Daily Cycling Facts 19.07.2014

Karel Thijs

During the Second World War, La Flèche Wallonne was held on a later date each year than has traditionally been the case. This date, the anniversary of the sixth edition in 1942, is the latest in the race's history. It was 208km long - shorter than before and after the War, but comparable to modern editions - and ran between Mons and Marcinelle. It was the last major victory for Karel Thijs, whose professional career came to an end shortly afterwards.

Percy Stallard
Born above his father's Wolverhampton bike shop on this day in 1909, Percy Thornley Stallard became the man responsible to the reintroduction of mass-start cycling road races in Great Britain.

The ban on road races had come about as the result of an incident in 1890 when a group of cyclists spooked a horse, resulting in an overturned carriage and a complaint to the police; this convinced the National Cyclists' Union that any further complaint would be likely to result in all bikes being banned from the nation's roads and they introduced a rule stating that mass-start races could only be held at velodromes or on sites such as airfields. Individual time trials, in which each cyclist rides alone against the clock, were not banned as the general public are unlikely to realise that a race is even in progress when they see one cyclist and it was easy to hold them in secret; this is the reason that time trials remain more popular in Britain than elsewhere even today and why many cycling clubs like to refer to time trial routes using codes rather than place names - it's also the reason that, until comparatively recently, British cyclists tended to do so badly when they went abroad to compete in road races.

Percy Stallard

In 1936, the Isle of Man held a cycling race on the world famous Tourist Trophy circuit (the Isle has its own government and issues its own passports - NCU laws didn't apply there) and it proved to be a huge success despite the high number of crashes among British cyclists unused to racing in a peloton, rapidly developing into the prestigious Manx International. Stallard took part in the race and finished in 16th place; inspired by it he decided to investigate the possibility of launching a similar event on the British mainland and saw his chance in 1941 when the Second World War caused petrol shortages and traffic levels dropped accordingly, so he wrote to the NCU with his suggestions.

NCU official A.P. Chamberlin was not favourable, writing back to explain the reasons behind the ban and stating that the organisation wouldn't even consider changing its policy. However, now that airfields were being used by the Army and Royal Air Force races were few and far between, so Stallard put the word around that there would be an unofficial meeting at the bottom of Shropshire's Long Mynd, a range of hills that has long been popular among cyclists. It was there that he revealed his plan to hold a 95km on the 7th of July that year from Llangollen in North Wales to Wolverhampton, without the support of the NCU but with the backing of the police - he'd spoken to them to get an idea of how they might react and, rather than threatening a ban, they'd been extremely favourable and offered their help.

The NCU, meanwhile, were furious and set about doing all they could to prevent the race from going ahead, but Stallard would not back down and the race went ahead. A thousand people turned out to see the riders cross the finish line and the event a success by the organisers and the police. Now, the NCU's anger passed beying fury -  Stallard and fifteen others involved in organising the race were handed a sine die ban: one without a specific date upon which it would end but which could be lifted at any time if the subject either successfully appealed or, as the organisation presumably hoped would be the case in this instance, apologised and did as he or she was told. Yet still Stallard would not back down, especially now that he had proved mass-start races could be held on British roads, so in November he helped launch the British League of Racing Cyclists - an organisation of like-minded riders that act as an umbrella body co-ordinating a number of pre-existing groups and would go head-to-head with the cycling establishment.

Encouraged by their success, the BLRC went on to organise Britain's first multi-stage road race which began in 1944 (Stallard won Stage 1, Les Plume won overall); this led in turn to the five-stage Victory Race between Brighton and Glasgow in 1945, organised to celebrate the end of the war - Robert Batot, a Frenchman, won (the race was not recognised by the UCI; Batot and the other five French riders to finish in the top ten came from the BLRC's French counterpart rebel organisation the Fédération Sportive et Gymnastique du Travail - an association of Communist riders - with whom organisers were put in touch by the French owners of a cafe in London's Soho). In 1946, the Victory (now known as Brighton-Glasgow) was held again, then in 1947 it received financial backing from the News of the World newspaper. Their sponsorship ended after that one event but the race took place again in 1948 and 1949, largely paid for by the organisers as had been the case with the first two editions; then in 1950 it was sponsored by the Sporting Record and in 1951 by the Daily Express (which used to be a great newspaper, rather than the rag it is today) - this edition was the first to be named the Tour of Britain (it was joined by an amateur race sponsored the Butlins firm, known as the Butlin Tour, with each stage running between Butlin's holiday camps). The Express remained on board for three years until the constant infighting between organisers and route officials saw them pull out and begin sponsoring motor racing instead, at which point Quaker Oats took over and continued sponsorship for four years. In 1958, by which time the race had become hugely successful, the Milk Marketing Board became sponsor: it was renamed the Milk Race. The final Milk Race was held in 1993, but would be reborn as the PruTour (sponsored by Prudential Insurance) in 1998 and 1999, then vanished once again. In 2004, British Cycling - whom Stallard had despised so much - teamed up with sports and events marketing firm SweetSpot to bring the race back to life. Once again known as the Tour of Britain, it grew to become the largest cycling event in the country and has become an important part of the UCI's EuropeTour racing series.

Stallard was not fundamentally opposed to the NCU itself, but to the entrenched attitudes and beliefs it held - it didn't take long before he started to feel the same way about the BLRC, and he was briefly banned after criticising it. In time, the NCU and BLRC merged to form the British Cycling Federation, which Stallard saw as treason - when one of his employees, Ralph Jones (who had finished in sixth at the Llangollen-Wolverhampton race) went to Spain as part of the group visiting a UCI meeting that led to the BCF becoming recognised as Britain's cycling governing body, he sacked him the day he got back.


Mauro Ribeiro, born in Curitiba, Brazil on this day in 1964, won Stage 9 at the Tour de France in 1991. He was the first Brazilian stage winner in Tour history.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jocelyn Lovell (Canada, 1950); Gorgi Popstefanov (Yugoslavia - now Macedonia, 1987); Edvandro Cruz (Brazil, 1978); Alois Kaňkovský (Czechoslovakia, 1983); Cipriano Chemello (Italy, 1945); Carlos Zárate Fernández (Spain, 1980); Frank Meissner (USA, 1894, died 1966); Vincent Gomgadja (Central African Republic, 1960); Francisca Campos (Chile, 1985); Liudmyla Vypyrailo (Ukraine, 1979); Laurence Burnside (Bahamas, 1946); Victor Hopkins (USA, 1904, died 1969); Rudi Ceyssens (Belgium, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 16.05.2014

The 25th edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1961, running from Liège to Charleroi for a second consecutive year. However, the parcours had been altered and as such was 15km shorter at 193km - the shortest in the 76-year history of the event. The winner was Willy Vannitsen who won more than 110 races during his 13 professional years, including Stage 1 at the 1958 Giro d'Italia and Stages 10 and 15 at the 1962 Tour de France, yet is virtually forgotten outside his native Belgium.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest and - according to some - greatest Classic of them all took place on this day in 1909. Eugène Charlier was the first over the line, but when officials discovered he hadn't finished the race on the same bike he started with his victory was disallowed - rather than being disqualified, as some sources claim, his time was recorded as being the same as that of Victor Fastre (and the next seven men, this being the first time that the race had ended with a bunch sprint) and he was relegated to second place. In third place was Paul Deman, winner four years later of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and then Paris-Roubaix in 1920 and Paris-Tours in 1923.

Alfredo Binda

The Giro d'Italia began on this day seven times - 1925, 1936, 1959, 1969, 1974, 1985 and 1998. The 1925 edition started and ended in Milan, with twelve stages covering a total of 3,520km. It is remembered - by those few people fortunate to have seen it and still be with us - as one of the most exciting ever due to an epic battle between Costante Girardengo, who fought long and hard through the mountains and won five stages, and Alfredo Binda who matched every attack he made to take the race lead from him and keep it for the final eight stages to win by 4'58".

1936 covered 3,745km in 19 stages, though Stages 15 and 17 were split - 15a was a short road stage, 15b an individual time trial, 17a and 17b were short road stages. Gino Bartali, who had won the Mountains classification the previous year, returned and performed even better to win the Mountains and his first General Classification, leading the race through the final twelve stages and winning two of them. Olimpio Bizzi won Stage 6 at the age of 18 years and 299 days, making him the youngest Giro stage winner ever.

Charly Gaul

1959 was made up if 22 stages and 3,657km - another epic year in which Luxembourg's Charly Gaul once again proved himself unbeatable in the mountains (or, as many will point out, proved himself capable of consuming larger quantities of la bomba), driving hard over the snowy peaks and continuing to push himself when others had exhausted themselves. Gaul was almost as good in a time trial as he was in the climbs, but he wasn't quite as good as Jacques Anquetil who took a 1'30" lead after Stage 2, then proceeded to slowly grind down his opponent's advantage until the race leadership passed to him in Stage 15. Going into Stage 20, the Frenchman still had the lead and many believed the race was as good as his. Then, in Stage 21, Gaul crushed him. Pushing so hard over three challenging mountain that nobody could get near him, he won by 9'48" and took back the leadership. Rolf Graf won the final stage, but Ancquetil may as well have not bothered - bettering what Gaul had done was far beyond even his capabilities.

1969 covered 3,851.3km in 22 stages and would be one of the most controversial editions ever due to a sample provided during Stage 16 by Eddy Merckx, found to be positive for N-ethyl-3-phenyl-norbornan-2-amine, a stimulant prescribed under the name Reactivan and still used, though rarely, in medicine today. For reasons that remain unknown, news of the sample and the rider's expulsion from the race was supplied to the press before he and his team management were notified and when he revealed that he had been offered money to throw the race by an un-named Italian rider the day before, suspicions that something nefarious was going on began to pick up speed. Prince Albert of Belgium sent his own aeroplane to bring him home and the government got involved, demanding an investigation from the Italian Foreign Minister. The Italian Federation continued to insist it had acted correctly and, while Merckx was subsequently given the go ahead to ride in that year's Tour de France, which he won, the official reason for his Giro expulsion has never been retracted. Many believe that the Belgian rider would have won but, with him out of the way, Felice Gimondi dominated the remainder of the race and took the overall General Classification. 43 years later, Merckx still says that the stage was such an easy one that he had no reason to resort to cheating, as does appear to be the case when we take his abilities into account, and to this day he insists he is innocent. So does the official who was in charge of the positive sample.

From left to right: Hinault, Maertens, Merckx and de Vlaeminck
(unknown copyright)

In 1974, Merckx won for the fifth time after 22 stages and 4,001km. While he led from Stage 14 to the end, it was noticeable at several points during the race, especially when Jose-Manuel Fuente and Gianbattista Baronchelli got into a duel in Stage 20 and raised the pace so high that Merckx nearly exhausted himself in his attempts to keep the leadership (in fact, Baronchelli was "leader on the road" for a while during the stage), that his reign was beginning to crumble. He would win the Tour as well that year, becoming for the fourth time one of the few riders to have won two Grand Tours in a season.

1985 came during the reign of the man commonly considered the second greatest cyclist after Merckx, Bernard Hinault who won for a third time. Taking third place after the 22 stages and 3,998km was Greg Lemond, who would slay the Badger the following year when he became the first American to win the Tour de France. When Hinault won the Tour later in the year, he won two Grand Tours in a season for the third time. Strangely, when the Giro next started on this date in 1998, winner Marco Pantani took the first step in adding his name to the list too because he also won the Tour that year. 1998 covered 3,868km in 22 stages.

Simon Gerrans
Simon Gerrans, born in Melbourne on this day in 1980, took up cycling after injuring his knee during childhood; the sport having been recommended to him by his neighbour, who was a reasonably successful rider himself - Phil Anderson, the first non-European to wear the maillot jaune at the Tour de France. It soon turned out that he wasn't bad at it either and he was awarded a scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport, where he began to develop into a world-class road racer.

Simon Gerrans
(image credit: GreenEDGE)

Gerrans' first major success was the Under-23 title at the National Championships of 2002, where he also took 5th in the Elite race. The big European teams were not slow in taking note and in 2003 he was invited to join Carvalhelhos-Boavista as a trainee after spending a short while with the Norwegian team Ringerike, then a year later AG2R Prévoyance with whom he turned professional in 2005 and entered the Tour de France for the first time, surprising many by coming third in Stage 17 and leaving no doubt that he was a new talent - one that could very easily have been ended in February the next year with a crash at the GP d'Ouverture la Marseillaise which left him with pins in his collarbone and shoulder as well as several stitches to repair flesh wounds to his head. He recovered quickly and rode his second Tour that year, improving his General Classification result from 126th to 79th, then dropped to 94th in 2007.

In 2008, having moved on to Crédit Agricole, he won Stage 15 after sprinting to the finish without challenge from the other surviving two riders of a four-man break that had escaped early in the stage and managed to stay out in front. The next year he joined the legendary Cervelo Test Team, but managers mystified fans by failing to pick him for the Tour squad. However, he did go to the Giro d'Italia, where he won Stage 14 (Cervelo's first Grand Tour stage win), and the Vuelta a Espana where he won Stage 10; thus becoming the first Australian rider to have won a stage at all three Grand Tours. 2010 saw him depart for the new British team Sky, with whom he went back to the Tour. Another crash ended his chances in Stage 8 and left him with a broken arm. He stayed with Sky through 2011 and began to show promise as a Classics rider, taking third at the Amstel Gold, second at the Waalse Pijl and 12th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, then third for Stage 2 at the Tour.

In 2011, it was announced that a new team, GreenEDGE, was being put together and stood a very good chance of being the first Australian team to receive a ProTour licence from the UCI. Gerrans was invited join and did so - which, in 2012, looked to have been a very wise decision. With them, he became National Champion for the first time, won a second Tour Down Under and then added the highlight of his career so far - victory at the legendary Milan-San Remo Monument when he beat Fabian Cancellara. The following year, Gerrans won stages at the Tour Down Under, Volta a Catalunya and Tour of the Basque Country before going to the Tour de France, where he achieved another career highlight by winning Stage 3 and then the Stage 4 team time trial. In 2014, he became National Road Race Champion and won Stage 1 and the overall General Classification and Points competition at the Tour Down Under, then enjoyed more Classic s success with a victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Matthias Kessler

The German rider Matthias Kessler, born in Nuremburg on this day in 1979, was little known outside his own nation until 2000 when he turned professional with Deutsche Telekom. In 2001 he finished in the top 5 for two stages at the Giro d'Italia but remained little known - until he was widely proclaimed an outside favourite for the Classics in 2003 on the strength of 6th place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2002 and soon caught the public's attention for his habit of unzipping his jersey and deliberately ripping his undershirt to keep cool. He finished the Amstel Gold Race in 5th place in 2003, then La Flèche Wallonne in 3rd a year later.

Unfortunately, what could have been a great career was marred by bad luck and doping. In the 2004 Tour de France he was left in agony after a bad crash and, while he finished the stage, didn't start the next day. In 2007, he provided a sample that was shown to contain unusually high levels of testosterone; leading to his dismissal from Astana a short while later. Things began to fall apart from that point on and he experienced difficulty in finding a new contract once his two-year ban came to an end. In 2010, while on a training ride in Algaida, Mallorca, he accidentally collided with a cat. The resulting crash left him with serious head injuries., ending his career.

Other cyclists born on this day: Roger de Beukelaer (Belgium, 1951); Roberts Plūme (Latvia, 1897, died 1956); Im Sang-Jo (South Korea, 1930); Pål Henning Hansen (Norway, 1953); Juan Reyes (Cuba, 1944); Wilhelm Rabe (Germany, 1876); Antonio Hernández (Mexico, 1951); Lennie Kristensen (Denmark, 1968); Gustavo Guglielmone (Argentina, 1971).

Daily Cycling Facts 19.07.2013

Karel Thijs

During the Second World War, La Flèche Wallonne was held on a later date each year than has traditionally been the case. This date, the anniversary of the sixth edition in 1942, is the latest in the race's history. It was 208km long - shorter than before and after the War, but comparable to modern editions - and ran between Mons and Marcinelle. It was the last major victory for Karel Thijs, whose professional career came to an end shortly afterwards.

Percy Stallard
Born above his father's Wolverhampton bike shop on this day in 1909, Percy Thornley Stallard became the man responsible to the reintroduction of mass-start cycling road races in Great Britain.

The ban on road races had come about as the result of an incident in 1890 when a group of cyclists spooked a horse, resulting in an overturned carriage and a complaint to the police; this convinced the National Cyclists' Union that any further complaint would be likely to result in all bikes being banned from the nation's roads and they introduced a rule stating that mass-start races could only be held at velodromes or on sites such as airfields. Individual time trials, in which each cyclist rides alone against the clock, were not banned as the general public are unlikely to realise that a race is even in progress when they see one cyclist and it was easy to hold them in secret; this is the reason that time trials remain more popular in Britain than elsewhere even today and why many cycling clubs like to refer to time trial routes using codes rather than place names - it's also the reason that, until comparatively recently, British cyclists tended to do so badly when they went abroad to compete in road races.

Percy Stallard

In 1936, the Isle of Man held a cycling race on the world famous Tourist Trophy circuit (the Isle has its own government and issues its own passports - NCU laws didn't apply there) and it proved to be a huge success despite the high number of crashes among British cyclists unused to racing in a peloton, rapidly developing into the prestigious Manx International. Stallard took part in the race and finished in 16th place; inspired by it he decided to investigate the possibility of launching a similar event on the British mainland and saw his chance in 1941 when the Second World War caused petrol shortages and traffic levels dropped accordingly, so he wrote to the NCU with his suggestions.

NCU official A.P. Chamberlin was not favourable, writing back to explain the reasons behind the ban and stating that the organisation wouldn't even consider changing its policy. However, now that airfields were being used by the Army and Royal Air Force races were few and far between, so Stallard put the word around that there would be an unofficial meeting at the bottom of Shropshire's Long Mynd, a range of hills that has long been popular among cyclists. It was there that he revealed his plan to hold a 95km on the 7th of July that year from Llangollen in North Wales to Wolverhampton, without the support of the NCU but with the backing of the police - he'd spoken to them to get an idea of how they might react and, rather than threatening a ban, they'd been extremely favourable and offered their help.

The NCU, meanwhile, were furious and set about doing all they could to prevent the race from going ahead, but Stallard would not back down and the race went ahead. A thousand people turned out to see the riders cross the finish line and the event a success by the organisers and the police. Now, the NCU's anger passed beying fury -  Stallard and fifteen others involved in organising the race were handed a sine die ban: one without a specific date upon which it would end but which could be lifted at any time if the subject either successfully appealed or, as the organisation presumably hoped would be the case in this instance, apologised and did as he or she was told. Yet still Stallard would not back down, especially now that he had proved mass-start races could be held on British roads, so in November he helped launch the British League of Racing Cyclists - an organisation of like-minded riders that act as an umbrella body co-ordinating a number of pre-existing groups and would go head-to-head with the cycling establishment.

Encouraged by their success, the BLRC went on to organise Britain's first multi-stage road race which began in 1944 (Stallard won Stage 1, Les Plume won overall); this led in turn to the five-stage Victory Race between Brighton and Glasgow in 1945, organised to celebrate the end of the war - Robert Batot, a Frenchman, won (the race was not recognised by the UCI; Batot and the other five French riders to finish in the top ten came from the BLRC's French counterpart rebel organisation the Fédération Sportive et Gymnastique du Travail - an association of Communist riders - with whom organisers were put in touch by the French owners of a cafe in London's Soho). In 1946, the Victory (now known as Brighton-Glasgow) was held again, then in 1947 it received financial backing from the News of the World newspaper. Their sponsorship ended after that one event but the race took place again in 1948 and 1949, largely paid for by the organisers as had been the case with the first two editions; then in 1950 it was sponsored by the Sporting Record and in 1951 by the Daily Express (which used to be a great newspaper, rather than the rag it is today) - this edition was the first to be named the Tour of Britain (it was joined by an amateur race sponsored the Butlins firm, known as the Butlin Tour, with each stage running between Butlin's holiday camps). The Express remained on board for three years until the constant infighting between organisers and route officials saw them pull out and begin sponsoring motor racing instead, at which point Quaker Oats took over and continued sponsorship for four years. In 1958, by which time the race had become hugely successful, the Milk Marketing Board became sponsor: it was renamed the Milk Race. The final Milk Race was held in 1993, but would be reborn as the PruTour (sponsored by Prudential Insurance) in 1998 and 1999, then vanished once again. In 2004, British Cycling - whom Stallard had despised so much - teamed up with sports and events marketing firm SweetSpot to bring the race back to life. Once again known as the Tour of Britain, it grew to become the largest cycling event in the country and has become an important part of the UCI's EuropeTour racing series.

Stallard was not fundamentally opposed to the NCU itself, but to the entrenched attitudes and beliefs it held - it didn't take long before he started to feel the same way about the BLRC, and he was briefly banned after criticising it. In time, the NCU and BLRC merged to form the British Cycling Federation, which Stallard saw as treason - when one of his employees, Ralph Jones (who had finished in sixth at the Llangollen-Wolverhampton race) went to Spain as part of the group visiting a UCI meeting that led to the BCF becoming recognised as Britain's cycling governing body, he sacked him the day he got back.


Mauro Ribeiro, born in Curitiba, Brazil on this day in 1964, won Stage 9 at the Tour de France in 1991. He was the first Brazilian stage winner in Tour history.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jocelyn Lovell (Canada, 1950); Gorgi Popstefanov (Yugoslavia - now Macedonia, 1987); Edvandro Cruz (Brazil, 1978); Alois Kaňkovský (Czechoslovakia, 1983); Cipriano Chemello (Italy, 1945); Carlos Zárate Fernández (Spain, 1980); Frank Meissner (USA, 1894, died 1966); Vincent Gomgadja (Central African Republic, 1960); Francisca Campos (Chile, 1985); Liudmyla Vypyrailo (Ukraine, 1979); Laurence Burnside (Bahamas, 1946); Victor Hopkins (USA, 1904, died 1969); Rudi Ceyssens (Belgium, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 09.06.2013

The tenth edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1946. Having been run on shorter parcours during the Second World War, it was increased to 253km between Mons and Liège and was won by Désiré Keteleer who had twenty seasons as a professional rider between 1942 and 1961.

Luis Ocaña

Luis Ocaña (image c/o Granny Gear Blog)

Jesús Luis Ocaña Pernía was born in Priego, Spain, on this day in 1945, but moved to Mont-de-Marsan in France with his family when he was twelve and joined the local club. He showed some promise, but not enough to suggest he'd ever be anything more than a talented amateur and it took him until 1968 to get his first professional contract with the Spanish team Fagor. That very year, he won his first National Championship and even got a couple of good results in his first Grand Tours, finishing second on Stage 8 at the Vuelta a Espana and second again on Stage 19 at the Giro d'Italia. The year after that he won the Grand Prix du Midi Libre, the Vuelta a La Rioja, the Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme and three stages, the King of the Mountains and second place overall at the Vuelta a Espana; now, those French teams he'd been trying to join when he was an amateur couldn't get to his door quickly enough - he chose Bic, where he rode alongside Jan Janssen (who, in 1968, had been the first Dutch rider to win the Tour de France), Michael Wright (the Bishop's Stortford-born cyclist who was raised in Belgium and spoke such bad English that few people realised he was English) and Johny Schleck (father to Frank and Andy).

Ocaña entered his fifth Grand Tour with Bic, the 1970 Vuelta a Espana, and spent much of the race locking horns with Agustín Tamames of Werner. He won the prologue, then set about making sure the yellow jersey (nowadays, the leader of the Vuelta wears a red jersey - but that's only been the case since 2010. From 1998, it was gold; from 1955-1997 it was yellow and it had varied between white, orange and white with a red stripe before that) remained his. In Stage 13, Tamames took it; those who had followed their careers knew that Ocaña was likely to have little difficulty in getting it back when the race reached Bilbao for the the final stage, a time trial, and they were right - Ocaña screamed around the parcours and beat Tamames by 1'28". The race - the only Vuelta he won - was his, and the Spanish press called him "the best time-trialist that Spanish cycling has ever had, and the best cyclist of the moment." They, meanwhile, were wrong; because a rider from the other end of Europe, one who had already won two Grand Tours and was about to win another, and stood on the very cusp of revealing himself to be the most phenomenally talented rider cycling has ever known.

Had the pinnacle of his career come just a few years earlier or later, and had he have had just a little more luck, Ocaña would almost certainly have earned himself a place among the greatest ever Tour champions with three and possibly more victories. As it happened, he faced an insurmountable hurdle - Eddy Merckx. Merckx had sufficient respect for Ocaña for the two to become rivals (very few riders were that good, most were just people that Merckx saw briefly at the start of a race) and on a good day, the Spaniard was even capable of gaining the upper hand; but Merckx was simply in a different category to anything the cycling world had ever seen before. At the 1970 Tour, Ocaña performed exceptionally well and won a superb Stage 17 victory on the 1,464m Puy de Dôme, the Massif Central volcano that hosted some of the most dramatic moments in Tour history and is still missed since the roads were declared too narrow for future use after 1988; but Merckx, who was so powerful that he could set his sights on stage wins and General Classifications, won eight stages and overall.

Col de Menté, 1971 - the crash that could so
easily have killed Ocaña

Merckx won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1971, instantly making himself favourite for the Tour, but the Spanish remained hopeful that now he knew what he was up against Ocaña would find a way to respond. As he climbed towards the finish of Stage 8, once again on the Puy de Dôme, it looked as though he had and when he crossed the line he'd gained 15"; and then he added to it as the Tour headed through the mountains of the next three stages. By the end of Stage 11, which he won, he had the yellow jersey and an eight minute advantage over the Belgian (Merckx had been too slow off the mark when his rival attacked with Gosta Pettersen, Joaquim Agostinho and Zoetemelk - he begged the peloton to help him chase them down, but they were rather enjoying seeing the Cannibal in difficulty for once and refused). Merckx wasted no time at all in getting to work clawing it back, but in the end Fate stepped in. As they descended the Col de Menté in Stage 14, Merckx - who feared nothing - launched a savage attack, plummeting down the mountain at a rate that turned out to be too fast even for him: his tyres lost their grip and he slewed straight into a wall. Ocaña slammed on his brakes but, having been trying to stay as close as possible, was not able to stop in time and collided with him. Merckx was fine; back on his feet in seconds he was soon speeding away down the mountain. Ocaña had difficulty releasing himself from his toe clips but was also on his feet moments later, but had to wait while his wheel was replaced. As a result, he was right in the path of Joop Zoetemelk when he too lost control and smashed into him at full speed, followed by Agostinho and another rider. His Tour ended there as he was rushed by helicopter to hospital and Merckx became race leader - though he refused to wear the yellow jersey as a sign of respect the next day.

The next year Ocaña won the Dauphiné (and a second National Championship), but once Merckx announced that he would ride (he originally said he wouldn't, because he'd already won three times and he wanted to concentrate on winning a third Giro and a first Vuelta, but then changed his mind and dropped the Vuelta after hearing claims that he wouldn't have won in 1971 had it not have been for Ocaña's misfortune) it was the Belgian who was favourite. Ocaña attacked again and again, then abandoned with bronchitis in the Pyrenees. In 1973, Merckx stuck to his plans and stayed away from the Tour, but since Ocaña had only finished one of the four Tours he'd previously entered Raymond Poulidor, José Manuel Fuente and Zoetemelk were the favourites (not least of all because Merckx said they were). The race didn't get off to a promising start: he crashed in the prologue when a dog ran out of the crowd and into the peloton, but during Stage 3 when the Tour made one of its periodic visits to Roubaix to pay homage to the Hell of the North he gathered four of his Bic team mates, recruited six other riders from other teams and set off in a break that, for a while, had an advantage of five minutes. By the end of the stage the peloton had reduced it to around two and a half, but what really mattered was that Fuente was a full seven minutes down. Poulidor and Zoetemalk were closer, but all the same - one down, two to go.

Ocaña was always a good climber and had proved that the mountains were the one place where he surpassed Merckx, so it was there that he began his campaign, starting with Stage 5 but concentrating on gaining time rather than winning the stage; Walter Godefroot took the top step on the podium that day. He did the same on Stage 6, where Jean-Pierre Danguillaume won. Stage 7 was split into two sections, the first 86.5km and the second 150.5km. Ocaña won the first and took the yellow jersey, but then Bernard Thévenet won the second and, all of a sudden, Ocaña had three rivals for the General Classification again; but on Stage 8 he attacked on the Col du Télégraphe, led the race over the Galibier and won the stage, finishing up with an advantage of nine minutes over Fuente, ten over Thévenet and a crushing 23 over Zoetemelk. As far as many people are concerned, he'd already won by this point. However, cycling is a strange, unpredictable and dangerous sport, something that Ocaña understood very well after the 1972 crash and he knew he couldn't rest on his laurels - especially as Fuente was promising to get his revenge in the Pyrenees, which are a very different range of mountains to the Alps. On his side was the fact that there were still three individual time trials to go, two of which he won. Another two mountain stage victories, one of them on his old friend the Puy de Dôme, sealed the deal and his Tour was won. It's a great shame, and indication of how cruel cycling can be, that he was never allowed to forget that he'd done it in the year that Merckx stayed away. Sadly, it's also true that he probably wouldn't have won had it have been otherwise. He didn't ride the Tour in 1974 due to an injury, then returned in 1975 but abandoned in Stage 13. In 1976 he was 14th, then the following year 25th. Realising that he was fading, he retired.

The memorial (image c/o Lost Boys 2010)

Sadly, retirement was not kind to Ocaña. He owned a vineyard but it didn't do well and he was soon in grave financial difficulties, despite help from what for many people was an unexpected source - Eddy Merckx who, despite his Cannibal image, could show deep concern for a fellow rider and used his contacts to persuade a Belgian importer to purchase a considerable portion of estate's output. Things would get worse: he was involved in two serious car accidents, losing so much blood in one of them that he needed a blood transfusion which went wrong, leaving him very ill. Then he began to develop clinical depression, which proved to be too much stress for his wife Josiane and she left him; and as if he hadn't been through enough already he was diagnosed first with hepatitis C, then with cancer. On the 19th of May 1994, when he was 48 years old, he used a gun to commit suicide. A memorial stone stands on the Col de Menté, right where he crashed in 1971, and cyclists from all around the world go there to pay their respects to one of the most tragic characters the sport has ever known.

Josephine Tomic
Born in Perth on this day in 1989, Josie Tomic is one of Australian cycling's great natural talents - having taken up road racing at the age of 14, she was riding for her country at the Oceania Championships only a year later. That same year, she became National Under-17 Pursuit Champion, won the New Zealand Oceania Tour and took bronze medals in the National U-17 Road Race and Time Trial finals.

Josie Tomic

In 2005, Tomic became National U-17 Champion in Individual Pursuit, 500 m TT, Team Sprint, Duo Time Trial  and road Time Trial, took a silver medal in the National Criterium Championships and another bronze in the National Road Race. In 2006 and 2007, she won four Junior and U-19 National titles (setting a new Junior Individual Pursuit world record in the process) and in 2008 she became National Individual Pursuit Champion. 2009 brought her three gold medals at the Nationals,  two more at the Oceania Championships and the Omnium World Champion title; then in 2010 she was selected for the teams that won gold at the Track World Cup in Melbourne Round, the Oceania Track Championships, the Australian Track Championships and Track World Championships, also winning the U-19 Individual Pursuit and Points race at the Nationals. The 2011 Nationals saw her win three more gold medals; excellent results in 2012 including a bronze medal for the the Pursuit and gold for the Team Pursuit at the Nationals and a silver for the Team Pursuit at the Worlds in 2012 earned her the leadership role in Australian Women's Team Pursuit squad at the London Olympics and made her very much one of the riders to watch - the team was fourth behind Canada (bronze), the USA (silver) and Great Britain (gold).

Alex Rasmussen

Rasmussen has also ridden for SaxoBank

Alex Nicki Rasmussen, who is not related to Michael Rasmussen but is the son of Danish amateur track champion Claus Rasmussen, was born in Svendborg, Denmark on this day in 1987. He followed his father into track cycling but achieved much more, winning numerous professional victories on the track including six consecutive National Madison Championships, and enjoyed success on the road including the 2007 National Championship.

On the 15th of September 2011, news broke that Rasmussen had failed to supply anti-doping officials with correct details of his whereabouts; as a result missing a test. His road race team, HTC-Highroad, was then informed that he had missed two others during the preceding eighteen months which, under WADA rules, is punishable by a two-year suspension. The team (which for many years had been famous for its anti-doping policies, which went beyond what was legally required) suspended him immediately, then he was deselected from the Danish World Championships and warned that he was likely to face legal prosecution. Highroad was at the time going through financial problems (ironically because sponsors had pulled out due to not wishing to be associated with what they saw as a "druggy sport" and which would ultimately cause the team to close at the end of the year), which had led manager Bob Stapleton to inform his riders that they might want to look for new teams during transfer season - Rasmussen had done so and been offered a contract with Garmin-Cervelo. That contract was torn up.

However, the Union Cyclist International failed to notify the rider that he'd missed a test until ten weeks after the incident; by their own rules and those of WADA, they must do so within fourteen days. As a result, Rasmussen was cleared and Garmin, who became Garmin-Barracuda for the 2012 season, once again signed him up - but then the UCI successfully appealed to the Court for Arbitration in Sport and, in April that year, Rasmussen was banned for 18 months and was sacked from the team. The ban was backdated, meaning that he became free to seek a new contract in April 2013; in late March it was announced that his old team, now renamed Garmin-Sharp, had made him an offer and that he would be returning to them. On the 22nd of May he achieved his first post-suspension victory when he won Stage 1 at the Bayern Rundfahrt.

Anthony Geslin

Geslin at the 2008 Vuelta a Espana

Anthony Geslin, born in Alençon (also the hometown of the legendary mountain biker and cyclo cross rider Laurence Leboucher) on this day in 1980. He was taken on by Bonjour for a two-year period as a trainee in 2000 and immediately began to get himself onto podiums, including a second place finish for Stage 5 at the Tour de l'Avenir in 2001 which got him a professional contract with the same squad in 2002, when he was second in Stage 4 at l'Avenir. In 2003, Bonjour became Brioches La Boulangère and Geslin won the Criterium des Espoirs, then rode with them in his first Tour de France where his results were not stellar, but promising: he finished in the top 25 three times, but more importantly he survived through all 3,427.5km the race. The following year he won just one race, the Route Adélie de Vitré; but in 2005 it became clear that the reason for that was he'd found his speciality and had spent the year transforming himself into a sprinter - returning to the Tour, he was eighth on Stage 3 and sixth on Stages 13 and 16.

Many of the true greats from cycling history are notable in that they excel in two or more areas, for an example an ability to both climb and descend, sprint and time trial, win on the flat stages and in the hills; this being why ultra-specialised riders such as Mark Cavenish will never win a Tour and why some riders win Tours - like Charly Gaul, who descended as well as he climbed and also had an ability (natural, though undoubtedly helped by vast amounts of amphetamines) to withstand pain and suffering far in excess of most human beings - but are greater than others who have won Tours  and why a tiny minority of riders who are so phenomenally good at everything, a category into which at present perhaps only Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Marianne Vos can be placed, are the greatest of them all. Geslin had a near unique bonus power to his skills in the sprint, and that was that he could also climb: as he proved by winning the Trophée des Grimpeurs in 2007 and the tough Brabantse Pijl with its repeated slogs up high-gradient hills in 2009. For that reason, it seems strange that Geslin did not achieve a great deal more.


An Van Rie, who was born in Menen on this day in 1974, was Belgian Time Trial Champion in 2006, 2007 and 2008. She also rode well in criterium races with numerous victories over the same time period, during which she rode first with Lotto-Belisol, then AA Drink-Leontien.nl and finally Vrienden van het Platteland.

Sinead Emily Miller was born in South Park, Pennsylvania on this day in 1990, began racing BMX when she was five years old and rose to the top levels of the sport during pre-teen childhood, earning a place on a series of professional teams. Aged 10, she took up road cycling and soon discovered that she enjoyed it, then soon afterwards that she was very good at it, so she entered some races, winning the National Junior Criterium Championship in 2004. It would be the first of many; as a result she was selected to ride for the US team at the Junior Championships in 2006 and 2007. Currently, Miller is studying at Marian University in Indianapolis, where she rides for the cycling team and has attained several good results so far in 2012.

Other cyclists born on this day: Petr Bucháček (Czechoslovakia, 1948); Ilya Chernyshov (USSR, 1985); Gonzalo García (Argentina, 1976); Paul Espeit (France, 1878, died 1960); János Juszkó (Hungary, 1939); Skip Cutting (USA, 1946).

Daily Cycling Facts 05.06.2013

The eleventh edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1947, the last time that the race was ever held in June and the longest since the Second World War at 276km - modern editions are around 200km. It began for the eighth consecutive year at Mons and ended for the second consecutive year at Liège. The winner was Ernest Sterckx, who would also become the first - and, so far, only - rider to win three editions of the Omloop Het Volk.

Pottier

René Pottier
René Pottier, who was born in Moret-sur-Loing, Seine-et-Marne on this day in 1879, was by all accounts the finest climber of his day. He was the fastest man up the 1,171m Ballon d'Alsace when he entered the Tour in 1905, beating Hippolyte Aucouturier, Louis Trousellier and Henri Cornet to the summit - the first time that a mountain had featured in the race. Despite his climbing ability, he lost his lead to Hippolyte Aucouturier after a puncture in his only remaining spare tyre caused by fans who had spread 125kg nails on the road - but fortunately for him, Aucouturier was a gentleman and generously handed over one of his own, even though the puncture would have put his closest rival out of the race. The next day, Pottier abandoned after a crash.

Pottier, nearest the camera

He entered for a second time in 1906, won five stages from the total thirteen and was once again the first man up Ballon d'Alsace - but this year luck was on his side and he finished the stage a full 48 minutes ahead of the next rider. He remained race leader throughout the remainder of the event.

With the Tour won, he competed in the Bol d'Or 24 hour race at the famous Buffalo Stadium (so named because the first velodrome on the site had once hosted Buffalo Bill Cody's traveling Wild West Show) and completed 925.29km to win. However, life was to take an awful plunge for Pottier - some time early in the next year, he learned that while he'd been away winning the Tour his wife had been unfaithful to him. He entered a deep depression and, on the 25th of January in 1907, he hanged himself from the hook upon which he usually hung his bike at their home in Lavallois-Perret. He was 27.

There is a memorial to Pottier, erected by Henri Desgrange, at the top of the Ballon d'Alsace.

Jesper Worre
Jesper Worre, born in Frederiksberg on this day in 1959, became Junior Road Race Champion of Denmark in 1977 and in 1984 he was the winner of Stage 1 at Tirreno-Adriatico. He went on to win the Post Danmark Rundt in 1986, when he was also third on Stage 18 of the Giro d'Italia, and he won both the Postgirot Open and the Tour of the Americas in 1988. That earned him a place at the Tour de France in 1989, but he was never rider with any hope of doing well at that level and came 88th overall. In 1990 he was the surprise winner of Stage 6 at the Vuelta a Espana, then Stage 11 at the Vuelta a Argentina one year later. The Argentine victory was to be his last, however - his powers were fading and he turned to doping in an attempt to squeeze out another couple of years, but he was caught and given a conditional ban as he made a full confession without prompting.

Today, Worre is the president of the Danmarks Cykle Union and is known for the zero-tolerance line he takes against doping.

Kenny de Ketele

Kenny de Ketele, born in Oudenaarde on this day in 1985, got his first taste of cycling glory in 2003 when he won the Under-19 Championships for both the Pursuit and the Points race. A year later, he was National 1km and Pursuit Champion as well as European Madison Champion (shared with partner Iljo Keisse), which he then lost in 2005 but won back in 2006. Just in case anyone hadn't noticed his arrival on the European track racing scene, in 2007 he was  U23 European Points race Champion and Belgian Points, Derny, Team Pursuit, Madison, Kilometre and Omnium Champion. De Ketele has not been so successful since, but in 2012 he took his first World Champion title, for Madison and shared with partner Gijs Van Hoecke.

Australian Ronald Baensch, born in Melbourne on this day in 1939, was a track cyclist who specialised in sprint events and represented his country at the 1960 Olympics, where he finished fourth. He had better luck in the World Championships, winning a bronze medal as an amateur in 1961; then after he turned professional a silver in 1964, a bronze in 1965 and another silver in 1966. The following year, he was disqualified and fined 2,000 guilder after testing positive for ephedrine. Baensch remained in Europe for a while after retiring from competition and, having never made much of a living from cycling, found work as a truck driver. He returned to Australia in 1974 and worked on oil rigs, but still found the time to enter a few amateur races right up until he decided to give up racing altogether in 1980. He won his final race.

Frederick Henry "Harry" Wyld was born in Mansfield on this day in 1900. In 1924 he was selected to ride for Britain at the Olympics, where he won a bronze medal; he rode again in 1928 in the Team Pursuit, this time with his two brothers Percy and Lewis (who preferred to be known by his middle name, Arthur) and George Southall, brother of Frank Southall who also rode in the Individual Road Race (where he won a silver) and in the Team Road Race where he teamed up with Jack Lauterwasser (see yesterday's Daily Facts for more on the remarkable life of that very remarkable character) and won another silver - though only after the Italian team had been disqualified. They set a new Team Pursuit World Record that year, beating the previous one by 9.2 seconds, but another team shaved another second off that the following day. Ralph, an older brother, set up a bike shop at 61 Nottingham Road in Mansfield in 1928 and all the brothers worked there, as they would continue to do after it moved up the road to 95 five years later. Harry Wyld died on the 5th of April, 1976; the shop outlived him by almost 20 years and shut down in 1995. The building is still there and is now occupied by a carpet shop.

It was on this day in 2008 that Shane Perkins, a successful professional track rider, was found guilty of "misconduct to the detriment of Cycling Australia and the good reputation of the sport of cycling" after he'd been involved in a drunken fight outside a pub in Adelaide just over a year earlier. Three days later, the Australian Federation banned him from competition for three months, fined him Aus$1,000 and barred him from the Victorian Institute of Sport for a period of six months, later reduced to four.

Other births: Fabio Taborre (Italy, 1984); Tang Kam Man (Hong Kong, 1955); Theo Polhaupessy (Indonesia, 1933); Alberny Vargas (Colombia, 1969); Martin McKay (Ireland, 1937); Francesco Malatesta (Italy, 1907); Dušan Popeskov (Yugolavia, 1969).

Daily Cycling Facts 16.05.2013

The 25th edition of La Flèche Wallonne took place on this day in 1961, running from Liège to Charleroi for a second consecutive year. However, the parcours had been altered and as such was 15km shorter at 193km - the shortest in the 76-year history of the event. The winner was Willy Vannitsen who won more than 110 races during his 13 professional years, including Stage 1 at the 1958 Giro d'Italia and Stages 10 and 15 at the 1962 Tour de France, yet is virtually forgotten outside his native Belgium.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest and - according to some - greatest Classic of them all took place on this day in 1909. Eugène Charlier was the first over the line, but when officials discovered he hadn't finished the race on the same bike he started with his victory was disallowed - rather than being disqualified, as some sources claim, his time was recorded as being the same as that of Victor Fastre (and the next seven men, this being the first time that the race had ended with a bunch sprint) and he was relegated to second place. In third place was Paul Deman, winner four years later of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and then Paris-Roubaix in 1920 and Paris-Tours in 1923.

Alfredo Binda

The Giro d'Italia began on this day seven times - 1925, 1936, 1959, 1969, 1974, 1985 and 1998. The 1925 edition started and ended in Milan, with twelve stages covering a total of 3,520km. It is remembered - by those few people fortunate to have seen it and still be with us - as one of the most exciting ever due to an epic battle between Costante Girardengo, who fought long and hard through the mountains and won five stages, and Alfredo Binda who matched every attack he made to take the race lead from him and keep it for the final eight stages to win by 4'58".

1936 covered 3,745km in 19 stages, though Stages 15 and 17 were split - 15a was a short road stage, 15b an individual time trial, 17a and 17b were short road stages. Gino Bartali, who had won the Mountains classification the previous year, returned and performed even better to win the Mountains and his first General Classification, leading the race through the final twelve stages and winning two of them. Olimpio Bizzi won Stage 6 at the age of 18 years and 299 days, making him the youngest Giro stage winner ever.

Charly Gaul

1959 was made up if 22 stages and 3,657km - another epic year in which Luxembourg's Charly Gaul once again proved himself unbeatable in the mountains (or, as many will point out, proved himself capable of consuming larger quantities of la bomba), driving hard over the snowy peaks and continuing to push himself when others had exhausted themselves. Gaul was almost as good in a time trial as he was in the climbs, but he wasn't quite as good as Jacques Anquetil who took a 1'30" lead after Stage 2, then proceeded to slowly grind down his opponent's advantage until the race leadership passed to him in Stage 15. Going into Stage 20, the Frenchman still had the lead and many believed the race was as good as his. Then, in Stage 21, Gaul crushed him. Pushing so hard over three challenging mountain that nobody could get near him, he won by 9'48" and took back the leadership. Rolf Graf won the final stage, but Ancquetil may as well have not bothered - bettering what Gaul had done was far beyond even his capabilities.

1969 covered 3,851.3km in 22 stages and would be one of the most controversial editions ever due to a sample provided during Stage 16 by Eddy Merckx, found to be positive for N-ethyl-3-phenyl-norbornan-2-amine, a stimulant prescribed under the name Reactivan and still used, though rarely, in medicine today. For reasons that remain unknown, news of the sample and the rider's expulsion from the race was supplied to the press before he and his team management were notified and when he revealed that he had been offered money to throw the race by an un-named Italian rider the day before, suspicions that something nefarious was going on began to pick up speed. Prince Albert of Belgium sent his own aeroplane to bring him home and the government got involved, demanding an investigation from the Italian Foreign Minister. The Italian Federation continued to insist it had acted correctly and, while Merckx was subsequently given the go ahead to ride in that year's Tour de France, which he won, the official reason for his Giro expulsion has never been retracted. Many believe that the Belgian rider would have won but, with him out of the way, Felice Gimondi dominated the remainder of the race and took the overall General Classification. 43 years later, Merckx still says that the stage was such an easy one that he had no reason to resort to cheating, as does appear to be the case when we take his abilities into account, and to this day he insists he is innocent. So does the official who was in charge of the positive sample.

From left to right: Hinault, Maertens, Merckx and de Vlaeminck
(unknown copyright)

In 1974, Merckx won for the fifth time after 22 stages and 4,001km. While he led from Stage 14 to the end, it was noticeable at several points during the race, especially when Jose-Manuel Fuente and Gianbattista Baronchelli got into a duel in Stage 20 and raised the pace so high that Merckx nearly exhausted himself in his attempts to keep the leadership (in fact, Baronchelli was "leader on the road" for a while during the stage), that his reign was beginning to crumble. He would win the Tour as well that year, becoming for the fourth time one of the few riders to have won two Grand Tours in a season.

1985 came during the reign of the man commonly considered the second greatest cyclist after Merckx, Bernard Hinault who won for a third time. Taking third place after the 22 stages and 3,998km was Greg Lemond, who would slay the Badger the following year when he became the first American to win the Tour de France. When Hinault won the Tour later in the year, he won two Grand Tours in a season for the third time. Strangely, when the Giro next started on this date in 1998, winner Marco Pantani took the first step in adding his name to the list too because he also won the Tour that year. 1998 covered 3,868km in 22 stages.

Simon Gerrans
Simon Gerrans, born in Melbourne on this day in 1980, took up cycling after injuring his knee during childhood; the sport having been recommended to him by his neighbour, who was a reasonably successful rider himself - Phil Anderson, the first non-European to wear the maillot jaune at the Tour de France. It soon turned out that he wasn't bad at it either and he was awarded a scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport, where he began to develop into a world-class road racer.

Simon Gerrans
(image credit: GreenEDGE)

Gerrans' first major success was the Under-23 title at the National Championships of 2002, where he also took 5th in the Elite race. The big European teams were not slow in taking note and in 2003 he was invited to join Carvalhelhos-Boavista as a trainee after spending a short while with the Norwegian team Ringerike, then a year later AG2R Prévoyance with whom he turned professional in 2005 and entered the Tour de France for the first time, surprising many by coming third in Stage 17 and leaving no doubt that he was a new talent - one that could very easily have been ended in February the next year with a crash at the GP d'Ouverture la Marseillaise which left him with pins in his collarbone and shoulder as well as several stitches to repair flesh wounds to his head. He recovered quickly and rode his second Tour that year, improving his General Classification result from 126th to 79th, then dropped to 94th in 2007.

In 2008, having moved on to Crédit Agricole, he won Stage 15 after sprinting to the finish without challenge from the other surviving two riders of a four-man break that had escaped early in the stage and managed to stay out in front. The next year he joined the legendary Cervelo Test Team, but managers mystified fans by failing to pick him for the Tour squad. However, he did go to the Giro d'Italia, where he won Stage 14 (Cervelo's first Grand Tour stage win), and the Vuelta a Espana where he won Stage 10; thus becoming the first Australian rider to have won a stage at all three Grand Tours. 2010 saw him depart for the new British team Sky, with whom he went back to the Tour. Another crash ended his chances in Stage 8 and left him with a broken arm. He stayed with Sky through 2011 and began to show promise as a Classics rider, taking third at the Amstel Gold, second at the Waalse Pijl and 12th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, then third for Stage 2 at the Tour.

In 2011, it was announced that a new team, GreenEDGE, was being put together and stood a very good chance of being the first Australian team to receive a ProTour licence from the UCI. Gerrans was invited join and did so - which, in 2012, looked to have been a very wise decision. With them, he became National Champion for the first time, won a second Tour Down Under and then added the highlight of his career so far - victory at the legendary Milan-San Remo Monument when he beat Fabian Cancellara.

Matthias Kessler

The German rider Matthias Kessler, born in Nuremburg on this day in 1979, was little known outside his own nation until 2000 when he turned professional with Deutsche Telekom. In 2001 he finished in the top 5 for two stages at the Giro d'Italia but remained little known - until he was widely proclaimed an outside favourite for the Classics in 2003 on the strength of 6th place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2002 and soon caught the public's attention for his habit of unzipping his jersey and deliberately ripping his undershirt to keep cool. He finished the Amstel Gold Race in 5th place in 2003, then La Flèche Wallonne in 3rd a year later.

Unfortunately, what could have been a great career was marred by bad luck and doping. In the 2004 Tour de France he was left in agony after a bad crash and, while he finished the stage, didn't start the next day. In 2007, he provided a sample that was shown to contain unusually high levels of testosterone; leading to his dismissal from Astana a short while later. Things began to fall apart from that point on and he experienced difficulty in finding a new contract once his two-year ban came to an end. In 2010, while on a training ride in Algaida, Mallorca, he accidentally collided with a cat. The resulting crash left him with serious head injuries.

Other cyclists born on this day: Roger de Beukelaer (Belgium, 1951); Roberts Plūme (Latvia, 1897, died 1956); Im Sang-Jo (South Korea, 1930); Pål Henning Hansen (Norway, 1953); Juan Reyes (Cuba, 1944); Wilhelm Rabe (Germany, 1876); Antonio Hernández (Mexico, 1951); Lennie Kristensen (Denmark, 1968); Gustavo Guglielmone (Argentina, 1971).

Daily Cycling Facts 19.07.12

Karel Thijs

During the Second World War, La Flèche Wallonne was held on a later date each year than has traditionally been the case. This date, the anniversary of the sixth edition in 1942, is the latest in the race's history. It was 208km long - shorter than before and after the War, but comparable to modern editions - and ran between Mons and Marcinelle. It was the last major victory for Karel Thijs, whose professional career came to an end shortly afterwards.

Percy Stallard
Born above his father's Wolverhampton bike shop on this day in 1909, Percy Thornley Stallard became the man responsible to the reintroduction of mass-start cycling road races in Great Britain.

The ban on road races had come about as the result of an incident in 1890 when a group of cyclists spooked a horse, resulting in an overturned carriage and a complaint to the police; this convinced the National Cyclists' Union that any further complaint would be likely to result in all bikes being banned from the nation's roads and they introduced a rule stating that mass-start races could only be held at velodromes or on sites such as airfields. Individual time trials, in which each cyclist rides alone against the clock, were not banned as the general public are unlikely to realise that a race is even in progress when they see one cyclist and it was easy to hold them in secret; this is the reason that time trials remain more popular in Britain than elsewhere even today and why many cycling clubs like to refer to time trial routes using codes rather than place names - it's also the reason that, until comparatively recently, British cyclists tended to do so badly when they went abroad to compete in road races.

Percy Stallard

In 1936, the Isle of Man held a cycling race on the world famous Tourist Trophy circuit (the Isle has its own government and issues its own passports - NCU laws didn't apply there) and it proved to be a huge success despite the high number of crashes among British cyclists unused to racing in a peloton, rapidly developing into the prestigious Manx International. Stallard took part in the race and finished in 16th place; inspired by it he decided to investigate the possibility of launching a similar event on the British mainland and saw his chance in 1941 when the Second World War caused petrol shortages and traffic levels dropped accordingly, so he wrote to the NCU with his suggestions.

NCU official A.P. Chamberlin was not favourable, writing back to explain the reasons behind the ban and stating that the organisation wouldn't even consider changing its policy. However, now that airfields were being used by the Army and Royal Air Force races were few and far between, so Stallard put the word around that there would be an unofficial meeting at the bottom of Shropshire's Long Mynd, a range of hills that has long been popular among cyclists. It was there that he revealed his plan to hold a 95km on the 7th of July that year from Llangollen in North Wales to Wolverhampton, without the support of the NCU but with the backing of the police - he'd spoken to them to get an idea of how they might react and, rather than threatening a ban, they'd been extremely favourable and offered their help.

The NCU, meanwhile, were furious and set about doing all they could to prevent the race from going ahead, but Stallard would not back down and the race went ahead. A thousand people turned out to see the riders cross the finish line and the event a success by the organisers and the police. Now, the NCU's anger passed beying fury -  Stallard and fifteen others involved in organising the race were handed a sine die ban: one without a specific date upon which it would end but which could be lifted at any time if the subject either successfully appealed or, as the organisation presumably hoped would be the case in this instance, apologised and did as he or she was told. Yet still Stallard would not back down, especially now that he had proved mass-start races could be held on British roads, so in November he helped launch the British League of Racing Cyclists - an organisation of like-minded riders that act as an umbrella body co-ordinating a number of pre-existing groups and would go head-to-head with the cycling establishment.

Encouraged by their success, the BLRC went on to organise Britain's first multi-stage road race which began in 1944 (Stallard won Stage 1, Les Plume won overall); this led in turn to the five-stage Victory Race between Brighton and Glasgow in 1945, organised to celebrate the end of the war - Robert Batot, a Frenchman, won (the race was not recognised by the UCI; Batot and the other five French riders to finish in the top ten came from the BLRC's French counterpart rebel organisation the Fédération Sportive et Gymnastique du Travail - an association of Communist riders - with whom organisers were put in touch by the French owners of a cafe in London's Soho). In 1946, the Victory (now known as Brighton-Glasgow) was held again, then in 1947 it received financial backing from the News of the World newspaper. Their sponsorship ended after that one event but the race took place again in 1948 and 1949, largely paid for by the organisers as had been the case with the first two editions; then in 1950 it was sponsored by the Sporting Record and in 1951 by the Daily Express (which used to be a great newspaper, rather than the rag it is today) - this edition was the first to be named the Tour of Britain (it was joined by an amateur race sponsored the Butlins firm, known as the Butlin Tour, with each stage running between Butlin's holiday camps). The Express remained on board for three years until the constant infighting between organisers and route officials saw them pull out and begin sponsoring motor racing instead, at which point Quaker Oats took over and continued sponsorship for four years. In 1958, by which time the race had become hugely successful, the Milk Marketing Board became sponsor: it was renamed the Milk Race. The final Milk Race was held in 1993, but would be reborn as the PruTour (sponsored by Prudential Insurance) in 1998 and 1999, then vanished once again. In 2004, British Cycling - whom Stallard had despised so much - teamed up with sports and events marketing firm SweetSpot to bring the race back to life. Once again known as the Tour of Britain, it grew to become the largest cycling event in the country and has become an important part of the UCI's EuropeTour racing series.

Stallard was not fundamentally opposed to the NCU itself, but to the entrenched attitudes and beliefs it held - it didn't take long before he started to feel the same way about the BLRC, and he was briefly banned after criticising it. In time, the NCU and BLRC merged to form the British Cycling Federation, which Stallard saw as treason - when one of his employees, Ralph Jones (who had finished in sixth at the Llangollen-Wolverhampton race) went to Spain as part of the group visiting a UCI meeting that led to the BCF becoming recognised as Britain's cycling governing body, he sacked him the day he got back.


Mauro Ribeiro, born in Curitiba, Brazil on this day in 1964, won Stage 9 at the Tour de France in 1991. He was the first Brazilian stage winner in Tour history.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jocelyn Lovell (Canada, 1950); Gorgi Popstefanov (Yugoslavia - now Macedonia, 1987); Edvandro Cruz (Brazil, 1978); Alois Kaňkovský (Czechoslovakia, 1983); Cipriano Chemello (Italy, 1945); Carlos Zárate Fernández (Spain, 1980); Frank Meissner (USA, 1894, died 1966); Vincent Gomgadja (Central African Republic, 1960); Francisca Campos (Chile, 1985); Liudmyla Vypyrailo (Ukraine, 1979); Laurence Burnside (Bahamas, 1946); Victor Hopkins (USA, 1904, died 1969); Rudi Ceyssens (Belgium, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 09.06.12

The tenth edition of La Flèche Wallonne was held on this day in 1946. Having been run on shorter parcours during the Second World War, it was increased to 253km between Mons and Liège and was won by Désiré Keteleer who had twenty seasons as a professional rider between 1942 and 1961.

Luis Ocaña

Luis Ocaña (image c/o Granny Gear Blog)

Jesús Luis Ocaña Pernía was born in Priego, Spain, on this day in 1945, but moved to Mont-de-Marsan in France with his family when he was twelve and joined the local club. He showed some promise, but not enough to suggest he'd ever be anything more than a talented amateur and it took him until 1968 to get his first professional contract with the Spanish team Fagor. That very year, he won his first National Championship and even got a couple of good results in his first Grand Tours, finishing second on Stage 8 at the Vuelta a Espana and second again on Stage 19 at the Giro d'Italia. The year after that he won the Grand Prix du Midi Libre, the Vuelta a La Rioja, the Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme and three stages, the King of the Mountains and second place overall at the Vuelta a Espana; now, those French teams he'd been trying to join when he was an amateur couldn't get to his door quickly enough - he chose Bic, where he rode alongside Jan Janssen (who, in 1968, had been the first Dutch rider to win the Tour de France), Michael Wright (the Bishop's Stortford-born cyclist who was raised in Belgium and spoke such bad English that few people realised he was English) and Johny Schleck (father to Frank and Andy).

Ocaña entered his fifth Grand Tour with Bic, the 1970 Vuelta a Espana, and spent much of the race locking horns with Agustín Tamames of Werner. He won the prologue, then set about making sure the yellow jersey (nowadays, the leader of the Vuelta wears a red jersey - but that's only been the case since 2010. From 1998, it was gold; from 1955-1997 it was yellow and it had varied between white, orange and white with a red stripe before that) remained his. In Stage 13, Tamames took it; those who had followed their careers knew that Ocaña was likely to have little difficulty in getting it back when the race reached Bilbao for the the final stage, a time trial, and they were right - Ocaña screamed around the parcours and beat Tamames by 1'28". The race - the only Vuelta he won - was his, and the Spanish press called him "the best time-trialist that Spanish cycling has ever had, and the best cyclist of the moment." They, meanwhile, were wrong; because a rider from the other end of Europe, one who had already won two Grand Tours and was about to win another, and stood on the very cusp of revealing himself to be the most phenomenally talented rider cycling has ever known.

Had the pinnacle of his career come just a few years earlier or later, and had he have had just a little more luck, Ocaña would almost certainly have earned himself a place among the greatest ever Tour champions with three and possibly more victories. As it happened, he faced an insurmountable hurdle - Eddy Merckx. Merckx had sufficient respect for Ocaña for the two to become rivals (very few riders were that good, most were just people that Merckx saw briefly at the start of a race) and on a good day, the Spaniard was even capable of gaining the upper hand; but Merckx was simply in a different category to anything the cycling world had ever seen before. At the 1970 Tour, Ocaña performed exceptionally well and won a superb Stage 17 victory on the 1,464m Puy de Dôme, the Massif Central volcano that hosted some of the most dramatic moments in Tour history and is still missed since the roads were declared too narrow for future use after 1988; but Merckx, who was so powerful that he could set his sights on stage wins and General Classifications, won eight stages and overall.

Col de Menté, 1971 - the crash that could so
easily have killed Ocaña

Merckx won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1971, instantly making himself favourite for the Tour, but the Spanish remained hopeful that now he knew what he was up against Ocaña would find a way to respond. As he climbed towards the finish of Stage 8, once again on the Puy de Dôme, it looked as though he had and when he crossed the line he'd gained 15"; and then he added to it as the Tour headed through the mountains of the next three stages. By the end of Stage 11, which he won, he had the yellow jersey and an eight minute advantage over the Belgian (Merckx had been too slow off the mark when his rival attacked with Gosta Pettersen, Joaquim Agostinho and Zoetemelk - he begged the peloton to help him chase them down, but they were rather enjoying seeing the Cannibal in difficulty for once and refused). Merckx wasted no time at all in getting to work clawing it back, but in the end Fate stepped in. As they descended the Col de Menté in Stage 14, Merckx - who feared nothing - launched a savage attack, plummeting down the mountain at a rate that turned out to be too fast even for him: his tyres lost their grip and he slewed straight into a wall. Ocaña slammed on his brakes but, having been trying to stay as close as possible, was not able to stop in time and collided with him. Merckx was fine; back on his feet in seconds he was soon speeding away down the mountain. Ocaña had difficulty releasing himself from his toe clips but was also on his feet moments later, but had to wait while his wheel was replaced. As a result, he was right in the path of Joop Zoetemelk when he too lost control and smashed into him at full speed, followed by Agostinho and another rider. His Tour ended there as he was rushed by helicopter to hospital and Merckx became race leader - though he refused to wear the yellow jersey as a sign of respect the next day.

The next year Ocaña won the Dauphiné (and a second National Championship), but once Merckx announced that he would ride (he originally said he wouldn't, because he'd already won three times and he wanted to concentrate on winning a third Giro and a first Vuelta, but then changed his mind and dropped the Vuelta after hearing claims that he wouldn't have won in 1971 had it not have been for Ocaña's misfortune) it was the Belgian who was favourite. Ocaña attacked again and again, then abandoned with bronchitis in the Pyrenees. In 1973, Merckx stuck to his plans and stayed away from the Tour, but since Ocaña had only finished one of the four Tours he'd previously entered Raymond Poulidor, José Manuel Fuente and Zoetemelk were the favourites (not least of all because Merckx said they were). The race didn't get off to a promising start: he crashed in the prologue when a dog ran out of the crowd and into the peloton, but during Stage 3 when the Tour made one of its periodic visits to Roubaix to pay homage to the Hell of the North he gathered four of his Bic team mates, recruited six other riders from other teams and set off in a break that, for a while, had an advantage of five minutes. By the end of the stage the peloton had reduced it to around two and a half, but what really mattered was that Fuente was a full seven minutes down. Poulidor and Zoetemalk were closer, but all the same - one down, two to go.

Ocaña was always a good climber and had proved that the mountains were the one place where he surpassed Merckx, so it was there that he began his campaign, starting with Stage 5 but concentrating on gaining time rather than winning the stage; Walter Godefroot took the top step on the podium that day. He did the same on Stage 6, where Jean-Pierre Danguillaume won. Stage 7 was split into two sections, the first 86.5km and the second 150.5km. Ocaña won the first and took the yellow jersey, but then Bernard Thévenet won the second and, all of a sudden, Ocaña had three rivals for the General Classification again; but on Stage 8 he attacked on the Col du Télégraphe, led the race over the Galibier and won the stage, finishing up with an advantage of nine minutes over Fuente, ten over Thévenet and a crushing 23 over Zoetemelk. As far as many people are concerned, he'd already won by this point. However, cycling is a strange, unpredictable and dangerous sport, something that Ocaña understood very well after the 1972 crash and he knew he couldn't rest on his laurels - especially as Fuente was promising to get his revenge in the Pyrenees, which are a very different range of mountains to the Alps. On his side was the fact that there were still three individual time trials to go, two of which he won. Another two mountain stage victories, one of them on his old friend the Puy de Dôme, sealed the deal and his Tour was won. It's a great shame, and indication of how cruel cycling can be, that he was never allowed to forget that he'd done it in the year that Merckx stayed away. Sadly, it's also true that he probably wouldn't have won had it have been otherwise. He didn't ride the Tour in 1974 due to an injury, then returned in 1975 but abandoned in Stage 13. In 1976 he was 14th, then the following year 25th. Realising that he was fading, he retired.

The memorial (image c/o Lost Boys 2010)

Sadly, retirement was not kind to Ocaña. He owned a vineyard but it didn't do well and he was soon in grave financial difficulties, despite help from what for many people was an unexpected source - Eddy Merckx who, despite his Cannibal image, could show deep concern for a fellow rider and used his contacts to persuade a Belgian importer to purchase a considerable portion of estate's output. Things would get worse: he was involved in two serious car accidents, losing so much blood in one of them that he needed a blood transfusion which went wrong, leaving him very ill. Then he began to develop clinical depression, which proved to be too much stress for his wife Josiane and she left him; and as if he hadn't been through enough already he was diagnosed first with hepatitis C, then with cancer. On the 19th of May 1994, when he was 48 years old, he used a gun to commit suicide. A memorial stone stands on the Col de Menté, right where he crashed in 1971, and cyclists from all around the world go there to pay their respects to one of the most tragic characters the sport has ever known.

Josephine Tomic
Born in Perth on this day in 1989, Josie Tomic is one of Australian cycling's great natural talents - having taken up road racing at the age of 14, she was riding for her country at the Oceania Championships only a year later. That same year, she became National Under-17 Pursuit Champion, won the New Zealand Oceania Tour and took bronze medals in the National U-17 Road Race and Time Trial finals.

Josie Tomic

In 2005, Tomic became National U-17 Champion in Individual Pursuit, 500 m TT, Team Sprint, Duo Time Trial  and road Time Trial, took a silver medal in the National Criterium Championships and another bronze in the National Road Race. In 2006 and 2007, she won four Junior and U-19 National titles (setting a new Junior Individual Pursuit world record in the process) and in 2008 she became National Individual Pursuit Champion. 2009 brought her three gold medals at the Nationals,  two more at the Oceania Championships and the Omnium World Champion title; then in 2010 she was selected for the teams that won gold at the Track World Cup in Melbourne Round, the Oceania Track Championships, the Australian Track Championships and Track World Championships, also winning the U-19 Individual Pursuit and Points race at the Nationals. The 2011 Nationals saw her win three more gold medals and, while she has yet to win in 2012 she'll be leading the Autralian Women's Team Pursuit squad at the London Olympics and, going by her incredible record thus far, will be one of the riders to watch.

Alex Rasmussen

Rasmussen has also ridden for SaxoBank

Alex Nicki Rasmussen, who is not related to Michael Rasmussen but is the son of Danish amateur track champion Claus Rasmussen, was born in Svendborg, Denmark on this day in 1987. He followed his father into track cycling but achieved much more, winning numerous professional victories on the track including six consecutive National Madison Championships, and enjoyed success on the road including the 2007 National Championship.

On the 15th of September 2011, news broke that Rasmussen had failed to supply anti-doping officials with correct details of his whereabouts; as a result missing a test. His road race team, HTC-Highroad, was then informed that he had missed two others during the preceding eighteen months which, under WADA rules, is punishable by a two-year suspension. The team (which for many years had been famous for its anti-doping policies, which went beyond what was legally required) suspended him immediately, then he was deselected from the Danish World Championships and warned that he was likely to face legal prosecution. Highroad was at the time going through financial problems (ironically because sponsors had pulled out due to not wishing to be associated with what they saw as a "druggy sport" and which would ultimately cause the team to close at the end of the year), which had led manager Bob Stapleton to inform his riders that they might want to look for new teams during transfer season - Rasmussen had done so and been offered a contract with Garmin-Cervelo. That contract was torn up.

However, the Union Cyclist International failed to notify the rider that he'd missed a test until ten weeks after the incident; by their own rules and those of WADA, they must do so within fourteen days. As a result, Rasmussen was cleared and Garmin, who became Garmin-Barracuda for the 2012 season, once again signed him up.


Anthony Geslin

Geslin at the 2008 Vuelta a Espana

Anthony Geslin, born in Alençon (also the hometown of the legendary mountain biker and cyclo cross rider Laurence Leboucher) on this day in 1980. He was taken on by Bonjour for a two-year period as a trainee in 2000 and immediately began to get himself onto podiums, including a second place finish for Stage 5 at the Tour de l'Avenir in 2001 which got him a professional contract with the same squad in 2002, when he was second in Stage 4 at l'Avenir. In 2003, Bonjour became Brioches La Boulangère and Geslin won the Criterium des Espoirs, then rode with them in his first Tour de France where his results were not stellar, but promising: he finished in the top 25 three times, but more importantly he survived through all 3,427.5km the race. The following year he won just one race, the Route Adélie de Vitré; but in 2005 it became clear that the reason for that was he'd found his speciality and had spent the year transforming himself into a sprinter - returning to the Tour, he was eighth on Stage 3 and sixth on Stages 13 and 16.

Many of the true greats from cycling history are notable in that they excel in two or more areas, for an example an ability to both climb and descend, sprint and time trial, win on the flat stages and in the hills; this being why ultra-specialised riders such as Mark Cavenish will never win a Tour and why some riders win Tours - like Charly Gaul, who descended as well as he climbed and also had an ability (natural, though undoubtedly helped by vast amounts of amphetamines) to withstand pain and suffering far in excess of most human beings - but are greater than others who have won Tours  and why a tiny minority of riders who are so phenomenally good at everything, a category into which at present perhaps only Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Marianne Vos can be placed, are the greatest of them all. Geslin had a near unique bonus power to his skills in the sprint, and that was that he could also climb: as he proved by winning the Trophée des Grimpeurs in 2007 and the tough Brabantse Pijl with its repeated slogs up high-gradient hills in 2009. For that reason, it seems strange that Geslin did not achieve a great deal more.



An Van Rie, who was born in Menen on this day in 1974, was Belgian Time Trial Champion in 2006, 2007 and 2008. She also rode well in criterium races with numerous victories over the same time period, during which she rode first with Lotto-Belisol, then AA Drink-Leontien.nl and finally Vrienden van het Platteland.

Sinead Emily Miller was born in South Park, Pennsylvania on this day in 1990, began racing BMX when she was five years old and rose to the top levels of the sport during pre-teen childhood, earning a place on a series of professional teams. Aged 10, she took up road cycling and soon discovered that she enjoyed it, then soon afterwards that she was very good at it, so she entered some races, winning the National Junior Criterium Championship in 2004. It would be the first of many; as a result she was selected to ride for the US team at the Junior Championships in 2006 and 2007. Currently, Miller is studying at Marian University in Indianapolis, where she rides for the cycling team and has attained several good results so far in 2012.

Other births: Petr Bucháček (Czechoslovakia, 1948); Ilya Chernyshov (USSR, 1985); Gonzalo García (Argentina, 1976); Paul Espeit (France, 1878, died 1960); János Juszkó (Hungary, 1939); Skip Cutting (USA, 1946).