Daily Cycling Facts 04.01.2014

Danilo Hondo
(Image credit: Rolf Kaiser
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Danilo Hondo was born in Guben, Germany on this day in 1974. Hondo was banned from racing for two years after he tested positive for the banned Phenylpiracetam, a drug that can improve stamina and resistance to cold (and as such, a very tempting prospect on mountain stages). The ban was then cut to one year, but subsequently extended back to two years by the Court for Arbitration in Sport. Finally, in 2007, Hondo appealed at a civil court and the suspension was ended early.

David Millar
David "The Dandy" Millar was born on this day in 1977. The Malta-born British cyclist is the only British rider to have worn the race leader's jersey in all three Grand Tours, though he was subsequently stripped of his Tour de France on his own insistence during one of the most famous and dramatic doping cases in modern cycling.

At 20:25 on the 23rd of June 2004 as Millar enjoyed dinner in a restaurant, three plain clothes officers from the anti-drugs squad approached him. He was arrested and the officers took his shoe laces, watch, keys, cellphone and other items before driving him back to his flat and beginning a search. Millar is still highly critical of their methods:

"They went in with a gun first, as if somebody was going to hit them with a back wheel or something. They sat me down and I wasn't allowed to move while they searched the house. They search while you're there. It took them four hours.

David Millar
(image credit: Petit Brun CC BY-SA 2.0)

They humiliated me and were critiquing my lifestyle, using a classic good cop, bad cop thing. It was psychological warfare. The bad cop literally hated me. He was saying: 'You're not a good person – we know that.' He said: 'You take three paces and I will bring you down like you're resisting arrest.' It was deliberate. I felt completely violated."

Eventually, the police found what they were looking for - empty phials that had once contained EPO and two used syringes. Precisely where they were found is a bit of a mystery - some reports say that they were lying on top of a book, others that they were concealed within a hollowed-out book. Millar was then taken to Biarritz and locked in a cell. It would later turn out that they had targeted Millar after Philippe Gaumont, arrested six months previously, told them that the British rider had encouraged Cofidis team doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet to provide them and Cedric Vasseur with the drug, which increases red blood cell population.

Millar denied the claims, telling police that Gaumont was "a lunatic" and that he was "talking absolute crap." However, by this time his phone had been tapped for some four months and, when faced with damning evidence against him, he took the sensible option and made a full confession the next day. Under international cyclings sanctioned by the UCI, a confession is considered equal grounds for suspension as a positive test and he was banned for two years by the British Cycling Federation in August. He was stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship, his 3rd place Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré finish also from 2003 and his Stage 1 and 6 wins at the 2001 Vuelta a Espana. Cofidis, meanwhile, began to tear itself apart as Menuet resigned; sacking riders and team employees until it was left a hollow shell on the point of implosion.

An appeal to the Court for Arbitration in Sport failed to get the ban reduced, but it was backdated to begin from the day he'd made his confession. Then in 2006, he came under further investigation as part of a court hearing in Nanterres. That he had doped was not in any doubt, but the court ruled that since Menuet lived just over the Spanish border, it was impossible to prove whether the rider had taken the banned drug while in France or in Spain - and as such, criminal charges could not be sought. During the hearing, Millar opened himself up and told how he had been almost destroyed by the pressures of the sport; how he had despaired that he could never live up to the expectations of his fans and how, after spending every evening alone in his flat with only the television to take his mind off the stress, he had begun going to parties and drinking heavily. He had always found it difficult to make friends, he said; which suggests that, like many people who crave interaction with other human beings but for whatever reason cannot find friends, he filled the void with the temporary friendships that come so much easier with intoxication. He had broken a bone and been unable to cycle for four months, then split up with his girlfriend and entered a depression.

Millar's return: the 2007 Tour
(image credit: McSmit CC BY-SA 3.0)

That sort of honesty can drive people over the edge, but in Millar's case it saved him. His obvious intelligence - another quality not found in enormous qualities among professional cyclists (in the men's peloton, at least) - earned him some new fans. He had sent much of his suspension very drunk, but thanks to his honesty he was once again respected rather than pitied and as a result he could begin to respect himself for the first time in years. One of his new friends was Mauro Gianetti, manager of Saunier Duval-Prodir, and he realised that if only Millar could claw himself back from the brink he'd return a stronger, wiser person; so he threw him a lifeline - an offer of a contract once the ban expired. Millar now had hope.

The Tour de France began one week after his ban ended in 2006 and, slowly but surely, Millar began clawing his way back to the top echelon of cyclists. Since then, his intelligence and (sometimes abrasive but always interesting) personality has led to him becoming one of the sport's elder statesmen, frequently approached by journalists seeking his opinion on all sorts of matters.

Professional cycling was a poorer place without him and though many people initially felt that he should not return, he is now among the most popular figures on the ProTour circuit.

Benoît Joachim
Born in Lëtzebuerg, the capital city of Luxembourg, on this day in 1976, Joachim rode in six Grand Tours - twice in the Tour de France (2000 and 2002), four times in the Vuelta a Espana (2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005) and once in the Giro d'Italia (2005). In the 2004 Vuelta, he became the first rider from Luxembourg to wear the race leader's jersey and kept it for two days. That same year, he won the National Time Trial title, having won the National Road Race Championship in 2003.

In 2000, Joachim returned a sample that revealed an unusually high level of 19-nortestosterone, which exists naturally in the human body in minute quantities but, as a metabolite of Nandralone, in larger quantities is indication of illegal anabolic steroid use. However, he was subsequently cleared on a technicality and continued riding for the Discovery team with whom he spent his entire professional career with the exception of his final two seasons from 2007 when he joined Astana, with whom he remained for two years before going to his last team Differdange for 2009, then retired at the end of the season.

Yaroslav Popovych
Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych, born on this day in 1980, enjoyed enormous success as an amateur and won an Under-23 World Championship and Paris-Roubaix before turning professional with Discovery in 2005, where he was hailed as a potential successor to Lance Armstrong - whom he helped towards his historic seventh Tour de France victory that year, while winning the Youth Classification for himself.

Popovych at the 2011 Tour de France
(image credit: PB85 CC BY-SA 3.0)

In the Tour one year later, Popovych was considered to be one of the team's strongest riders and won Stage 12 in memorable style: having broken away from the peloton with Óscar Freire, Alessandro Ballan and Christophe Le Mével, he repeatedly and savagely attacked each of them until he'd drained their strength. In 2007, he rode in support of Alberto Contador and for the second time became an instrumental part in his team leader's eventual victory; a remarkable show of humility considering Popovych was two years older and at a time when many riders are entering their best years. He got his chance to go for glory at that year's Giro d'Italia when he was named team leader, but was forced to abandon in Stage 12 following two crashes.

When Discovery withdrew from cycling at the end of the 2007 season, Popovych moved to Silence-Lotto as a domestique to Cadel Evans who would come 2nd in the Tour that year. It proved to be a far quieter year for the Ukrainian, however, as he achieved just one podium finish - 3rd at Paris-Nice. At the end of the season, he signed up to Astana which had recently come under the aegis of ex-Discovery manager Johan Bruyneel, a man whose management style has earned him the eternal dislike and everlasting loyalty of riders in roughly equal amounts. Once again riding as a domestique for Contador, he helped to propel the Spaniard to 4th place overall while settling for 23rd himself. In 2010, when Bruyneel took on management duties at the new Team Radioshack co-owned by Lance Armstrong, Popovych once again went with him.

In January 2011, Popovych was implicated in the investigation into Floyd Landis. American magazine Sports Illustrated published a report claiming that Popovych's Tuscan home had been raided by police who had subsequently discovered doping products, medical supplies and documents linking him to the notorious Dr. Michele Ferrari. Through his lawyer, Popovych strongly denied the claims and also stated that the magazine's claims that police had found proof of a continuing connection between Ferraro and Armstrong, who had previously insisted he no longer had any association with the controversial doctor, were false. No charges have been brought against Popovych which, it seems, proves the allegations published by Sports Illustrated were indeed either incorrect or a deliberate falsification.

Popovych rode with the new Radioshack-Nissan-Trek team formed following the merger with Leopard Trek for 2012, but failed to win any races.

Marek Wesoły

Kara Chesworth was born in Portsmouth in this day in 1972 but later moved to Wales where she rides with the Dysynni CC. She represented Wales at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and that same year came 8th in the National Road Race Championship.

Marek Wesoły, born in Gostyń, Poland on this day in 1978, has ridden in all three Grand Tours. His best result came at the 2004 National Championships, where he won the Road Race title.

Wilf Waters, born on this day in 1923, became a household name as one of the most successful British cyclists during the 1940s when he won numerous titles. In 1948, he was selected to compete at the Olympic Games in London and, with David Ricketts, Tommy Godwin and Robert Geldard, won a bronze medal in the Team Pursuit. At the time of writing, Waters is still with us.

Dutch criterium cyclist Jan Schröder died on this day in 2007. He was born on the 16th of June 1941.

Carlos-Manuel Figueiredo Teixeira, born on this day in 1971, turned professional with Atum Bom Petisco-Tavira in 1995, then went to Boavista and remained with the team until retirement in 2002 - he didn't set the world alight, but he picked up a few good results including a stage win at the GP Sport Noticias in 1997. Many cyclists fall upon hard times when they retire, but few attempt to solve their problems in the way that Teixeira did - he robbed twenty banks, starting in 2011 and accruing a total of around €152,000 in order to set up his own business. In November 2012 he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Other cyclists born on this day: Frank Høj (Denmark, 1973); Jan Hruška (Czechoslovakia, 1975); Ernst Denifl (Father of Leopard Trek's Stefan Denifl, Austria, 1962); Károly Eisenkrammer (Hungary, 1969); Paul Maue (Germany, 1922); Tadashi Kato (Japan, 1935); Ramón Sáez (Spain, 1940); Heinz Imboden (Switzerland, 1962); Erik Schoefs (Belgium, 1967); Tsuyoshi Kawachi (Japan, 1945); Jimmi Madsen (Denmark, 1969); Ib Vagn Hansen (Denmark, 1926).

Daily Cycling Facts 03.01.2014

Lucien Buysse

Lucien Buysse, 1892-1980

Lucien Buysse, winner of two stages and the overall General Classification at the 1926 Tour de France - at 5745km, the longest in history (it was also the first Tour that didn't start in Paris) - died on this day in 1980. He was born in Wontergem, Belgium on the 11th of September 1892 and counted the 1913 Tour of Belgium for Amateurs as his first major success.

During Stage 3 at the 1926 Tour, Buysse received news that his daughter had died. His immediate instinct was to leave the race and return home; but his family insisted he continued, realising that if her father could win a stage and dedicate his victory to her it would make a very fine memorial indeed.

Stage 10 was billed as the hardest in the history of the Tour. It began at midnight and, by 18:00, only ten men had arrived at the finish line. Possibly fearing that Desgrange's early concerns that riders in the Pyrenees were at risk of being eaten by bears, the organisers sent out cars in search of the missing men and began finding them, in various states of exhaustion, strung out along the route. A full 24 hours after the stage had begun, 47 of the 76 starters had crossed the line, at which point it was decided that all riders would be permitted an extra 40% of the winning time (6 hours and 48 minutes) in which to finish as the standard cut-off time in which all riders must finish in order to escape disqualification would leave a field so depleted it would reduce competition; the remaining 22 - incredibly, only one rider had abandoned - being disqualified. The stage had been so difficult that judges had turned a blind eye when some of the riders had arrived at the end of the stage by bus and when a member of the public confessed that he had carried some riders to the finish line in his car but insisted they'd been in such a poor state he had done so through altruism rather than for financial gain, officials declined to disqualify the riders - and paid the man for helping them.

Buysse on Tourmalet

Buysse, meanwhile, proved to be made of sterner stuff. Showing a similar ability to that later displayed by Charly Gaul, a capacity to withdraw into himself and keep going hard whilst those around him were reduced to their lowest ebb by the sheer suffering involved in what they were attempting to do, he made use of a storm on the Col d'Aspin and, accompanied by his brothers Jules (winner of Stages 1 and 2) and Michel, attacked the peloton so savagely that he took the yellow jersey from previous leader Gustave van Slembrouck and a lead just short of an hour from his own Automoto team captain Ottavio Bottecchia, winner in 1924 and 1926, who subsequently abandoned. By the time he crossed the finish line, after seventeen hours and 326km of solid riding, he was 25 minutes ahead of the next man and two hours ahead of van Slembrouck. The next stage, two days later, was also mountainous and only 3km shorter; when Buysse won that one too his overall victory was all but guaranteed Wisely, he conserved his energy from that point onwards; taking care not to over-exert himself and deliver consistent good results so that he held the race leadership all the way to Paris six stages later.


Giovanni Pelizzoli
Legendary Italian frame builder Giovanni Pelizzoli was born in Curno on this day in 1942. The son of a bike mechanic, he began racing at the age of 14 and achieved good results but always dreamed of building bikes rather than racing them. He became manager of a junior team whilst still a teenager and managed to land an apprenticeship with an artisan frame builder in Bergamo, where he learned his craft and in 1969 set up his own workshop building bikes under his CIÖCC brand, while also working as a mechanic for the GS Zonca team, then home to Gianni Motta. In 1977, Claudio Corti won a World Cup aboard a CIÖCC bike.

Pelizzoli's hand-built frames combine the best of old and
modern production techniques.

Pelizzoli sold the company in 1980 but continued building bikes and in 1993 was put in charge of the frame design division at Cicli F.lli Masciaghi, where he was responsible for the development of the firm' top-end Fausto Coppi-branded machines. The firm's pro team of the day included names such as Gianni Bugno, Richard Virenque and Davide Rebellin - at that time, among the best riders in the world. In 1995, Bugno won the Italian National Championship on a bike Pelizzoli hand-built specifically for him. A year later, Pascal Richard, Max Sciandri and Ralf Sorensen took the gold, silver and bronze medals in the Olympic road race, each of them aboard a Pelizzoli bike. Fabiana Luperini won five editions of the Giro Donne (the record) and three consecutive Tours de France Féminin (equaling Jeannie Longo's record) on hers.


Born in Gwndy, a village near Caldicot in Wales, on this day in 1991, Hannah Rich found her way into cycling via a roundabout route - in 2006, when she was 15, she took part in trampoline sessions held at Newport Velodrome and decided she liked the look of the track cycling she saw there. Later that same year, she won a silver medal in the Junior Points race at the National Track Championships, then two years later she became National Scratch race Champion. A year after that she was Welsh Road Race Champion and Junior British Points race Champion, then in 2011 she became Welsh Road Race Champion for a second time and came third in the British Circuit Race Championship.

Alessandro Petacchi
(image: CC BY-SA 3.0) 

Born in La Spezia on this day in 1974, Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi won an incredible 51 Grand Tour stages during his 15 year professional career - even with the stage wins that were later disqualified, he is the third most successful Grand Tour stage winner after Eddy Merckx and Mario Cipollini. He also won the Points Classification in all three races. Petacchi's results prior to 2007 have been disallowed after he tested positive for a controlled substance, though his positive result was due to incorrect use of his anti-asthma medicine rather than deliberate doping - while the Court of Arbitration in sport cleared him of intentionally doping, it ruled that in committing "human error" he had failed to exercise the utmost caution that is expected of all athletes. On the 23rd of April 2013, Petacchi announced via the Lampre-Merida website that he had retired but, at the age of 39, hinted that his decision might not be permanent. "My career has been full of satisfactions and enriched by all the most important victories that a rider like me could ever have aimed for," he said. "At the threshold of 200 victories in my career, I feel my life reaches a particular moment, a turning point, in which I perceive the need to find a new dimension and to have more time to dedicate to my family. These considerations conclude me to the decision to pause my career."

In 2013, Omega Pharma-QuickStep manager Patrick Lefevre announced that Pettachi would be joining the team on a14-month contract beginning in August, the rider having said previously that he would like to act as lead-out man for the team's star sprinter Mark Cavendish.


More cyclists born on this day: Kevin Morgan (Australia, 1948); Les Wilson (Great Britain, 1926, died 20.01.2006); Morgan Schmitt (USA, 1985); Álvaro González de Galdeano (Spain, 1970);  Robert Oliver (New Zealand, 1950); Ross Edgar (UK, 1983); Ján Lepka (Slovakia, 1977); Vittorio Algeri (Italy, 1955); Juan Carlos Haedo (Argentina, 1948); Ole Byriel (Denmark, 1958); Karel Paar (Czechoslovakia, 1945); Gino Lori (Italy, 1956); Arturo Cambroni (Mexico, 1953); Ceris Gilfillan (Scotland, 1980); Marcel Gobillot (France, 1900, died 1991); Angie González (Venezuela, 1981).

Daily Cycling Facts 02.01.2014

Fausto Coppi, 1919-1960

Fausto Coppi
The 2nd of January is one of the saddest dates in cycling and the saddest of all for Italian fans - it was on this day in 1960 that Fausto Coppi died, aged just 40.

Coppi won the Giro d'Italia five times and the Tour de France twice, also winning the King of the Mountains a combined total of five times. A list of his other successes - Paris-Roubaix, Giro di Toscana, Giro dell'Emilia, Milan-San Remo, Giro di Lombardia, Coppa Bernocchi, La Flèche Wallonne, Trofeo Baracchi, Gran Premio di Lugano, Giro del Veneto, Tre Valli Varesine and more - reads like a list of the most prestigious bicycle races of the 20th Century; few cycling fans who were not there to see it do not feel a deep wish to have witnessed his legendary duels with rival Gino Bartali. He is the only rider to have won both the first and last Tours he entered.

Coppi entered a deep depression caused at least in part by the tragic death of his brother, following a crash at the Giro del Piemonte when he was only 28, during the last years of his life; when he died he was buried in soil collected from the Col d'Izoard where he achieved some of his most memorable victories, became the subject of some of the most iconic photographs in cycling and sport in general and where there is a monument in his memory. The cause of Coppi's death is generally accepted to have been malaria, as was recorded following autopsy; however, there are still some who believe he succumbed to an overdose of cocaine - or that he was murdered in Burkina Faso with, in the worlds of a mysterious monk named Brother Adrien, "a potion mixed with grass." For a brief while, a court considered the possibility of exhuming the rider's body to test these claims; when no evidence was found to support them - Coppi's doctor, Ettore Allegri, termed the rumours "absolute drivel" - the case was dropped with no exhumation taking place.


Random Fact: after being captured by the British and becoming a prisoner of war in WW2, Coppi became friendly with a man who later fathered Claudio Chiappucci, one of the leading lights of professional cycling in the 1990s.

Svetlana Bubnenkova
Born in Izhevsk, USSR on this day in 1973, Svetlana Bubnenkova has been a regular on the podium for two decades. In 1993 she rode with the victorious team at the World Team Trial Championships, was second at the National Road Race Championships and won the Chrono Champenois. Her team won the World Team Trial Championship again in 1994 and she won the National Individual Time Trial Championship and the Tour de Bretagne, then two years later she became National Road Race Champion. She did not win any races in 1997, 1998 or 1999 but got some good results including three third place stage finishes and second place overall at the 1999 Giro Donne where she won the Points competition.

Bubnenkova in 2009

In 2000 Bubnenkova won Stage 7 at the Tour de France Feminin before going to the Giro Donne where she was third on Stage 3, second on Stage 5, won Stages 6 and 7, was second on Stages 8 and 10 and third and second respectively on Stages 12a and 12b, also winning the Points competition for a second time. She also won the National Road Race Championships, was fourth at the Trofeo Binda and  third at the Giro Trentino Alto Adige-Sudtirol that season. In 2002, she won Stages 3 and 6 and overall at the Giro Donne, won back her National Road Race Champion title and won the Trofeo Binda and Tour de Suisse Feminine, then in 2003 she retained the National title and added the National Individual Time Trial Championship. In 2004, she won the overall King of the Mountains at the Giro Donne. In 2005 she won Stage 1 and overall at the Emakumeen Bira, the Prologue and overall at the Giro Trentino Alto Adige-Sudtirol, the National ITT Championship, Stage 8 at the Giro Donne and Stages 2, 3, 4 and 5 at the Tour de l'Ardèche. She was no less successful in 2006 with victory in Stage 1 and overall at the Giro di San Marino, Stages 1, 2 and overall at the Giro Trentino Alto Adige-Sudtirol, Stage 8 at the Route de France and Stage 5 and overall at the Giro della Toscana; nor was 2007 with Stage 8 and the overall King of the Mountains at the Giro Donne, victory at the Criterium Internationale, Stages 1 and 4 at the Tour en Limousin and Stages 2, 5, 6 and 7 (but only second overall) at the Route de France. Victories came less frequently after 2007, by which time Bubnenkova was older than most male riders when they retire, but she still won: in 2009 the GP Elsy Jacobs, in 2011 the Gracia Orlova and in 2013 - when she was 39 - the National Individual Time Trial Championship.

Bubnenkova's career has not been without controversy: at the 2006 Tour en Limousin she failed a test for EPO and, the following season, received a two-year ban that she escaped due to clerical errors. Nevertheless, all the results she gained between June and September of that year were disqualified.

Victor Fontan, leading the Tour through the mountains
in 1928. He was a remarkable rider who rode three
remarkable Tours.

Victor Fontan
Another rider who died on this day was Victor Fontan, aged 89 in 1982. Fontan, who achieved limited fame in the Pyrennean commune of Nay as a young man after some success in local races, never won a Tour (though he won the Volta a Catalunya twice) but was nevertheless a remarkable rider and, in some ways, can be seen as the embodiment of the early Tours. Firstly, he was the son of a cobbler, yet his own son became a heart surgeon - emblematic of how, in the first two thirds of the 20th Century, cycling presented the best chance many young men would ever get to lift their families from poverty. Secondly, after a short pre-war professional career, he saw action and was shot twice in the leg; yet returned to racing almost immediately after his demobilisation in 1920 and soon made a name for himself as the strongest rider in the south-west of France.

He entered the Tour for the first time in 1924 as a touriste-routiere (an individual, private rider allowed to take part provided he paid for his own equipment, food and lodgings) but did not finish, most observers deciding that at 32 (and with his war injury) he was already too old to make an impact. Then, aged 36 in 1928, he won two stages - one, Stage 7, was a team time trial (as were all flat stages that year); but the other, Stage 9, was a difficult mountain stage over 387km from Hendaye to Luchon. Unfortunately, Fontan's team were weak and other than that one stage, they proved far from his equal in the rest of the race and as a result he was forced to spend a great deal of time looking after them and trying to hurry them up a little, so he finished the race with an overall time 5h7'47" behind winner Nicolas Frantz. However, when journalists worked out the total time he had spent attending to the needs of his team, they discovered subtracting that time would have left Fontan as the overall winner.

That wasn't the last mark he made: one year later he was back, riding as an independent again in a Tour that was unique because at one point there were three yellow jerseys after Fontan, Frantz and André Leducq recorded identical elapsed times. He did not remain a race leader for long due to a crash after he was either knocked off by a dog or rode into a gutter and damaged his bike (explanations vary; it seems likely, therefore, that he rode into the gutter while trying to avoid the dog) - this happened just 7km into a stage that began before dawn, so it was still dark. Riders were permitted to continue on a replacement bike provided a race official had deemed their original machine was beyond repair but, when they showed up, they had no replacement bike to give him; he was forced therefore to run to the nearest village and go from door to door waking people up and begging to borrow one. Finally, somebody provided him with one and, since the rules dictated that a rider needed to cross the finish line with an officially approved bike, he set off aboard the borrowd bike with the broken machine strapped across his back. By 6am, he'd punctured and the broken bike had cut his back badly, leaving him exhausted and in agony - journalists Alex Virot and Jean Antoine of L'Intransigeant discovered him in tears, sitting on a fountain in Saint-Gaudens, Haute-Garonne, and took pity on him. The journalists were also providing radio coverage for the Radio Cité station, which played a recording of Fontan's sobbing a few hours later. Fans were deeply moved to hear the rider's distress. One of them was Louis Delblatt, another journalist at the Les Echos des Sports newspaper, who would later write:

"How can a man lose the Tour de France because of an accident to his bike? I can't understand it. The rule should be changed so that a rider with no chance of winning can give his bike to his leader, or there should be a a car with several spare bicycles. You lose the Tour de France when you find someone better than you are. You don't lose it through a stupid accident to your machine."

In response, Henri Desgrange - who hated change - altered the rules for the 1930 Tour, adopting those suggested by Delblatt. For the first time riders could have their bikes repaired by team mechanics and no longer had to finish each stage on the same bike with which they started without seeking official approval.

Danilo Di Luca
(image credit: Michal Sagrol/Procycling CC BY-SA 2.5)

Danilo Di Luca
Born in Spoltore on this day in 1975, Danilo Di Luca became a professional cyclist in 1998 and won the Under-23 Giro d'Italia in his first year. Seen originally as a rider who could perform well only in races lasting for a few days, he surprised many by finishing the 2005 Giro in 4th place overall, having won two stages - just one of several misjudgments by team management, which is partially the reason he has ridden for so many different teams during his career.

He seemed to prove just how wrong they were in the 2007 Giro when he won an incredible eight stages and the overall General Classification. In 2008, his LPR-Brakes Ballan team received a wildcard entry for the Giro and he won the Points classification, finishing 2nd overall. This feat was also mired, this time by a positive test result that showed the presence of CERA, a form of EPO. His placing was declared void and he received a two-year ban and a 280,000 euro fine. This had not been the first time his name had been linked to doping - as long ago as 2004 he had been investigated after he was recorded discussing doping with Eddy Mazzoleni, a rider who was implicated in the Oil for Drugs scandal of 2007 and received a two-year ban the following year. In 2007, he was found to have unusually low hormone levels, which can be a sign that the body has been stressed by a heavy racing schedule or that a masking agent has been used, most likely in an attempt to hide abnormally high testosterone levels; that same year, he was handed a three-month ban when he was shown to have visited a doctor banned from working with professional athletes.

Due to his co-operation with the investigation, in 2010 both the ban, backdated to July 2009, and the fine were reduced to nine months and seven days and 106,400 euros respectively, though the UCI would this decision. Di Luca made his return to the top of the sport with the ProTeam Katusha for 2011, but received no salary for the season he spent with them and won no races. In 2012 he moved to Acqua e Sapone and won Stage 2 (ending at the summit of the Kitzbüheler Horn) at the Österreich-Rundfahrt and took first place at the GP Nobili Rubinetterie Coppa Città di Stresa. Acqua e Sapone will not continue into the 2013 season; in November 2012 he was reported to be considering offers from several teams, eventually choosing Vini Fantini-Selle Italia which received a wildcard invitation to race at the Giro d'Italia. The race was coming to a close by the 24th of May (that day's stage, 19, was the Queen due to featuring ascents of the Gavia and Stelvio Passes, both of which were taken off the parcours due to heavy snowfall the day before - when more heavy snow fell on the remaining passes, the entire stage was cancelled) when news broke that Di Luca had failed a test carried out at his home one week prior to the start. Following an investigation, he was found guilty of using EPO; in December that year he was given a lifetime ban from all competitive sports.


Félix Sellier

Sellier after being hit by a car in 1920. He looks reasonably
relaxed, but note that the car's occupants have squeezed
up on the opposite side - perhaps to try to distance
themselves from an angry verbal onslaught!

Félix Sellier was born in Spy, Belgium on this day in 1893 and had to abandon the 1920 Tour de France after he was hit by a car - a photograph survives showing his bike under the car while he leans in through the window and delivers what was doubtless an angry lecture.

In the 1921 Tour, when he was riding as an unsponsored touriste-routier, he won Stage 13 - however, it wasn't the most glorious victory in the race's history because Henri Desgrange had decreed that the independent riders would set off two hours before the profeesionals for that stage as he wanted to punish the sponsored entrants for refusing to compete against Leon Scieur, who was riding so powerfully that they'd given up hope of beating him and were vying with one another for second place.

Sellier should not be remembered as an also-ran who once got lucky though. The next year he returned with a sponsor, and he won both Stage 14 and 4th place overall fair and square

Emily Kachorek

Born in Sacramento on this day in 1980, Emily Kachorek won the Tour de Murrieta and came third at the Tour de Nez and Lodi CycleFest in 2012 when she rode for Primal/Map My Ride. She was also sixth at the Tour of the Gila, having finished all but two stages in the top ten. In 2012, riding for Vanderkitten, Kachorek was second at the Bariani road race.

Frenchman Jérôme Pineau was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan on this day in 1980. In 2002 he won the Tour de Normandie, then in 2003 and 2004 the Tour de l'Ain before spending a few years getting good results in the Classics from 2005 - he was ninth at the Amstel Gold Race that year, tenth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2007, tenth at the Amstel Gold Race in 2008 and second at the Brabantse Pijl in 2009. In 2010 he won Stage 5 at the Giro d'Italia, then wore the King of the Mountains jersey for four stages in the 2010 Tour de France where he also won the Combativity award in Stage 7 and in 2011 he was ninth at the Brabantse Pijl. Pineau recorded some good results in 2012 including seventh place at the Four Days of Dunkirk, but the season passed without victory - as did 2013, though his Omega Pharma-QuickStep team took second place behind Orica-GreenEdge in the Stage 4 time trial at the Tour de France. In 2014, Pineau will ride with IAM.


Paul Litschi, Swiss National Road Champion in 1927, was born on this day in 1904.

Other cyclists born on this day: Peter Aldridge (Jamaica, 1961); Bunki Bankaitis-Davis (USA, 1958); Chen Weixu (China, 1966); Ottavio Dazzan (Argentina, 1958); Gabriela Diaz (Argentina, 1981); Piet Ikelaar (Netherlands, 1896, died 25.11.1992); Helge Jacobsen (Denmark, 1915, died 02.08.1974); Ritchie Johnston (New Zealand, 1931, died 18.07.2001); Vlastibor Konečný (won bronze in 100km Team Time Trial at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, born Czechoslovakia 1957); Leijn Loevesijn (won silver for the Netherlands in the 1968 Olympics, born 1949); Jiří Mikšík (Czechoslovakia, 1952); Marino Morettini (won gold and silver medals at the 1952 Olympics, born Italy 1931, died 10.12.1990); No Yeong Sik (South Korea, 1977); István Pásztor (Hungary, 1926); Gérard Quintyn (France, 1947); Ihor Tselovalnykov (born 1944, Armenia, won gold for USSR at the 1972 Olympics, died 01.03.1986); Maria Paola Turcutto (Italy, 1965);

Daily Cycling Facts 01.01.2014

Mark Beaumont

Happy birthday to the British long-distance cyclist Mark Beaumont, born in Scotland on this day in 1983. Beaumont set a new world record (broken in 2010 by Vin Cox) after riding 29,446km around the world in 194 days and 17 hours. Mark's first big adventure was a solo ride from John O'Groats to Land's End when he was 15, his most recent was the 21,050km from Anchorage in Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina - en route, he climbed Mount McKinley and Aconcagua, the highest peaks in North and South America respectively. His round-the-world ride was completed on a Koga-Miyata.

On this day in 1997, having been a popular sport around the world for two decades, BMX was finally fully accepted by and integrated into the British Cycling Federation.

Happy birthday to Karl Köther, born in 1942, the German representative in the Sprint and 1km time trial at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Karl's father - also named Karl, born 1905 - was an Olympian cyclist too, riding the 2km Tandem Sprint at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

On this day in 2009, Team Rabobank entered a new contract with Giant and began riding the company's top-of-the-range American-produced bikes after several years with the Italian Colnago manufacturer.

Happy birthday to Tristan Hoffman, who rode Paris-Roubaix three times and came second in 2004. Following retirement he became a directeur sportif, first with the Danish CSC team (still with us as Tinkoff-Saxo in 2014) and later for HTC-Highroad (which closed down at the end of 2011). He was born in Groenlo, Netherlands in 1970 and became National Road Race Champion in 1992; in 1996 and 2000 he won the Dwars door Vlaanderen.

On the first day of 1939, professional cyclist Tommy Godwin (born 1912) set out to achieve a new record in Cycling magazine's annual distance competition. One year later, he had ridden 120,805km - a record which still stands. By May 1940, he had reached 160,000km (100,000 miles), then decided to do his bit for the war by joining the RAF. After spending so much of his waking time in the saddle, he reported that he had to spend weeks relearning to walk properly. Godwin should not be confused with Thomas Charles Godwin, also known as Tommy, an Olympic cyclist born in 1920.

Happy birthday to Rabaki Jeremie Ouedraogo of Burkina Faso, twice National Champion and overall winner of the 2005 Tour du Faso. He was born in 1973.

On this day in 2005, Russian Olympian track cyclist Dmitry Nelyubin died following a fight in St. Petersburg. Nelyubin, who had ridden with the winning Pursuit team at the 1988 Olympics, had gone outside with friends at midnight to set off fireworks but were attacked by a group of men; during the fight, the rider was stabbed in the stomach. An ambulance was called but took half an hour to reach him due to snow, and although he was alive when it reached him he died later that morning. Nelyubin's death appears to have been caused by mistaken identity: the group that attacked him and his friends stated that earlier that night they had themselves been attacked and beaten up by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads and claimed they had later mistaken Nelyubin for one of them. Nelyubin was the son of Vladislav Nelyubin, also an Olympian cyclist and the winner of the Points competition at the 1973 Tour of Austria. Every year, Vladislav organises a memorial race in the city where his son died.

On this day in 1994, New Zealand became the first - and to date the only (helmets are not mandatory everywhere in Australia) - nation to make protective helmets mandatory when cycling. The law came about largely due to the efforts of Rebecca Oaten, whose son Aaron was left with permanent brain damage after he was hit by a car in 1986. Aaron spent eight months in a coma and, when he awoke, was paralysed and unable to speak. He died on the 14th of August in 2010, aged just 37.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jamal Ahmed Al-Doseri (represented Bahrain in the Individual Road Race and 100km Team Time Trial at the 1992 Olympics, born 1970); Youssef Khanfar Al-Shakali (represented Oman in the Individual Road Race at the 1996 Olympics, born 1972); Bernd Barleben (represented Germany in the 4km Team Pursuit at the 1960 Olympics, born 1940); Mario Benetton (represented Italy in the 4km Team Pursuit at the 2000 Olympics, born 1974); Danial Kaswanga (Malawian Olympian in 1984 and 1988, born 1960); Arturo Friedemann (represented Chile in the 1912 Olympics, born 1893); Enrique Heredia (Mexican professional, born 1912, died 26.06.1996); Otto Jensen, (Danish Olympian, born 1893, died 25.12.1972); Alvin Hjalmar "Al Loftes" Lofstedt (American bronze medalist in Team Road Race at the 1912 Olympics, born 1890); Hans Olsen (Danish cyclist, born 1885, died 04.12.1969); František Řezáč (Czech professional, born 1943, died 04.05.1979); Prajin Rungrote (Thai professional, born 1953; Asyat Saitov (Russian Olympian, rode for USSR in 1988, born 1965); Anthony Young (rode for USA in 1920 Olympics, born 1892, died 1969).

Daily Cycling Facts 31.12.2013

Mario Aerts
(image credit:  YellowMonkey/Binguyen CC BY-SA 3.0)

Born in Herentals, Belgium on this day in 1974, Mario Aerts completed the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in 2007, becoming only the 25th rider in history to have finished all three Grand Tours in a single season; his best Grand Tour result to date came two years earlier when he was 15th in the 2005 Vuelta, while his best placing in the Tour de France was 21st in 1999. He has performed better in shorter races, including wins at the 1996 GP d'Isbergues and 2002 La Flèche Wallonne. 2011 was Aerts' 14th and final year as a professional rider; in June he announced that he would be retiring at the end of the year due to cardiac arrhythmia.

Retired German track and road cyclist Gregor Braun was born on this day in 1955. Braun's greatest success came during his time as an amateur track rider, including two gold medals at the 1976 Olympics.

Belgian Heidi van de Vijver, who was born in Bornem on this day in 1969, became National Junior Road Race Champion in 1988. Her first National Road Race Champion title at Elite level came six years later in 1994 and she repeated the achievement in 1994. Van de Vijver has also been National Individual Time Trial Champion in 1999, 2000 and 2001.


Raymond Impanis

Raymond Impanis, who was born on the 19th of October in 1925 and went on to win the 1954 Paris-Roubaix, died at the age of 85 on this day in 2010. Impanis did well in the Tour, winning Stage 9 and 6th place overall in 1947 - said by some to have been the hardest Tour ever held, before and since, Stages 9 and 10 and 10th place overall in 1948 and 8th place overall in 1950. He enjoyed similar success in the other Grand Tours with 3rd place overall in the 1956 Vuelta a Espana and 7th in the 1957 Giro d'Italia.

Nicknamed "The Baker of Berg" (what is it about nicknames such as "The Baker" or "The Florist" - Louis Trousselier - that makes them so much more chilling than "The Cannibal" or "The Shark"?), he did even better in the Classics; winning the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1949 and 1951, Gent-Wevelgem in 1952 and 1953 and the Tour of Flanders in the same year as his Paris-Roubaix victory (he also won Paris-Nice for the first time that year too, repeating it in 1960). All in all, he rolled across the Paris-Roubaix start line sixteen times - a record that was not equaled until Servais Knaven made his 16th appearance, in the same year that Impanis died.

Cândido Barbosa
(image credit: Ciclo Povoãoco)

Portuguese rider Cândido Barbosa was born on this day in 1974. Early on in his career, he won several stages in the Volta ao Algarve, then also began to win stages in the Volta ao Portugal and continued to do so in the latter race until the end of his time as a professional; yet he never won either event outright. He did, however, win the Troféu Sergio Paulinho and Volta ao Distrito de Santarém. He was forced to retire after fifteen years in 2011 due to problems with both knees.

It's also retired American professional Ken Carpenter's birthday. An Olympian in 1988 and 1992 and winner of a gold medal at the 1987 Pan American Games, he was born in La Mesa, California in 1965.

Other cyclists born on this day: Birger Andreassen (Norway, 1891, died 1961); John Carlsen (Denmark, 1961); Christian Jourdain (France, 1954); Renato Piccolo, (Itay, 1962); Claus Rasmussen (Sweden, 1957).

Daily Cycling Facts 30.12.2013

Nikki Harris 

Nikki Harris
(image credit: Joolzed)

A very happy birthday to Nikki Louise Harris, who was born in Dreycott, Derbyshire on this day in 1986. Harris has been cycling since she was five years old and decided to pursue a professional career when she was 16. She started in cyclo cross, then began to also race mountain bikes and within two years was representing Great Britain at the Commonwealth Games and both the European and World Championships. In 2005, when she was 18, Harris was given an opportunity to ride with Team GB at the World Track Championships - only the second time she'd ever rode on track, and she came fifth overall.

That excellent result encouraged her and during the following four years with the team her riding went from strength to strength. In 2008, she relocated to Belgium to concentrate on her cyclo cross riding and, she says, "it went better than I could have ever hoped." Just a few months after her return to cross, she was selected to compete in the 2009 World Championships and came 14th. She lists future World Championship victory as her main aim in her future career. 2012 would be an excellent year for Harris. She began the season with third place at the Baal cyclo cross race, just 25" behind winner Daphny van den Brand and 8" behind Sanne Cant, then third behind Marianne Vos and van den Brand at Rucphen and followed up with a series of podium finishes before winning the National Cross Country Mountain Bike Championship in the summer.

The 2012/13 cyclo cross season got off to a perfect start with victory at Neerpelt in September, Ruddervoorde in October, then at Niel and Gavere-Asper in November. Also in November she won bronze at the European Championships in Ipswich, finishing 24" behind legendary seven-time British Champion Helen Wyman, an indication that she'd timed her peak perfectly for the National Championships - which proved to be the case when she won. By the time of her 27th birthday, the 2013/14 season was well underway and she'd already enjoyed numerous successes including second place behind Katie Compton at Tabor, second behind Wyman at Ruddervoorde, second again behind Wyman at the European Championships and victory at Hamme-Zogge.

Despite cyclo cross' small profile in Britain, Harris - along with Wyman and Gabby Durrin - is enormously popular with cycling fans, partly for her talent and partly because she's genuinely appreciative of them and often takes the time to chat on Twitter. Send your birthday wishes to @Nikkiharris86.

Lars Boom
(image credit: tetedelacourse CC BY-SA 2.0)

Lars Boom
Born in Vlijmen on this day in 1985, the Dutch cyclist Lars Boom won the National Junior Cyclo Cross Championships in 2001 and 2002, then won it again in 2003 before also becoming World Junior Cyclo Cross Champion. This brought him the opportunity to join Rabobank's GS3 development team and, apparently thankful to them for offering him his chance to make a career in cycling, he has ridden for Rabobank ever since.

In 2004 he won the National Under-23 Cyclo Cross Championship, then a year later he beat cyclo cross legend Sven Nys in - of all races - the Grand Prix Sven Nys before going on to successfully defend the U-23 title; the following year he won the Vlaamse Druivenveldrit Overijse, a race held on one of the most notoriously difficult and dangerous courses in cyclo cross - having led for much of the event, he skidded during the final lap and was overtaken by Bart Wellens, who was first over the line but was subsequently disqualified for kicking a spectator he claimed had thrown beer over him. Despite being under the minimum age, Boom was awarded special dispensation by the national cycling federation to compete at Elite level in Dutch competitions in 2007 and won the National Championship, then also became World U-23 Champion; in 2008 successfully defended his National title in addition to becoming World Elite Champion. He remained National Champion in 2009; then revealed that he planned to concentrate on road racing in the future - however, he was National Cyclo Cross Champion again in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Boom at Gent-Wevelgem, 2011

Since 2004, Boom has also enjoyed great success in road racing. That year, he won a stage at the Triptyque Ardennais, then in 2005 he won the U-23 classification at the race outright. In 2006 he won a stage and overall at the U-23 Triptyque des Monts et Châteaux as well as a stage at the U-23 Thüringen-Rundfahrt before taking second place in the National U-23 Individual Time Trial Championship - he won it the following year, having already won the Tour de Bretagne earlier in the season, then became World U-23 ITT Champion too. In 2008 he won the Olympia's Tour and became National Elite ITT Champion, then having become a full professional member of Rabobank's Pro Tour team in 2009, he won the Ronde van België before going to the Vuelta a Espana (his first Grand Tour) where he beat David Herrero Llorente by 1'36" to win Stage 15, coming 55th overall. In 2010 he was fifth at the E3 Harelbeke and third at the National Road Race Championships before going to his first Tour de France where he finished Stage 20 in 18th place; in 2011 he won the prologues at the Tour of Qatar and the Critérium du Dauphiné, was tenth at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, ninth at Gent-Wevelgem and 12th at Paris-Roubaix before winning Stages 3, 6 and the overall General Classification at the Tour of Britain. This success continued through 2012 with victory at the Benelux Tour, third place for Stage 1 at the Vuelta a Espana and fifth place at the World Road Race Championship, and in 2013 when he was second in the National Cyclo Cross Championship, won Stage 2 at the Tour Méditerranéen, won Stage 2 and was second overall at the Tour du Haut-Var, was 11th at the Ronde van Vlaanderen and 14th at Paris-Roubaix, won Stage 4 and overall at the Ster Electrotoer and won the Points competition at the Benelux Tour.

Boom joined Rabobank's GS3 development team in 2004, then rode for their Continental team for the next four seasons before moving into the ProTour team for 2009. He remained with them right through into 2012, when the bank announced its intention to withdraw from men's professional cycling in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal, after which it became known as Blanco during a period in which Rabobank honoured contracts but wished not to be associated with the team, then when it became Belkin in 2013 - and he has confirmed that he will stay put for 2014.



Shane Perkins
Shane Perkins, the Australian track sprinter and winner of a Commonwealth gold medal, is 25 today. Perkins has had a bit of a chequered career, having been banned from racing and fined $1000 by the Australian cycling federation after a drunken altercation outside a nightclub in Adelaide.

Shane Perkins

He was later involved in a crash with Ryan Bayley in February 2008, both riders later being found guilty of improper riding by event judges - Perkins and Bayley had become rivals due to an argument over which rider should be selected for the Beijing Olympics later that year. Bayley was eventually selected as Perkins had not competed in a sufficient number of races.

It was later discovered that he had been involved in a third incident during April that may well have discouraged the selection committee from choosing him, but this news was not made public until August after the selection. Perkins became a father a short while later in October and has said that parental responsibility has calmed him down and forced him to grow up: thus far, it appears he is telling the truth and his gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2011 World Track Championships were well-deserved.


Happy birthday to the retired American professional road and track cyclist Karen Dunne, winner of no fewer than 16 National titles in assorted disciplines, two stages and the overall General Classification at the 2000 Sea Otter Classic, a gold medal at the Pan American Games and two 4th place finishes in the 1996 Tour de France Féminin, among many others. She was born on this day in 1967.


A happy birthday to Desmond Robinson, the British cyclist who competed in Individual and Team Road Races at the 1952 Olympics. He is the brother of Brian, who became the first British rider to complete a Tour de France and win a stage and the uncle of Louise, who represented Great Britain in Mountain Bike XC in the 2000 Olympics. He was born in 1927.

Retired professional cyclo crosser and mountain biker David Baker was born on this day in 1965 in Drayton, Yorkshire. He became National Champion in 1992 and won every round of the National Points Series in the same year, going on to retain his title for another two years. He also won the BCCA Cyclo Cross Championship in 1997, having retired from professional racing due to a heart defect. In 2009, he was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of fame.

Thomas "Tiny" Johnson, winner of 32 races in 1911 and multiple Olympic medals for Great Britain during his career, was born in 1886. He died on the 12th of August 1966.

Other cyclists born on this day: Joseph Paré, sometimes spelled Pare (France, 1943); Dubán Ramírez (Columbia, 1965);Yolande Speedy, who has the official best name in cycling (South Africa, 1976).

Daily Cycling Facts 29.12.2013

Peter Bissell, 1986-2007

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Peter Bissell in 2007. Bissell was 2004 British Hill Climb Champion and, in 2006, became Under-23 Road Race Champion. He was born on the 11th of March 1986 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire and died after suffering a fit, aged 21.

Evelyn García, born in Santa Ana, El Salvador on this day in 1982, won the Vuelta Ciclista Femenina a El Salvador in 2004, then turned professional and won it again in 2007 - a feat no other rider has yet matched. In 2006 she became National Road Race Champion, then in 2007 World Elite B Pursuit Champion; in 2009 she won the Vuelta a Costa Rica, Vuelta a Guatemala and the National Road Race and Individual Time Trial Championships, successfully defending both National titles the following year. Having finished the Vuelta a El Salvador in third place overall in 2012, she competed at the Olympic Games and took 26th place in the Road Race.

Jeroen Johannes Hendrikus Blijlevens, born in Rijen, Netherlands on this day in 1971, rose to prominence as one of the most devastatingly effective sprinters of the 1990s, a skill that saw him win a total of four stages at the Tour de France (Stage 5, 1995; Stage 5, 1996; Stage 6, 1997; Stage 4, 1998), five at the Vuelta a Espana(Stage 10, 1995; Stage 5, 1996; Stages 2 and 5, 1998; Stage 21, 1999) and two at the Giro d'Italia (Stages 3 and 7, 1999). Today, he is best known as directeur sportif of the Rabobank women's team where he has worked with the world's top-rated rider Marianne Vos.

Happy birthday to German track rider Thomas Huschke, born in 1947, winner of silver and bronze at the 1972 and 1976 Games. Huschke comes from a cycling dynasty: he's the grandson of Adolf, German Road Champion in 1921 and son of Gerhard, 4th in the 1934 World Road Championships.

Christophe Rinero at the Tour de Romandie in 2007
(image credit: Ludovic Péron CC BY-SA 3.0)

French rider Christophe Rinero was born in Moissac on this day in 1973. Rinero didn't win many races over his 13 year career, but what he did was impressive: the overall General Classification and Stages 7 and 9 at the 1998 Tour de l'Avenir; 1st place King of the Mountains, 2nd place Youth and 4th place General Classification at the 1998 Tour de France; Stage 2 and the Mountains Classification at the 2002 Tour du Limousin.

Other cyclists born on this day: Marielle Guichard (France, 1963); Georgios Khimonetos (Greece, 1972); Joseph Kono (Cameroon, 1950); Juan Merhab (Puerto Rico, 1970); Edwin Torres (Puerto Rico, 1946); Besnik Musaj (Albania, 1973); Kyrylo Pospieiev (USSR, 1975); Walter Reiser (Switzerland, 1925); Philip Sawyer (Australia, 1951); Clayton Stevenson (Australia, 1967); Guillaume Van Tongerloo (Belgium, 1933); Roger Whitfield (Great Britain, 1943); Dennis McCoy (USA, 1966).