Daily Cycling Facts 14.12.2013

Rochelle Gilmore

Rochelle Gilmore

Born in Sutherland, New South Wales on this day in 1981, Rochelle Gilmore began her career in cycling when she was only three years old, racing in the Under-5 Boys' BMX classes. One sport was not enough outlet for her competitive drive and at school she took part in numerous different disciplines. Unusually for a young child, she understood that natural talent - which she had in droves - and luck would not be sufficient to take her to the top and so she trained hard, getting up early every day to do so. She had already taken part in national gymnastics competitions by the time she was thirteen and realised that she could have a professional career in sport and chose to concentrate on her two favourites - surfboard lifesaving and BMX. Competing at national and international level inspired a dream to one day represent her nation at the Olympicss. However, neither of her two chosen sports featured at that time in the Games (BMX has since been added); when she was spotted by talent scouts from a local sports academy who, having then learned of her past history in long-distance athletic events, offered her a place on the academy's track cycling development program, she grabbed the opportunity. Three weeks later she won a state championship, three months later she was an Under-15 National Champion. In 1999 she came second in the Junior Points race at the World Track Championships, then four months later third in the Elite Points race at the Oceania Games.

In 2002, Gilmore won the silver medal in the Points race at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and came to international attention, turning professional the following year and coming second in the Scratch race at the Worlds; then in 2004 she became National Scratch Champion at Elite level. In 2005 she won the Points race at the Sydney round of the World Cup and at the Oceania Games and in 2006 she was second in the same event at the Commonwealth Games. That year, having performed well in numerous events since as long ago as 2001 when she won a stage at the Giro Donne, she decided to concentrate on road racing; she won a stage at the Geelong Tour, then in 2007 stood on the podium of the GP International Dottignies, the Drentse 8 van Dwingeloo and (three times) the Giro Donne before winning Stage 1 at the Route de France and the Road Race at the Oceania Championships. The next year she won three stages at the Tour of Prince Edward Island and in 2009 two stages at the Tour of New Zealand, in 2010 the Road Race at the Commonwealth Games.

The 2011 Giro Donne could easily have brought Gilmore's career to an end after she was one of several riders involved in a crash during Stage 5. She was able to remount and reach the finish line, but after sitting down for a short while following the race she found that she was unable to walk to the team car. X-rays showed that she had fractured three ribs but, when she showed no signs of improvement a few days later, further investigation showed that she had also suffered multiple fractures to her pelvis and a fracture in her spine. Doctors told her she would be unable to walk for at least six months and couldn't say when she might be able to cycle again.

Gilmore, however, has extraordinary drive even by the extraordinary standards of professional cyclists. 20 days later she was able to walk with the aid of crutches; then only a few months later she had recovered sufficiently to compete in the Holland Ladies' Tour. That same drive has enabled her to gain a number of academic qualifications; she has studied sports science, sports journalism, fitness and advanced resistance training, sports massage, Italian (in which she has attained fluency) and business, an ideal combination of subjects for a rider wishing to move into team management - as indeed Gilmore has: having already managed two teams in the past, in 2012 she announced the establishment of a new, British-registered team known as DTPC (Dream Team Pro Cycling) Honda; Gilmore owns and manages the team and funding is provided partly by Bradley Wiggins, who indicated his desire to help develop women's cycling following his Tour de France victory. She also rides for the team which, at the close of the 2013 season, was ranked fifth in the world with 1060 points.

Alberto Fernandez Blanco, 1955-1984

It was on this day in 1984 that Alberto Fernández Blanco and his wife were tragically killed in a car accident when the Spanish rider was just a month away from his 30th birthday. Fernández's best result was second place in the 1984 Vuelta a Espana, when he was beaten by just six seconds by Eric Caritoux. He finished a remarkable third in his first Giro d'Italia in 1983, 3'40" behind winner Guiseppe Saronni. His son, Alberto Fernández Sainz, is also a professional cyclist.

In 2008, Chris Hoy was voted British Sports Personality of the Year. Bradley Wiggins, Rebecca Romero and Nicole Cooke also made it into the top ten, while the Olympic Cycling Team were selected as Team of the Year - because cycling's such a niche sport in Britain and the general public take no notice of it, of course.

Happy birthday to paralympian cyclist Michael Gallagher, winner of a bronze medal at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing and a recipient of the Order of Australia. He was born in 1978

Harry Reynolds, 1874-1940

The "Balbriggan Flyer" Harry Reynolds, who became Ireland's first cycling World Champion at the 1896 ICA Track Worlds when he beat Danish Edwin Schraeder and French Charles Guillaumet into second and third place, was born on this day in 1874 and died on the 16th of June, 1940.

Godfrey Gahemba,
1991-2008

On this day in 2008, Godfrey Gahemba - known as the rising star of Rwandan cycling - was hit and killed by a car during a race in his home country. Gahemba, who had been orphaned during the genocide that shocked the world in 1994 when he was three years old. He was only 17 when he died.

Ivan Quaranta, Italian winner of Stages 1 and 10 in the 2000 Giro d'Italia and Stage 5 in 2001, was born in Crema on this day in 1974. His nickname among fans was il Ghepardo - the Cheetah.

Other births: Max Grace (New Zealand, 1942); Bob Lacourse (Canada, 1926); Ramón Rivera (Puerto Rico, 1959); Ronald Jonker (Australia, 1944); Frederick Henry (Canada, 1929); Charles McCoy (Great Britain, 1937); Sandro Callari (Italy, 1953); Arsenio Chirinos (Venezuela, 1934); Erik Johan Sæbø (Norway, 1964); Tiaan Kannemeyer (South Africa, 1978); Nino Borsari (Italy, 1911, died 1996).

Daily Cycling Facts 13.12.2013

Alison Shanks
(image credit: Nicola CC BY-SA 3.0)

Alison Shanks
New Zealander Alison Shanks was born in Dunedin on this day in 1982. Having had a successful career in netball (she played for the now-defunct Otago Rebels, the first team to win the Coca Cola cup), Shnaks took up cycling in 2005, her final year at university, and just a year later was competing in the Commonwealth Games where she came 4th in the Pursuit.

Shanks won her first gold medal at the Beijing round of the World Cup Classics in 2009 when she recorded a time of 3'30.685" in the Individual Pursuit. At the same event she rode in the Team Pursuit with Lauren Ellis and Katie Boyd, winning another gold with a time of 3'24.421", the second fastest ever recorded. She beat Wendy Houvenaghel to become World Individual Pursuit Champion at the World Championships in 2009 and 2012 she beat Wendy Houvenaghel to win another gold, doing the same at the Commonwealth Games of 2010. She became World Pursuit Champion in 2012.

In addition to her track successes, Shanks has enjoyed a remarkable career in road racing - she was in 2006, then National Individual Time Trial Champion and National Road Race Champion in 2007.



Jeng Kirchen, born in Luxembourg on this day in 1919, rode the Tour de France several times in the years immediately after the Second World War. In 1947 he was 18th overall, in 1948 fifth, in 1949 13th and in 1950 fifth again. He was also National Road Race Champion in 1946 and 1951, National Cyclo Cross Champion in 1948 and 1952 and won the Tour of Luxembourg in 1952. He died on the 30th of November in 2010, aged 90.

Lithuanian Simona Krupeckaitė, the track cyclist who became 500m World Champion in 2007 and set a new world record in the process, was born in Utena on this day in 1982. In 2012, Krupeckaitė took second place in the Sprint at the World Championships.

Roger Ilegems, track and road cyclist and a gold medal winner at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (points race), was born in Niel, Belgium on this day in 1962.

Alexis Michiels was born on this day (some sources say 19.12) in Brussels, 1883. He entered the 1919 Tour de France but abandoned in Stage 2.

Danish ex-professional track cyclist Hans-Henrik Ørsted was born on this day in 1954 in  Grenå.

Zbigniew Spruch, born on this day in the Polish town Kożuchów, won the 1995 Tour of Poland and finished the 1999 Gent-Wevelgem in 2nd place.

Kanako Nishi

Kanako Nishi, born in Kakegawa on this day in 1970, became National Road Race Champion in 2009 - the first rider to do so following Miho Oki's eleven consecutive victories. She then came second in 2010 and third in 2011.

Peter Luttenberger, born in Bad Radkersburg, Austria on this day in 1972, won Stage 7 and the overall General Classification at the 1996 Tour de Suisse; then followed it up with 5th overall at the Tour de France that same year, thus immediately raising hopes among Austrian cycling fans that their nation would have its first Tour winner within a year or two (Max Bulla, born in Vienna, had won in the Independents Classification in 1931 as well as winning three stages and leading the race for a day - the only time in the history of the race that a non-professional touriste-routier rider did so). He never quite managed to do so well again, unfortunately - he was 13th in 1997, 21st in 2000 and 13th again in 2003.

Mikel Landa, born in the Basque Country on this day in 1989, has been riding for Spanish and Basque teams since 2008. In 2011 he joined Euskaltel-Euskadi and remained with them until the team's demise at the close of the 2013 season, a period during which he has improved constantly - that year, he finished sixth at the Vuelta a Burgos, managed a ninth place stage finish at the Vuelta a Espana and took 21st at the Giro di Lombardia, earning himself a place with Astana for 2014.

Leopard Trek
On this day in 2011, Jakob Fuglsang announced that a new team being put together by Brian Nygaard in Luxembourg was going to be known as Team Leopard. It was to be built around Andy Schleck, who had revealed himself as a likely Tour de France winner, and would include his brother Frank, Jakob himself, Stuart O'Grady, Fabian Cancellara and Jens Voigt (all previously of Saxo Bank) - some of the most popular riders of their generation (and the previous, in the case of Voigt), which meant that they enjoyed enormous exposure right from the start. Shortly after the announcement, Trek Bicycles came in as a full sponsor and the team became Leopard Trek.

Jakob Fuglsang
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Schlecks would later claim that "leopard" (which, we were all soon being told, should be pronounced "lay oh pard") came from a WW2 German tank of the same name (the only German tanks bearing the name were not in fact produced until the middle of the 1950s) which seemed, perhaps, a slightly odd choice since the Nazis had invaded Luxembourg and its neighbours and killed lots of the inhabitants; but it's more likely that the name actually came from Nygaard's company Leopard Racing anyway, so the wisdom/stupidity of the Schleck explanation is moot.


Other cyclists born on this day: Abe Jonker (South Africa, 1933, died 1991); István Schillerwein (Hungary, 1933); David Humphreys (Australia, 1936); Yasuhiro Ando (Japan, 1969).

Daily Cycling Facts 12.12.2013

Happy birthday to Eddy Schepers, the ex-professional cyclist who won the 1977 Tour de l'Avenir and provided back-up in Stephen Roche's 1987 Tour de France victory. He was born in Tienen, Belgium on this day in 1955.

Johan van der Velde
Born in Rijsbergen, Netherlands on this day in 1956, Johan van der Velde was twice National Road Race Champion, three times winner of the Points classification at the Giro d'Italia and won a Youth Classification and three stages in the Tour de France - results that suggest he may have had the potential to be one of the all-time greats had be not succumbed to addicitions for amphetamines, gambling and petty theft, his lowest moment coming when he was found guilty of breaking into post office vending machines to steal the stamps in order to raise the funds he needed to feed his addiction.

Van de Velde
(image from: Cycling Art Blog)

Unfortunately for van der Velde, judges at the time failed to understand that drug addicts need medical help to kick their habit rather than a spell of incarceration (and in fact, many still don't understand this) and he received a prison sentence. Having lost their income, his wife was forced to sell their home while he was locked up and, by the time he was released, they had nothing. This is the point at which many newly-freed addicts give up, commit a crime and buy their next fix, but van der Velde realised he needed to break the cycle. He signed himself up to a hospital programme designed to help addicts give up drugs and stuck with it, despite the despair of living in low-cost flats and tiny houses after having tasted the high life. He worked as a labourer on building sites to make ends meet, keeping his identity and past life as secret as possible and, in time, regained his life.

Van der Velde's most famous cycling moment came in 1983 when he misjudged a bend on the way down from the Col de le Madeleine and plunged over the edge. Spectators and Tour officials tentatively looked down, expecting to see a mangled corpse if anything at all - but for once in his life, fortune had been on his side. He'd landed on a ledge just a few metres down and escaped with just minor cuts and bruises. Nowadays, van der Velde has become a common sight at junior races, in which his son competes.


Happy birthday to Mathieu Ladagnous who was born in 1984 in Melbourne. The FDJ.fr rider (he's been with them since they were La Française des Jeux, right back in 2006), who also rides in track events, won Stage 1 at the Tour de Wallonie in 2011. 2012 was a good year for him; he was eighth in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, seventh in the E3 Harelbeke, 12th at Paris-Roubaix and finished in the top 20 on two stages at the Tour de France, while his fifth place at the infamously difficult Ronde van Vlaanderen in 2013 suggests he may have a good career as a Classics rider ahead of him.

Today would have been the birthday of British-born Paul Medhurst, co-winner of a bronze medal for New Zealand in the tandem sprint event at the 1974 Commonwealth Games. Born in Scunthorpe, Great Britain on this day in 1953, he died in Belgium on the 26th of September, 2009.

Other cyclists born on this day: Ferenc Keserű (Hungary, 1946); José Errandonea (Spain, 1940); Greg Randolph (USA, 1972); Grete Treier (Estonia, 1977); Frank Williams (Sierra Leone, 1964); Pasi Mbenza (Congo, 1966); Peter Glemser (Germany, 1940); Toshimitsu Teshima (Japan, 1942); Christian Meyer (Germany, 1969); Anita Valen (Norway, 1968); Bengt Fröbom (Sweden, 1926); Ayele Mekonnen (Ethiopia, 1957); Ingus Veips(Latvia, 1969); Kurt Schein (Austria, 1930).

Daily Cycling Facts 11.12.2013

Jobie Dajka

Jobie Dajka, 1981-2009

Born on this day in 1981, Jobie Dajka was one of four Australian track cyclists accused of being the co-owners of 13 phials of an equine growth hormone, injectable vitamins and medical equipment including used syringes. The drugs and equipment had been found in a boarding room used by sprint and keirin champion Mark French at the Australian Institute of Sport.

The four men French implicated - Dajka, Graeme Brown, Sean Eadie and Shane Kelly - were eventually cleared when the investigation found no evidence to connect them in any way to the drugs. French was found guilty of supplying doping products to other athletes and banned from competition for two years, but an appeal later decided that there was no evidence to link him to the drugs either and he too was cleared. However, Dajka was found to have deliberately misled the investigation by lying when giving evidence; a charge he insisted was false, saying that he had failed to be specific rather than lied, and he was suspended from competition for two years.

An appeal was not successful and the rider entered a deep depression, dealing with his disillusionment by drinking heavily. His weight increased dramatically and he began suffering further emotional problems that led to him carrying out a physical assault on Australian Track Team coach Mike Barras, for which he was banned for another three years. After an arrest for vandalising his parents' home he was placed under a restraining order and sought treatment, spending time in hospital in Adelaide. 

On the 22nd of December 2006, the two-year ban came to an end and, as he had strictly complied with the conditions of the restraining order and made efforts to retrieve his life, the three-year ban was ended early. Gradually, his health improved and he began to consider a return to racing; but on the 7th of April 2009 he was found dead at his home by police. He was 27.

Dajka is believed to have died three days before he was found and, though his death is not thought to have been suspicious, a cause has never been established.


Laura Van Gilder
Born in Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania on this day in 1964, Laura van Gilder signed her first professional contract in 1992 and, at the age of 49, is still racing - and winning. In 1999 she won the Tour of Somerville, but it was not until 2002 - by which time she was 37 - that her career really kicked off: that year, she won seven races including another Tour of Somerville and the General Classification at Le Tour du Grand Montréal. The following year she won three more, including the challenging CSC Invitational, another four in 2004, five in 2005 and three in 2006.

By the start of the 2007 season, Van Gilder was 42. It's well-known that female athletes tend to maintain their peak for longer than male athletes, which is why it's not uncommon to find female cyclists who are still racing professionally in their late 30s and early 40s, sometimes having already had one successful career in their 20s before leaving the sport to raise a family and then returning when their children are older, whereas the majority of male professionals retire in their mid-30s. However, it's not common that a rider has the best year of her career when she's at that age - but Van Gilder did, winning fifteen races including the CSC Invitational, Stage 4 at the Nature Valley GP, Stages 4 and 7 at the Tour de Toona and the USA Crits finals, in addition to two podium stage finishes (second, Stage 1; third, Stage 6) at the Tour of New Zealand. It was no fluke, either, because she won eleven races in 2008, six in 2009, eleven in 2010, four in 2011 and 2012 and five in 2013.

László Bodrogi at the 2008 Paris-Roubaix
(image credit: Jack Thurston CC BY-SA 2.0)

László Bodrogi
László Bodrogi, born in Budapest on this day in 1976, had already achieved a successful career in Hungary when his father - a doctor and his manager - got a job in France and relocated his family, thus shifting the young László from a cycling backwater to the very heart of the sport. Further success in French races won him a place with VC Vaux-en-Velin, an amateur club that served as a feeder team for Festina, but nothing came of it after the doping scandal of 1998 that almost killed the team for good.

In the end, he had to wait until 2000 and interest from Mapei-QuickStep for a professional contract and won a bronze medal in the World Time Trial Championships the same year. Two years later he won the National Time Trial Championship and the Eddy Merckx GP, then came second at the Tour of Flanders, and in 2003 took the National Road Race Championship. He subsequently won the Road title in 2004 and 2006 and the TT title again in 2006, 2007 and 2008 - the last time because later that year he took French citizenship.

In 2005 he won the Tour de Luxembourg and competed for the first time in the Tour de France - he came 119th, but was the first Hungarian in the history of the race.
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Compton Gonsalves, standing third from the right
(image credit: Trinidad Guardian)

Compton Gonsalves
Compton Gonsalves was born on this day in 1926 in Georgetown, Guyana and later moved to Trinidad and Tobago, for whom he won a bronze medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in 1946. The next year, he won five National titles, set two world records and formed a cycling club to bring new people into the sport.

Then, he moved to England where he found work in London and didn't cycle for ten months. Somehow, he found his way onto the Olympic team but, due to those ten months, only came 16th out of a field of 21 in the 1km Individual Sprint - a race that two years previously he'd have most likely won easily. In 1951, the Trinidad and Tobago Federation came into being and was affiliated to the UCI, meaning that Gonsalves could compete for the nation in UCI-sanctioned races. Having moved back, he won a silver and another bronze at the Central American and Caribbean Games that year before announcing his retirement and forming another cycling club. In later years he moved again, this time to Canada; and as of 2010 an annual Compton Gonsalves All Star Invitational 300 Metre Sprint Power race has been held in Trinidad.

Arthur Metcalfe
Arthur Metcalfe was a British cyclist born in 1938 who died on this day in 2002. Like many cyclists, he was described by those who knew him during his childhood as having been rather weak and sickly. However, on his second day as a member of the Hartlepool CC, he entered a 40km time trial and left for dust several riders far more experienced than himself.

Having completed his mandatory military service, Metcalfe returned to cycling and entered the 1962 Tour  of Britain, coming 23rd overall. His small build allowed him to excel on the hills and solo attacks became his trademark, earning him the nickname "Snake" for his habit of wriggling away from the pack. He raced the Tour of Brtain again in 1964 and wore the leader's jersey - in those days yellow - for most of the race, finishing in first place. The following season was his best with 23 major victories, including the Manx Trophy. Even getting to the Isle of Man was quite a feat: lacking the money to hire a van to get his bike there and back, he rode from his home in Leeds to Liverpool (116km) and spent a night sleeping in a phone box before catching the ferry to the island.

In 1966 he became the first rider to win both the National Amateur Road Championship and the Best British All-Rounder titles in the same year. He'd entered the All-Rounder competition on a whim: "I remember thinking I needed a change. I'd ridden a few time trials in the past and so I thought I'd have another go," he later said.

Metcalfe turned professional in 1967 and, using up his entire annual holiday quota at work, rode the Tour de France with Tom Simpson. Permitted two mornings each week by his employer - Carlton Cycles - in which to train, he was woefully unprepared for the strain of a Grand Tour, yet completed it in 69th place. In 1968, he led the peloton for a while in Stage 10 and was awarded the Combativity prize for the stage.

His professional career was brought to a premature end by a broken pelvis in 1971, at which point he went into business with another professional cyclist named Wes Mason and set up a frame-building form named MKM which would be awarded the British rights to build Jacques Anquetil-branded bikes. Once recovered, he was reinstated as an amateur and began racing again, at one point receiving a ban after taking part in an event in South Africa - he remained angry about it for the rest of his life, saying that he had coached young cyclists while there and feeling that he should have been rewarded for this good service rather than punished for the race. Once the ban had expired, he set time trial records over 100 miles and 12 hours that remained unbeaten at the time of his death.

In later life, Metcalfe and his wife decided to relocate to France. However, it was not to happen - he died aged 64, a few months before they had been due to leave. Metcalfe, like many ex-professionals if his age, believed that the modern Tour de France is too easy and that it should be increased to what he termed its "proper length" - 2,500 miles (4023km).

"The philosophy of the Tour is that it's an epic of courage," he said. "We had stages of 233km. Sure, they go 2mph faster now, but you'd expect that. And there are 70 more riders. I was working for Carlton Cycles. British riders are all full-time pros now and they're better than ever we were, so they can ride further. The argument is that they want a clean Tour. But you can ride 2,500 miles clean. The race may go 1mph slower but from the roadside you'd never notice it. You can't see a difference that small."


Franco Ballerini
Franco Ballerini, born on this day in 1964 in Florence, first found fame as a cyclist before becoming a cycling team manager. Born in Florence, his greatest success came in the Classics - he won Paris-Roubaix, the single-day race so hard it's known as commonly by its nicknames "The Hell Of The North" and "A Sunday In Hell" as often as by its real name, on two occasions, first in 1995 and then again in 1998. He also won Paris-Brussels in 1990, the Giro della Romagna in 1991, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 1995 and the Grand Prix de Wallonie in 1996.

Franco Ballerini, 1964-2010
(image credit: Eric Houdas CC BY-SA 3.0)

He was far less effective as a stage racer, finishing the Tour de France 115th overall in 1992 and 61st the following year, when he also took Stage 14 at the Giro d'Italia. He would win Stage 5 in the 1996 Tour of Austria, but that was as far as his stage race success went. He did far better as manager of the Italian team, training among others Mario Cippolini who holds the Giro record of 42 stage wins. He also managed Paolo Bettini, who would become known as the greatest Classics rider of his generation before retiring in 2008.

Ballerini loved rally racing as much as he loved cycling, and it was while participating in that sport that he met his untimely end when he was 45. He was acting as navigator for a driver named Alessandro Ciardi during a race at Larciano when the car went out of control and crashed, leaving him with the horrific injuries that caused his death on the 7th of February 2010.

Dutch mountain biker and cyclo cross rider Gerben de Knegt was born on this day in 1975. After joining American Eagle in 1997 and spending 1999 with Giant, he has spent his entore professional career since 2000 with Rabobank and was National Cyclo Cross Champion twice, in 2002 and 2006.


Yevheniya Vysotska (also spelled Evgenia and various other ways, as tends to be the case when Cyrillic letters are transliterated into the Latin alphabet), born on this day in 1975, won the Ukrainian National Individual Time Trial Championship in 2009 and the National Hill Climb Time Trial and Hill Climb Road Race in 2010. She was 4th overall in the 2011 Golan race in Syria and at the 2012 National Individual Time Trial Championship, then came second overall at the Tour of Adygeya and ninth overall at the Giro Rosa and Giro Toscana in 2013.


Lucien Teisseire, born in Saint-Laurent-du-Var on this day in 1919, won Paris-Tours in 1944, Stages 6 and 13 at the 1947 Tour de France, came 6th on the overal General Classification at the 1948 Tour, won Stage 4 the following year and Stage 20 in 1954 - the latter, when he was 35 and on the challenging mountain stage to Briançon was a surprise victory as all the rest were flat stages. He also won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1953 and a bronze medal at the 1948 World Championships.

Melissa Holt, born in Napier on this day in 1975, won the New Zealand Time Trial and Road Race Championships in 2001, 2008 and 2009. She took the Time Trial title for a fourth time in 2010.

Happy birthday to Benjamin Day, the Pegasus Sports rider born in 1978. His best results to date were an overall win at the 2010 Redlands Bicycle Classic and the National Time Trial Championship in 2003


Other cyclists born on this day: Robert Van Lancker (Belgium, 1947); Warren Scarfe (Australia, 1936, died 1964); David Cabrero (Spain, 1976); Jacqui Uttien (Australia, 1964); Peter McDermott (Australia, 1944); Roland Günther (Germany, 1962); Jeff Leslie (Australia, 1952); Richard Hine (Australia, 1939); Ignác Teiszenberger (Hungary, 1880); Erich Hagen (Germany, 1936, died 1978); Nikolai Matvejev (USSR, 1923, died 1984).

Daily Cycling Facts 10.12.2013

Elisa and Paolo Longo Borghini

Elisa Longo Borghini in 2012

Elisa Longo Borghini, born in Ornovasso, Italy on this day in 1991, won a bronze medal at the National Novices Road Race Championship in 2006 and turned professional with Top Girls-Fassa Bortolo in 2011, enjoying a very promising year with fifth place at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and good placings at the European Under-23 Championships and the Holland Ladies' Tour.

In 2012 she moved to Hitec Products-Mistral Home; though she dropped to seventh place at the Omloop Het Nieuwslad it would be a better season with fifth place in the Tour de Free State, second place in the National Elite Individual Time Trial Championship, four top ten stage finishes (best: sixth, Stage 3) and ninth place overall at the Giro Donne, Stage 5 victory and fifth place overall at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt and third place in the European U-23 ITT Championship, the GP Ouest France and the World Elite Road Race Championship. 2013, still riding for Hitec, was a spectacular year - having started the season with fourth place at Le Samyn, she won the highly prestigious Trofeo Alfredo Binda (where she beat Emma Johansson and Ellen van Dijk by 1'44"), came fourth at the Ronde van Vlaanderen and second at the Flèche Wallonne, won Stage 4 and finished in second place overall at the Emakumeen Bira and then came eighth at the World Road Race Championship before finishing the year with third at the Chrono des Herbiers. What she'll achieve in the coming years is anyone's guess, but it'll be impressive.

Paolo Longo Borghini

Curiously, Elisa shares her birthday with her brother Paolo Longo Borghini, who is eleven years her senior. Paolo finished Stage 1 of the 2012 Tour of Britain in eighth place and is a veteran of seven Grand Tours, having ridden the Tour de France in 2007 (124th place), 2008 (did not finish) and 2011 (126th place), the Giro d'Italia in 2009 (113th place), 2012 (108th place) and 2013 (67th) and the Vuelta in 2013 (89th). They are not, as is sometimes assumed, related to perennial French cyclist Jeannie Longo.



Hannah Mayho, born this day in 1990, was winner of the National Under-16 Pursuit and Circuit Race in 2006, Junior Pursuit and Road Race in 2007 and Junior Pursuit in 2008. In 2011, having returned to racing after her leg was broken in a collision with a car in 2010, she came third in the 10 mile Junior National Time Trial Championship.


Retired Norwegian mountain biker and triathlete Rune Høydahl was born on this day in 1969. The only mountain biker to have been World Champion in both downhill and cross country, Rune achieved eleven World Champion titles in total, winning five consecutively, and represented his nation twice in the Olympics. He won the  2004 Norseman Triathlon (equal distances to Ironman competitions) after he'd retired. Having made wise use of his winnings, he now runs his own professional mountain bike team, Etto-Høydahl.


German track cyclist Rudi Mirke, who was born on the 16th of June in 1920, died at the Funkturm Track on this day during the Six Days of Berlin event in 1951. Two years previously, Mirke had played himself in the film Um eine Nasenlänge ("To a Nose").


"Citizen" Karl Drais
Today marks the death in 1851 of Baron Karl Drais, inventor of the Laufmaschine ("running machine") - a device featuring two wheels, one behind the other and connected by a wooden beam fitted with a seat so that it could be pushed along the ground using the feet. Known later as the Draisienne or velocipede, it is credited as being the first bicycle.

Drais aboard his Laufmaschine

Curiously, we owe thanks for Drais' invention to a volcano - Mount Tambora in Indonesia. When Tambora erupted in 1815, following a series of smaller eruptions, it ejected so much dust into the atmosphere that global temperatures dropped by an average of as much as 0.7C and harvests failed throughout the Northern Hemisphere in what became known as The Year Without A Summer. What little food there was had to go to starving populations, so horses went unfed and died in huge numbers - Drais hoped to find a means of transportation to replace them.

Drais was, by any standards, a remarkable man for his time and in 1848 he publicly renounced his nobility, stating that he wished to be known as Citizen Karl Drais in support of the French Revolution. The Prussian government viciously suppressed a revolution of their own the following year and, viewing Drais as an enemy of the establishment, seized his pension and belongings to assist in covering the costs of preventing unrest. He died destitute two years later.

Other cyclists born on this day: John Bettison (Great Britain, 1940); Sergio Ghisalberti (Italy, 1979); Enrico Brusoni (Italy, 1878, died 1949); Ladislav Fouček (Czechoslovakia, 1930, died 1974); Viktor Klimov (USSR, 1964); David Miranda (El Salvador, 1942); Vitali Petrakov (USSR, 1954); Hiroshi Yamao (Japan, 1943).

Daily Cycling Facts 09.12.2013

Ashleigh Moolman

Moolman at the 2012 Olympics

Born in Pretoria, South Africa on this day in 1985, Ashleigh Moolman was inspired to begin her professional athletic career competing in triathlon by Carl Pasio, who is now her husband, after she'd earned her degree in chemical engineering. Running-induced injuries combined with the discovery that she performed much better in the cycling sections of her races persuaded her to concentrate on cycling and she rapidly came to the attention of the professional Lotto Ladies' team, which she joined in 2010. Within a year she'd won a silver medal at the National Individual Time Trial Championship and finished sixth at the testing Emakumeen Bira race in the Basque Country; then she impressed with four top five stage finishes and second place overall at the Tour de l'Aude before winning the Road Race at the African Championships.

2012 proved to be an even better year. She started by taking second place in the Time Trial and first in the Road Race at the National Championships, came fifth at La Flèche Wallonne, won Stage 4 and was third overall at the Tour de Free State, finished in the top ten on three stages and was tenth overall at the Giro Donne, was 16th in the Road Race at the Olympic Games, won Stage 2 and was second overall at the Tour de l'Ardèche and won the Individual Time Trial and the Road Race at the African Championships. In 2013, she retained the National Road Race title and also won the Time Trial, came third overall at the Flèche Wallonne, was second on Stage 1 at the GP Elsy Jacobs, finished the Tour Languedoc Roussillon in fourth place overall, finished the Emakumeen Saria in fifth place, finished four stages in the top ten (best: third, Stage 4) and eighth place overall at the Giro Rosa and was second overall at the Tour de l'Ardeche.

Moolman is known as an all-rounder who performs best on mountain stages; she has become a worthy opponent to Emma Pooley and Marianne Vos and it seems likely that she will win some of the most prestigious races on the women's calendar, with many who have followed her career so far - including me - predicting future gold at the World Championships. Her excellent race reports, published on her website, are some of the most articulate and intelligently-written around; hopefully she'll find time to continue writing them when she's at the very top level of her sport. She also has a Flickr account on which she publishes photos of support staff and race activities that fans rarely get to see.

Kateřina Nash

Kateřina Nash
Kateřina Hanušová - now Kateřina Nash - was born on this day in Prachatice, Czechoslovakia in 1977 and has enjoyed two successful athletic careers, in skiing from 1994 to 2003 (when she competed in two Winter Olympics) and since then in mountain biking and, primarily, cyclo cross. She first became famous for her cycling in 2010 when she won the Czech National Cyclo Cross Championship and a round of the UCI Cyclo Cross World Cup in Roubaix, beating Marianne Vos, then took 4th in the World Cyclo Cross Championship; however, she had been making a name for herself on the 'cross scene for some years by this point, having ridden for the Luna team since 2002 and won the the Portland 'cross race in 2006. She also became National MTB Cross Country Champion in 2007.

Nash took thirdrd in the 2011 World Championships where she was beaten by Katie Compton for the silver medal and Vos for the gold. In 2012 she won six races and in 2013, when she was 35, she won eight - and shows no sign of stopping now she's 36.

Ryder Hesjedal
(image credit: Glawster CC BY-SA 2.0) 

Ryder Hesjedal
Born in Victoria, British Columbia on this day in 1980, Ryder Hesjedal was a silver medalist in the 2001 Under-23 World Mountain Bike Cross Country Championship and again at the Elite Championship in 2003; then, with an apparently glittering career as a mountain biker ahead of him, he gave up the sport in favour of road cycling. It turned out to be a wise move because, having spent a few years with Rabobank, he went to US Postal and finished the Prologue at the Giro d'Italia in 18th place, then came third at the National Individual Time Trial Championship.

In 2006, riding with Phonak, Hesjedal was second at the National ITT Championship and impressed at the Vuelta a Espana with three top twenty stage finishes before abandoning the race in favour of the World Championships where he didn't perform well. Phonak closed down at the end of the year and Hesjedal had difficulties securing a new contract with another ProTour team, going instead to ProContinental HealthNet for 2007, the year he became Canadian Time Trial Champion. A year later he was riding with ProContinental Garmin-Chipotle, winners of Stage 1 at the Giro d'Italia - his first taste of Grand Tour glory and something that he apparently enjoyed because in 2009, by which time Garmin had become a ProTour team, he won Stage 12 at the Vuelta.

Still relatively inexperienced in the Grand Tours, Hesjedal surprised many with seventh place at the 2010 Tour de France; he had also become the subject of numerous newspaper articles when he was fourth over the finish line of Stage 17 at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet, revealing himself to have serious Grand Tour victory potential. That victory - the first ever by a Canadian rider - came in 2012 when, having performed well in the early-season stage races and at the Classics, he rode consistently well and took first place in the General Classification at the Giro d'Italia: after a good start, he was widely expected to lose significant time in the mountains; however, when he did not many began to predict that he would take the race leadership on the final day's time trial, his strongest discipline - among those to have their predictions proved correct was Joaquim Rodríguez, who had led the race up until Hesjedal took over.

Valentyna Karpenko, born in Mykolaiv, USSR on this day in 1972, won the Eko Tour Dookola Polski in 2002, the Krasna Lipa Tour Féminine in 2003 and became Ukrainian Road Race Champion in 2005.

Arie Hassink had many victories as an amateur and was just about to turn professional when he was diagnosed with a lung disease. On the advice of doctors, he remained an amateur for his entire career. However, he continued getting good results right up to retirement in 1983, including 2nd overall in the 1970 Tour of Britain. His son and daughter are both cyclists.

Ondřej Sosenka
Ondřej Sosenka, who was born in Prague on this day in 1975, was a rider who didn't need to stand on the top step of the podium to be head and shoulders above his rivals - at 200cm (6'6"), he's taller than Magnus Bäckstedt and "Big" Piet Moeskops. His track bike was fitted with custom 190mm cranks.

That didn't stop him aiming for the podium, however. He won the Tour of Slovakia in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2006; National Time Trial Championships in 2001 and 2002; the National Road Race Championship and the Tour of Poland in 2004 and, on the 19th of July 2005, set a new Hour Record at  49.700km.

Ondřej Sosenka - note that he isn't standing on a podium!
(image credit: Bartosz Senderek CC BY-SA 2.5)

In 2001, he was disqualified from the Peace Race after he failed a haematocrit test - a now-redundant anti-doping test that took account of an athlete's red blood cell population; a figure of 50% or greater being considered likely evidence the rider had been using EPO or had received a blood transfusion (also known a blood doping), either their own stored blood or someone else's - though he later swore to journalist Daniel Friebe that the postive result had been caused by dehydration. Then in 2008, a test at the National Championships revealed traces and metabolites of methamphetamine. His B-sample subsequently also tested positive for the banned stimulant and the rider was suspended, thus ending his professional career.

Italian Alberto Volpi, born in Saronno on this day in 1962, won the Young Rider Classification at the 1985 Giro d'Italia and formed part of the winning Team Time Trial at the 1995 Tour de France. He has been shown to have been a client of the notorious Dr. Francesco Conconi who used his expertise in developing new anti-doping tests to find performance-enhancing drugs that could not be detected.


Trent Klasna was born on this day in 1962 in Lantana, Florida. During his ten-year career, he won two Sea Otter Classics (1998, 2001), the Redlands Bicycle Classic (2001) and the Nature Valley Grand Prix (2003). He was also National Time Trial Champion in 2001.

Happy to Tamilla Abassova, the winner of silver medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the 2005 Track World Championships, in both cases for the Sprint. She was born in Moscow in 1982.

It's also the birthday of Chinese track cyclist Li Na, born in 1982, winner of the keirin event at the 2002 Track Worlds and the Sprint at the Asian Games in the same year.

Oscar Álvarez, 2009 National Road Race Champion of Columbia, was born on this day in 1977.

Erik Harry Stenqvist, born on the 25th of December in 1893, was a Swedish cyclist who represented his country at the 1920 Olympics and won a gold medal in the Individual Road Race and a silver in the Team Road Race. He died on this day in 1968.

Christian Pfannberger

Christian Pfannberger
(image credit:  Viribus unitis CC BY-SA 2.0)

Christian Pfannberger, born in Judenberg, Austria on this day in 1979, became Under-23 National Champion in 2001 and then Elite Champion in 2007. His career was punctuated by doping allegations - first in 2004 when a sample showed unusually high levels of testosterone, for which he received a two-year ban, and then again in 2009 when an out-of-season test revealed traces of EPO. The second test was originally declared non-negative, meaning the his B-sample had failed to confirm the positive result of his A-sample; which led to suspension from Team Katusha while the matter was investigated in May 2009.

In June, the B-sample was also shown to be positive and he was informed that a court hearing would be held within eight weeks and that, as a second offence, he would be likely to receive a ban from eight years to life - the Austrian National Anti-Doping Agency sought and won the stricter punishment. The rider appealed the ban but was unsuccessful, largely as a result of a new charge brought in April 2010 that he had sold doping products to other cyclists. He maintains that he has never used nor sold performance-enhancing drugs of any kind.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jan Chtiej (Poland, 1937); Fabio Acevedo (Colombia, 1949); José Mazzini (Peru, 1909); Humberto Solano (Costa Rica, 1944); William Logan (USA, 1914); Héctor Acosta (Argentina, 1933); Christian Pfannberger (Austria, 1979); Max Wirth (Switzerland, 1930); Kurt Ott (Switzerland, 1912, died 2001).

Daily Cycling Facts 08.12.2013

Jeff Louder
(image credit: Fanny Schertzer CC BY-SA 3.0)

Happy birthday to BMC's Jeff Louder, winner of a Redlands Bicycle Classic and a Tour of Utah (his home state). He was born in Salt Lake City on this day in 1977.

Frits Pirard, who was born on this day in Breda, Netherlands in 1954, won the GP Ouest-France, Stage 2 of the Critérium du Dauphiné and his National 50km Track Championship in 1979; Stage 1 at the Tour de France in 1983 and the National Track Points Championship in 1986.

Spanish rider Manuel Domínguez, born in Barredos on this day in 1962, won Stage 7 at the 1987 Tour de France

Paul Brydon, born in Christchurch, New Zealand on this day in 1951, won a bronxe medal for the 4000m Team Pursuit at the 1974 Commonwealth Games.

Hernandes Quadri Júnior won the Volta Ciclistica Internacional de Santa Catarina in 1992 and 1995, then the Brazilian Road Race Championship in 2003. He was born in Santo Antônio de Platina on this day in 1967.

Ignatas Konovalovas, who was born in Panevėžys, Lithuania on this day in 1985, was National Time Trial Champion in 2006, 2008 and 2009. In 2008 he also won Stage 2 at the Tour of Luxembourg and was entered for the Giro d'Italia the next year where he won Stage 21 with the Cervelo Test Team. He rode the Giro again in 2010, coming 6th in Stage 21. Making his Tour de France debut later in the year, he came 4th on Stage 19. With the demise of the Test Team he moved onto the Basque Movistar team for 2011, but had a less successful year.

Charly Gaul

Gaul leading the Nelux team, 1958

"The Angel of the Mountains" Charly Gaul, a rider known for breaking away from the peloton to climb the steepest mountains of the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia alone, was born on this day in  Pfaffenthal, Luxembourg in 1932.

Gaul was National Road Champion of Luxembourg six times and National Cyclo Cross Champion twice. He won the Giro twice (1956 and 1959), also winning the King of the Mountains classification on each occasion and the Tour de France in 1958, in addition to the Tour King of the Mountains in 1955 and 1956. He was also the man who first invented the fine art of urinating on the move, developing it after Louison Bobet and Gastone Nencini attacked during a Giro d'Italia "comfort break" rather than waiting for everyone to rejoin the race as is the tradition. Although popular among fans, Gaul was admired rather than liked by other riders - rarely spoke and would perhaps best be described as mood; he was not a man to take insult lightly (those who knew him recall his tremendous ego), and Bobet must have been unsettled when the Luxembourgish rider told him, "I will get my revenge. I will kill you. Remember I was a butcher. I know how to use a knife."

Gaul was a rider who detested the heat of Southern Europe, meaning that his Giro wins were largely down to a combination of his climbing and his ability to keep going in conditions so cold that others could not function. This was especially true at the 1956 Giro when a blizzard struck on Monte Bondone, forcing 46 out of 89 starters to drop out. Gaul, however, kept going, seemingly impervious to the weather and was soon far ahead. At one point, organisers sent out in a car to find him discovered him in an appalling state at a roadside bar where they had to tear off his soaked jersey and rub him down with warm water to restore him to a fully conscious state. Then, he set off once more. A reporter for VeloNews saw him cross the finish line and later wrote, "His face a wrinkled mess, his hands and feet turned blue, Gaul took the pink jersey, and won the Giro two days later by 3m27s over Magni. The young Luxembourger had etched his name into the annals of not only cycling, but all sports with one of the courageous and remarkable upsets in modern times."

That Gaul doped, especially during hot stages when he suffered, is a given - after all, he rode at a time when doping was carried out by most, in the pre-Simpson days when professional cycling had not yet admitted that there was a problem that needed to be dealt with. Yet even though drugs were prevalent, his use of them achieved near-legendary status and although he was famed for his impassive expressions as he glided up a mountain that had others grimacing in agony, he was sometimes seen literally frothing at the mouth. Many years later Marcel Ernzer, who had ridden as a domestique for Gaul at the height of his powers, would recall a conversation he once had:

"Charly's going to die."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because Charly takes too many pills."
"But everybody takes them."
"Yes, but Charly a lot more than the others."

Following his divorce from his second wife, Gaul became a virtual recluse and lived in a forest hut for many years with only his dog for company (that he remembered little of his success raises the possibility that he may have suffered a serious mental illness, perhaps severe depression which may have been brought on by the drugs) but would sometimes be spotted by eagle-eyed reporters at the roadside if the Tour passed through the Luxembourg Ardennes. His exile was ended by his third wife, whom he met in 1983, and he was found a job as an archivist in the national sports ministry by the Grand Duchy as a way of thanking him for what he had done - it was a job that suited him perfectly, for he had little requirement to interact with others and plenty of time to think, gradually putting himself back together. It took six years, then he made his first public appearance since retirement at the 1989 Tour. He became a regular sight on the finish line stages after that, but many people failed to recognise him: overweight, bearded and scruffy, he looked more like a tramp than a legend. Gaul died two days before his 73rd birthday; though his three General Classifications and four King of the Mountains victories at the Grand Tours have been surpassed by many, the style in which he won them made him all but unbeatable when conditions suited him and he is frequently listed as the greatest climber cycling has ever known.

How Charly Gaul won the 1958 Tour de France

Other cyclists born on this day: Zhou Suying (China, 1960); Saad Fadzil (Malaysia, 1948); Jean-François Van Der Motte (Belgium, 1913, died 2007); Yang Hui-Cheon (South Korea, 1982); Helge Fladby (Norway, 1894, died 1971); Ivanir Lopes (Brazil, 1971); Carlos Alvarado (Costa Rica, 1954); Jonathan Suárez (Venezuela, 1982); Takehisa Kato (Japan, 1941); Trương Kim Hùng (South Vietnam, 1951); George Crompton (Canada, 1913).