaleur de charme, 1951 Tour victor Hugo Koblet), then went to the Tour with a mixed-nationality team that included Charly Gaul, who had been third overall in 1955. Robinson finished Stage 1 in third place before taking 14th in the overall General Classification; Gaul, who won two editions of the Giro d'Italia and one of the Tour in spectacular style and who is still considered by many to have been the greatest climber cycling has ever seen, beat him by just one place.

If anyone now doubted that British cyclists couldn't hold their own at the very top of their sport, they were about to have their illusions shattered because early in 1957, having become the first british rider to sign a contract with a top continental team, Saint Raphael-R. Geminiani, Robinson beat Louison Bobet by almost a minute to win the Nice criterium. A short while later he took second and third place stage finishes at Paris-Nice, then he came third at Milan-San Remo ("by far the greatest achievement by a British roadman in a single-day race since the halcyon 19th-century days of George Pilkington Mills and the Bordeaux–Paris," said Cycling magazine). He crashed out of the Tour that year, but in 1958 he was second behind Arigo Padovan on Stage 7 - until Padovan was relegated to second after judges declared him to have twice tried to force Robinson into the crowd during the final sprint and, for the first time and more than half a century after the Tour began, a British rider had won a stage. It has been said that Stage 7 was the least important stage of the 1958, and those who say so are correct: the Pyrenees and - more important still - the Alps, where the TV crews that were for the first time that year broadcasting live from the mountain stages captured for posterity the incredible climbing abilities that won Gaul his Tour, were still far away and the General Classification contenders were saving their legs for the time trial the next day (and riders needed to think even more carefully than usual about when and where they spent energy, because in 1958 there were no rest days). Yet as far as British cycling fans - and fans of British cycling; an ever-growing number of whom, thanks to Robinson and Simpson (who was offered a contract with Saint Raphael the following year on Robinson's recommendation) and all those who followed the trail they blazed, are not British - it is one of the most important stages in the history of stage racing.

In 1959 Robinson won Stage 20. It was, once again, not a very important stage - the final Alpine stage had been the day before and Federico Bahamontes, who was the only rider able to even get near to Gaul when conditions suited the Luxembourger, had as good as won overall already. The other big names, competing for second and third place in the General Classification, were not concerned when Robinson broke away; however, with only two stages to go plenty of domestiques and also-rans would have been looking to grab any limelight that was available. That Robinson won by 20'06" - second place was taken by Arigo Padovan of all people - is therefore an impressive result. He continued racing for another three years, winning a stage at the GP du Midi-Libre and the Tour de l'Aude in 1960 and the General Classification at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1961. 1962 passed without victory, then he was third at a criterium in Chaumont; he retired from competition at the age of 33 but still rides today.

John Tomac

John Tomac

If anyone can be said to have lived their life in cycling, it's John Tomac. Born in Michigan on this day in 1967, Tomac began BMX racing when he was 7 and had won a National Championship by his mid-teens; then after moving to California in 1986 he took up mountain biking and won races in that discipline too. Before long, a combination of race results and personality had made him one of the most famous riders in the world - Mongoose, the bike company for whom he had ridden throughout his professional career, marketed a "John Tomac Edition" mountain bike in 1987 and he starred in one of the first mountain biking videos that same year.

Between 1988 and 1991, Tomac also competed in road racing, winning the National Criterium Championship in his first year as a professional before going on to compete in several prestigious European events including Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d'Italia without notable success, leading to a decision to concentrate on mountain biking after 1991. Towards the end of the decade he formed a partnership with Doug Bradbury, the founder of the Manitou MTB suspension company, and set up Tomac Cycles. He no longer owns the brand - which passed through the hands of the American Bicycle Group conglomerate before being bought by Joel Smith, a businessman who had made his name in mountain biking as brand manager with components manufacturer Answer - but still takes an active role in running it and is involved in the design of new bikes.


Jules Rossi, who was born in Acquanera di San Giustin, Italy on this day in 1914 and went to France to live with relatives when he was orphaned at the age of 6, became a professional rider with Alcyon-Dunlop in 1935. He remained with them for most of his career, which lasted for sixteen years; in 1937 he became the first Italian to win Paris-Roubaix (unless - as is possible - Maurice Garin was still Italian when he won), in 1938 he won Stage 6a at the Tour de France and then first place at Paris-Tours after maintaining an average speed sufficient to also win him the Ruban Jaune.

Bobbie Traksel, born in Tiel, Netherlands on this day in 1981, won the 2010 Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne after battling through weather so bad that 169 of the riders to start the race abandoned.

Other riders born on this day: Arnaud Labbe (France, 1976); Udo Hempel (Germany, 1946); Maxime Bouet (France, 1986); Anneliese Heard (GB, 1981); Chris Jenner (New Zealand, 1974); Armin Meier (Switzerland, 1969); Oscar Zeissner (Germany, 1928); Javier Suárez (Colombia, 1943); Tacettin Öztürkmen (Turkey, 1913); Alan Bannister (Great Britain, 1922, died 2007); Georges Lutz (France, 1884, died 1915); Børge Mortensen (Denmark, 1921); Peder Pedersen (Denmark, 1945); Joann Burke (New Zealand, 1969); Clarence Kingsbury (Great Britain, 1882, died 1949); Galip Cav (Turkey, 1912); Mario Margalef (Uruguay, 1943).

Daily Cycling Facts 02.11.2013

Cees Stam

Born in Koog aan de Zaan, Netherlands on this day in 1945, Cees Stam was Amateur National Stayers Champion from 1968 to 1970, then turned professional with the Ketting team and remained with them for most of his career. His Stayers success continued - he was Elite National Champion from 1971 to 1974 and again in 1978, European Champion in 1974 and 1975, World Champion in 1973, 1974 and 1977 and usually took second or third place whenever he didn't win, including at the German National Championships in 1975 where he won silver.

Stam set a new derny-paced Hour Record in 1974 when he covered 82.998km at Utrecht's Galgenwaard stadium, since demolished and replaced with a newer stadium; he was also a remarkably persistent six-day racer, entering almost fifty as a professional yet winning none of them. When he retired from competition, Stam became coach of the national stayers' team and ran a sports clothing business, then retired from it in 2008. He still works as a derny rider at track events to this day.

Miguel María Lasa Urquía
Born in Oiartzun, Euskadi on either this day, the 1st of November or the 4th of November (depending on the source) in 1947, Miguel Lasa turned professional with Fagor in 1967 and won the National Hill Climb and Individual Time Trial Championships; then two years later won the Hill Climb title again and finished two stages at the Tour de l'Avenir in third place. In 1970 he won the Sprints classification at the Vuelta a Espana and Stage 12 at the Giro d'Italia, where he finished in eighth place overall.

Lasa would win the Hill Climb Championship again in 1971 and 1972; however, excellent results in those two years - including four second place stage finishes at the Vuelta a Espana, victory at the Vuelta a Mallorca and three stage wins plus third place overall at the Tour of the Basque Country in 1971 and two stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana, one at the Giro d'Italia and overall victory at the Vuelta a Menorca in 1972 encouraged him to concentrate on stage racing. In 1973 he won the Vuelta a Mallorca for a second time, then in 1974 he won the Tour of the Basque Country and finished six stages at the Tour de France in the top ten before coming 17th overall. In 1975 he won Stages 2 and 7 at the Vuelta a Espana and was first in the Points competition, later coming ninth overall at the Giro d'Italia, and in 1976 he won Stage 5b - a 144km parcours in Belgium - at the Tour de France. The following year he was second overall at the Giro d'Italia and in 1978 he won Stage 9 at the Tour de France, then Stage 18a at the Vuelta a Espana in 1979 and Stage 17 at the Vuelta and Stage 18 at the Giro d'Italia in 1981, his final professional year.


Jana Belomoina, born in Ukraine on this day in 1992, took third place in the Elite National Hill Climb in March 2010 when she was only 17 years old.

Eberado Pavesi, who was born in Colturano, Italy on this day in 1883, became a professional cyclist in 1904. In 1907 he finished the Tour de France in sixth place, becoming the second Italian rider to have completed the race (Rudolfo Muller was fourth in 1903); in 1910 he won Stages 5 and 9 and was second overall at the Giro d'Italia, then in 1912 he formed a part of the Atala team that won (the General Classification was contested by teams for that one edition - had it have been contested by individuals, decided on points or time, Pavesi's team mate Carlo Galetti would have won) and in 1913 he won Stages 2 and 9 and was once again second overall. Following his retirement in 1919, Pavesi became a directeur sportif and worked with a young Gino Bartali who would go on to win the Tour and the Giro several times. Pavesi died on the 11th of November in 1974, aged 91.

Bruce Biddle, born in Warkworth, New Zealand on this day in 1949, was National Road Race Champion in 1969 and won the Road Race at the 1970 Commonwealth Games. At the 1972 Olympics he was fourth in the Road Race behind third place Jaime Huelado of Spain, who subsequently failed an anti-doping test and was disqualified; however, as Biddle had not also been subjected to a test he could not be upgraded to a medal-winning position. In 1976 he finished two stages at the Tour de Suisse in second place and one at Tirreno-Adriatico in third and in 1978 he was 34th overall at the Giro d'Italia.

Raymond Bilney, born in Australia on this day in 1945, took fourth place in the Road Race at the 1964 Olympics - his time of 4h39'51.74" was equal to that recorded by Walter Godefroot, Gösta Pettersson, Eddy Merckx and several other big-name riders of the era. In 1970 he was second in the Road Race at the Commonwealth Games, finishing one second behind Bruce Biddle of New Zealand (see above).

Christos Winter, born in Mount Gambier, Australia on this day in 1989, enjoyed a very short cycling career during which he became Junior National Duo Time Trial Champion (with Jack Bobridge) and rode with the winning Junior National Championships Team Pursuit squad, both in 2007. Aged 20, he took an internship at Channel 9 News and later became presenter of nationwide music show Hit List TV.

Other cyclists born on this day: John Devine (USA, 1985); Ricardo Guedes (Uruguay, 1972); Olga Gayeva (Belarus, 1982); Shue Ming-Fa (Taipei, 1950); Feng Chun-Kai (Taipei, 1988).

Daily Cycling Facts 01.11.2013

Igor González de Galdeano
Born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Euskadi on this day in 1973, Igor González de Galdeano signed his first professional contract with Equipo Euskadi in 1995. At that time, the team was in its second season and experiencing financial hardship due to sponsorship problems; the results he achieved during his three years with them helped to attract new backers, setting the team on the road to becoming the legendary Euskaltel-Euskadi that is still racing today and has become the default National Team of the cycling-mad Basque people.

Igor González de Galdeano at Paris-Nice in
2005, his final professional season

In 1999, his breakthrough year, he moved to Vitalico Seguros-Grupo Generali and won a stage before finishing fifth overall at Tirreno-Adriatico; he then took part in his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, where he won the Prologue and Stage 12 to finish second overall and third in the Points competition. In 2001 he went to ONCE-Eroski and rode his first Tour de France, finishing the Prologue and Stage 18 in second place before coming fifth overall. A Stage 9 win - setting an average speed of 55.17kph over the 179.2km parcours which was, at that time, a Grand Tour record - later in the year at the Vuelta proved he was a worthy opponent to Lance Armstrong, who had won the Tour for a third time a few months previously; in 2002 he confirmed it with another fifth place at the Tour after wearing the maillot jaune between Stages 4 and 10, a victory at the National Individual Time Trial Championship and a bronze medal at the World ITT Championship.

González de Galdeano could not race at the Tour in 2003 after an anti-doping test revealed traces of salbutamol - this was not considered a positive result by the UCI and he was not banned from competition by them, but the French cycling federation banned him from racing in France for a six-month period that included the Tour. At the Vuelta that year he won Stage 1 and was fourth overall; however, in 2004 when ONCE had become Liberty Seguros, it became apparent that he had reached the end of his best years - he came 44th at the Tour and 96th at the Vuelta. 2005 was no better and he failed to finish the Tour before taking 89th at the Vuelta. A month and a half later, on this date - his 32nd birthday - he announced his immediate retirement. "I realised in the last Tour de France that I lost my motivation," he said.


Born in Bülach, Switzerland on this day in 1944, Louis Pfenninger won the Tour de Suisse in 1968 and 1972. In 1967 he was second overall at the Tour de Romandie and later becamee National Individual Time Trial Champion (1970) and National Road Race Champion (1971). As well as Romandie, he rode the Tour de France in 1967 and finished two stages in the top 20 before coming 70th overall.

Hendrik Redant, born in Ninove, Belgium on this day in 1962, was a professional rider between 1987 and 1997; during which time he won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (1988 and 1990), the Colombian National Cross Country Mountain Bike Championship of 1990, Paris-Tours and the Japan Cup (1992) and the GP Briek Schotte (1994). He also took part in the Tour de France in 1990 (when he finished three stages in the top 20 and came 150th overall), 1991 (three stages in the top ten, 140th overall), 1992 (three top 20 stages, 122nd overall), 1994 (six stages top 20, 93rd overall) and 1995 when he didn't finish. Following his retirement from racing, Redant became a directeur sportif at Omega Pharma-Lotto and remained with them until 2010 when he moved on to the ill-fated Pegasus team based in Australia - the team folded due to financial difficulties before the start of the 2011 season

Raymond Mastrotto, born in Auch, France on this day in 1934, won the Under-23 Route de France in 1956 and 1957, then came sixth overall at the Tour de France in 1960. In 1961 he was second at the Critérium du Dauphiné and the following year he won it; he then went for several years without major victories until the Tour de France in 1967, where he won Stage 17 - which would prove to be the last win of his career because, in 1968 while out on a training ride, he was hit by a car and had to give up cycling. He died only 16 years later, aged 49, in 1984.

Astrid Danielsen, born in Trondheim on this day in 1968, was Norwegian Individual Time Trial Champion in 1987 and rode with the winning time trial team at the National Championships in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1999.

Elina Sofokleous, born in Cyprus on this day in 1978, was National Road Race and Individual Time Trial Champion of Cyprus in 2001 and National Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion from 2004 to 2007.

Henk Vogels Sr., born in Haarlem, Netherlands on this day in 1942, came second at the Australian National Road Race Championships in 1973. His son, Henk Vogels Jnr., was also a professional cyclist who rode between 1995 and 2008.

Jef Lowagie, who was born in Brussels on this day in 1903, was Amateur National Road Race Champion of Belgium in 1933.

Alexander González Peña, a road and track rider born in Cali, Colombia on this day in 1979, was National Pursuit Champion in 2003.

Tony Hurel, who was born in Lisieux, France on this day in 1987, raced for two seasons as a trainee with Bbox-Bouygues Telecom, then joined Europcar in 2011; at the close of the 2013 season, he announced that his contract had been extended for a fourth year. Hurel won the Junior Ronde des Vallées in 2005, took Stage 6 at the Canadian Tour of New Caledonia in 2007, won the Under-23 Vuelta Madrid in 2008, the Circuit de la Vallée de la Loire in 2009, the Circuit des Plages Vendéennes 2012 and in 2013 he was seventh at the Tour de Normandie and fourth at the Arctic Race of Norway.

Paul Esposti, born in Cardiff on this day in 1972, is able to claim to have finished top ten in the National Championships of three different countries - once in his native Wales when he won the National Championships in 1995 (all Championships are for road racing unless otherwise stated), five times in the National Championships of the United Kingdom (of which Wales is a constituent nation; 7th in 1994, 8th in 1995, 9th in 1997, 4th at the National Circuit Race Championship of 1999, 10th in 2010) and, having taken dual USA/UK citizenship, 8th at the US Criterium Championships of 2008 and 5th at the US Road Race Championships in 2009.

Other cyclists born on this day: Bert Scheirlinckx (Belgium, 1974); Martin Polák (Czechoslovakia, 1978); Somchai Chantarasamrit (Thailand, 1944); Carmel Muscat (Malta, 1961); Antonio Montilla (Venezuela, 1935); Cárlos Koller (Chile, 1890); Rihards Veide (Latvia, 1991); Jo Deok-Haeng (South Korea, 1966); Ad Dekkers (Netherlands, 1953); Fabrizio Bontempi (Italy, 1966); Victor Morales (Ecuador, 1943); James Lauf (USA, 1927); Toussaint Fouda (Cameroon, 1958).