Daily Cycling Facts 09.07.2014

Tour de France 1905
11 stages, 2,994km.

In 1905, the Tour had seen so much cheating that several riders were banned for life and director Henri Desgrange swore that the race would never be held again. However, by now the race had grown to be far bigger than anyone could have hoped - and was bringing in a lot of money too, so it didn't take too much persuasion to convince him that it should go ahead again in 1905. There would be big changes: the overall winner would now be decided on points rather than according to accumulated time, with the winner of each stage receiving one point, second place two points and third three points and so on plus an extra point for every five minutes between them and the next rider up to a maximum of elevem (the idea was, obviously, to end with as few points as possible, rather like observed trials mountain biking); the intention being that the finishing order became more important rather than winning in as short a finishing time counted, so that riders wouldn't be tempted to cheat by completing parts of a stage by car or train. Another change was that the stages were much shorter (the shortest in 1905 was more than 200km shorter than the shortest in 1904) and would start in the morning rather than the afternoon to ensure they finished during daylight, when officials could better keep an eye on what riders were up to - one method of cheating apparently used widely in 1904 (though with little evidence, it seems) had riders gripping a cork attached by wire to a team car, things such as this could now be far more easily noticed. It worked: none of the top ten in the General Classification nor any stage winner had to be disqualified (that may have been very different had doping controls existed - in those days before reliable tests, riders swallowed, sniffed and injected all sorts of things). Another change permitted riders to be paced by another cyclist, a tandem or a motor vehicle - this had not previously been allowed in the Tour, which was one of the first major cycle races to prevent riders from making use of pacing.

Ballon d'Alsace - the Tour's first mountain (well, sort of...)

In both of the previous editions, the race had been over the Col de la République; Desgrange had preferred to keep this quiet because he felt it would discourage riders from entering. A few route organisers had suggested adding more mountains, perhaps with points for the riders who got to the top fastest, but Desgrange was reluctant. Before the 1905 route was chosen, a L'Auto staff member named Alphonse Steinès took him for a car trip over the Col Bayard and Ballon d'Alsace and, showing him how spectacular a mountain stage could be, finally convinced him - though he made Steinès agree that, should the mountains prove too hard and ruin the race (or, as he had worried before, the riders were robbed by bandits or eaten by bears), the blame would be entirely his and not Desgrange's. Thus, Ballon d'Alsace was included in Stage 2 and the Rampe de Laffrey and Bayard in Stage 4; the first official climbs in the Tour de France.

Aucouturier

Maurice Garin had initially won in 1904 but then been banned for two years; several other top riders were banned for varying periods of time. There was, therefore, no obvious favourite - Henri Cornet was eventually declared winner the previous year, but since he'd originally been fifth and more than three hours slower that Garin he wasn't considered a contender; Louis Trousselier, Hippolyte Aucouturier, Antony Wattelier and René Pottier looked likely to do well, but really nobody knew.

The organisers thought they'd found a way to rein in badly-behaving riders, but the French public were another matter entirely and in the very first stage all the riders (except, rather suspiciously, Jean-Baptiste Dortinacq) had to stop and repair punctures after persons unknown spread 125kg of tacks across the road. However, Trousselier was able to catch Dortinacq up and win the stage - he had to: he was in the Army at the time and had requested permission to enter the race but was only allowed 24 hours leave. He believed, correctly, that if he won the stage his commanding officer would extend his leave - but it was a huge risk to take because he could very easily have ended up facing a court martial (which have since been abolished in France); and he was so determined to escape that prospect that he set a pace so high only fifteen riders finished within the time limit. Fifteen others finished after the limit and the remainder eventually showed up on a train. Desgrange was understandably furious and announced that the race was being abandoned immediately, but the riders managed to talk him round after accepting a 75 point penalty.

Pottier

Aucouturier, Trousselier, Cornet and Pottier got away on the Ballon d'Alsace on Stage 2 after avoiding more nails spread over the road; the heavily-built Aucouturier and Trousselier rapidly finding that they were at a disadvantage when the terrain headed upward. Cornet, still only 20 years old (his 1904 victory makes him the youngest Tour winner ever), found that he wasn't able to keep up with Pottier and was the next to be dropped, thus Pottier became the first man up the first mountain in the Tour de France. On the way down, he discovered the flip-side to the lighter-man-has-the-advantage-when-climbing rule - a heavier rider usually has the advantage when descending because his weight prevents the bike skipping around: Aucouturier caught Pottier and won the stage. Unfortunately, Pottier wouldn't be able to get his revenge when the race reached Bayard, because in Stage 3 he developed tendinitis and abandoned (some sources say he hurt his ankle when he collided with a spectator). Trousselier won again; not far behind him in second place was Lucien Petit-Breton, who would become the first man to win the Tour twice a few years later.

Stage 4, with the Rampe de Laffrey, was where Desgrange must have been convinced once and for all that the riders could cope with the mountains - as one of France's steepest roads (in places, it reaches a gradient of 18%; this has also made it one of the country's most dangerous roads - four accidents to have taken place there are considered the worst motoring accidents in French history  and there used to be a warning sign depicting a skull with flashing lights for eyes until someone decided it was in bad taste), if the riders got up it they could cope with anything else. Julien Maitron, who would win Stage 6 in 1910, was first to the top of both climbs but once again Aucouturier was fastest on the way down; Trousselier was second.

Louis Trousselier

Trousselier won Stage 5 and second on Stage 6, by which time it was impossible for the majority of riders to catch up in the General Classification and most of those that - through a miracle - could had given up and were competing for second. On Stage 7 he had a puncture shortly after the start line, at which point the entire peloton seized its chance and attacked - when, after 200km of chasing, he caught them and then won the stage, they all gave up.

Pottier, despite abandoning, was declared the Tour's very first meilleur grimpeur ("best climber"). Many years later, the meilleur grimpeur would evolve into the King of the Mountains classification. Trousselier earned 6,950 francs for winning the General Classification. The night after doing so he gambled it all away.

Meanwhile, Desgrange's gamble paid dividends - rather than the disaster he'd feared, the riders had got up all the mountains and the spectators had been more impressed than ever, even though quite a few of them probably would have quite liked to have seen a rider being eaten by a bear. Therefore, he was able to report to L'Auto's owners that his race had increased the paper's daily circulation to 100,000 copies. The next year, the Massif Central was added and, a few years later, the Pyrenees and then the Alps.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louis Trousselier (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 35
2 Hippolyte Aucouturier (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 61
3 Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq (FRA) Saving 64
4 Emile Georget (FRA) JC Cycles 123
5 Lucien Petit-Breton (FRA) JC Cycles 155
6 Augustin Ringeval (FRA) JC Cycles 202
7 Paul Chauvet (FRA) Griffon 231
8 Philippe Pautrat (FRA) JC Cycles 248
9 Julien Maitron (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber/Griffon 255
10 Julien Gabory (FRA) JC Cycles 304


Federico Bahamontes

Bahamontes, The Eagle of Toledo

When he was 13, Federico Bahamontes and his father Julián became refugees of the Spanish Civil War and went to Madrid in search of food and shelter. Julián found work breaking rocks and earned enough money to start a fresh produce market stall; Federico, like so many boys that became great cyclists, helped support the family by delivering groceries on a heavy utility bike. In 1942 he saw Julián Berrendero win the Vuelta a Espana and became smitten with cycling, which later persuaded him to start racing - and on the 18th of July in 1947, he won the first event he'd ever entered.

Born in Santo-Domingo-Caudilla on this day in 1928, Bahamontes was still an amateur when he won a stage and the King of the Mountains in the 1954 Vuelta a Asturias. That race that brought him to the attention of the Spanish Federation, which wasted no time in recruiting him for the national team that would compete in the 1954 Tour de France - the team coach recognised that there was little he could do to improve on the raw natural talent Bahamontes displayed and sent him off with only one instruction: "Try to win it." He didn't, but he did lead the King of the Mountains from the first stage it was awarded (Stage 11) all the way through to the end of the race. He won the Mountains classification at the Giro d'Italia the next year too, then at the Vuelta a Espana the year after that.

Enough climbing talent to make a thousand mortal grimpeurs:
Gaul and Bahamontes

In 1958, he went back to the Tour and was widely considered a favourite. He won the King of the Mountains, but this year he faced one obstacle even he couldn't defeat - Charly Gaul. Bahamontes was arguably a better climber than Gaul on account of his consistency and ability to perform well in all condition but for three weeks that year Gaul found the form of his life and, when the weather at the Tour was as cold and as miserable as he liked it to be, he could climb like no rider seen before nor since, taking the General Classification after making no less a mountain than Ventoux look easy; Bahamontes settled for King of the Mountains again. However, Gaul could only perform well in the sort of weather that had his rivals wishing they'd taken jobs in heated offices; while he could still beat Bahamontes when they escaped together during Stage 17 a year later, the weather was warmer throughout the race and he was simply unable to achieve the consistency he'd have needed to beat the Spaniard and finished out of the top ten overall. Bahamontes took the General Classification and the King of the Mountains that year, twelve years to the day since he won his first race. Some say that he did so only because the rider's agent Daniel Dousset ordered his riders on the French team to let Bahamontes win because he knew that was the only way Henri Anglade, who was handled by rival agent Roger Piel and would be a far greater threat to Dousset's rider Jacques Anquetil in the lucrative post-Tour "round the houses" races than pure climber Bahamontes, could be prevented from winning. Most people who were there to see Bahamontes ride say he would have won anyway.

All in all, Bahamontes won a total of nine King of the Mountains (one at the Giro, two at the Vuelta, six at the Tour - when Lucien van Impe looked like winning his seventh in 1975, he decided to hold back and let the competition go to another rider rather than beat the record set by the man he considered the master). Like Gaul, he had the looks of a grimpeur but didn't ride like one: he was stiff on the bike and rode sitting upright; unlike Gaul, who looked as though he'd been born with the bike attacked to his body, he never seemed quite comfortable and would change his hand positions on the handlebars almost constantly.

In common with most climbers (but not Gaul, who feared nothing but himself) Bahamontes had a great dislike of descending because he was too light to be able to prevent the bike skipping around at high speed. During his amateur career Bahamontes once came off the road and fell into a cactus, and he never liked to take risks after that, often unclipping himself from the toe-straps so he could dab a foot on the ground. According to legend, he was so afraid to descend the Galibier alone having ridden up it solo in the Tour that he stopped, sat down on a wall and had an ice-cream while waiting for the rest of the riders to catch up. Rather than risk disqualification or a fine, the Spanish managers ordered the team mechanic to pretend he was fixing a fault with the bike; but the rider has suggested that this wasn't the case and he was simply afraid to descend alone.

 Bahamontes with Gaul (left) 

At the time of writing, Bahamontes is 85 years old and still very much with us. Mentally, he appears to be still as sharp as he was when he won his Tour; but long gone is the impulsive, sometimes rather infuriating rider who threw his bike over a cliff at the 1956 Tour so that his team mates wouldn't be able to change his mind about abandoning, replaced by a likable, charming and exquisitely mannered gentleman. During the last two decades of Gaul's life, when he had been found living alone in a forest hut with little memory of who had once been and was then returned to the world by the woman who would become his wife, Bahamontes befriended him; he also became a close friend of his childhood hero Berrendero.


Other riders born on this day: Stephen Gallagher (Northern Ireland, 1980); Richard England (Australia, 1981); Dale Stetina (USA, 1956); Eric Thompson (Great Britain, 1927); Armen Arslanian (Lebanon, 1960); Saber Mohamed Hasan (Bahrain, 1967); Jens Juul Eriksen (Denmark, 1926); Obed Ngaite (Central African Republic, 1967).

Daily Cycling Facts 31.05.2014

The World's First Bike Race
On this day in 1868, a small group of cyclists gathered at the fountains in Paris' Parc de St Cloud, then at 3pm raced their machines to the park fence and back again - a distance of 1.2km on gravel. It was, for many years, proclaimed to have been the world's first organised, official bike race (the world's first unorganised bike race would of course have happened the first time that there were two bikes on the same stretch of road).

Right: James Moore; left: second place
hean-Eugène-André Castera

The winner was James Moore, an Englishman who had been born in Bury St. Edmunds and moved to Paris as a child with his parents. Some time later, a group of cycling officials that included Géo Lefèvre (the man who first came up with the idea of the Tour de France) decided that a commemorative plaque was in order, and one was commissioned and put into place. It's since vanished, presumably stolen (hopefully as a souvenir, in which case it may still exist, rather than for its scrap metal value), but Moore's bike can be seen in the City Museum in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Moore is also lost - though he lived until 1935, nobody knows exactly where he was buried. His grandson believes he probably lies near the Welsh Harp Reservoir in North London - where, coincidentally, Britain's first bike race was held one day after the race in Parc de St Cloud.

According to the Cycling Record, the riders travelled "at the speed of lightning" - though Moore's winning time of 3'50" reveals his average speed to have been 18.78kph or a little over 11.5mph. Perhaps lightning was slower in those days?

(There is evidence that at least five bike races had been organised and taken place in France prior to Moore's victory, and the race that Moore won may even not have been the first to have taken place in the park that morning.)

Robert Gesink

Robert Gesink
Born in Varsseveld on this day in 1986, Robert Gesink signed to Rabobank's Continental squad after a few years with amateur teams, then progressed to the ProTour team after rapidly revealing that he had the makings of a General Classification rider. He stayed with Rabo through 2012, when the bank decided to withdraw its funding of men's professional road racing following the doping scandal that led to the downfall of Lance Armstrong; since then, he remained with the team under new sponsors Belkin.

After coming to the world's attention with eighth place in the time trial and sixth in the road race at the 2004 Junior World Championships, Gesink was invited to join Löwik Meubelen but, just a year later, had won the Under-19 National TT title, which brought Rabobank to his door. In his first year with them he won the General Classifications at the Circuito Montañés and the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda - but, better still, he was second at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race that serves to highlight young riders who may one day be destined for Grand Tour success. The following year, racing in the ProTour team, he won the Youth classifications at the Tours of California and Germany and then in 2008 he was fourth at the Paris–Nice, the Flèche Wallonne and the Critérium du Dauphiné and seventh overall in the Vuelta a Espana, an amazing first attempt at a Grand Tour.

Gesink at the Tour of
California, 2008

Having now confirmed himself as a rider with serious potential, he went to the Tour de France in 2009 but left with a broken wrist after crashing in Stage 5. Later the same year he would come sixth in the Vuelta and many certain that had be have enjoyed better fortune he'd have finished the Tour in the top ten - and he proved himself capable of doing so in 2010, when he was sixth. In 2011 he won Stage 4 and then the following day beat Fabian Cancellara to win the individual time trial Stage 5 at the Tour of Oman, before also winning the General Classification and Youth classification; later in the season he would finish in second place overall at Tirreno-Adriatico, where he won the Youth classification, and then third at the Tour of the Basque County. The season ended disastrously, however - a crash during a training ride left him with a badly broken leg that had to be pinned together with screws and plates. The time he was subsequently forced to spend off the bike led to a slow start to 2012, but he regained fitness in time for the Tour of California where he won Stage 1 and the General Classification; later in the year he would come fourth at the Tour de Suisse and sixth at the Vuelta a Espana.

Gesink rode well at the 2013 Giro d'Italia with one top ten stage finish (10th; Stage 3) and a good handful of top 20s, but did not finish. He then managed ninth overall at the Tour of Luxembourg and managed another good Grand Tour showing at the Tour de France with a seventh place stage finish (Stage 19) and 26th overall, before going on to win the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and take eighth overall at the Tour of Beijing. By his birthday in 2014, he had been sixth overall at the Tour Down Under (and just missed a podium place for Stage 5, with fourth place) and fifth overall at the Tour of Oman.


Track cyclist Sally Hodge, born in Cardiff on this day in 1966, won the Points Race and the Pursuit at the 1988 World Championships. In 1987 and 1988, she won silver medals in the British Road Race Championships.

Primož Čerin, born in Ljubljana on this day in 1962, won the Tour of Yugoslavia in 1983 and two stages of the Österreich-Rundfahrt in the years before he turned professional with the Italian team Malvor-Bottecchia-Vaporella in 1986. With them, he entered the Tour de France that year - his results (19th, Stage 12; 33rd overall) didn't set the world alight, but he was the first Eastern Bloc rider to compete.

John Allis, born in the USA on this day in 1942, began cycling while at Princeton University and led the US team at the 1963 World Championships in Ronse, Belgium. They finished outside the time limit in the road race and were 20th in the TT, but had become the first US team to manage any sort of presence in European since the days of Major Marshall Taylor at the turn of the 20th Century.

Schultheis and Sprinkmeier

Sandra Sprinkmeier, born in Mainz, Germany on this day in 1984, is one half of the two-woman team that has held the World Artistic Cycling Championship title since 2007. Her team mate is Katrin Schultheis. (Artistic cycling, incidentally, is a form of gymnastics performed on fixed-gear bicycles - not enormously different to flatland BMX but on very different bikes and, dating back to 1888, much older.)

Born in Berchtesgaden, Germany on this day in 1952, Karl Bartos was, for fifteen years between 1975 and 1990, a member of Kraftwerk, the band that created cycling's anthem, Tour de France - he is credited as co-writer on the record. Fritz Hilpert, who joined the band in 1987 (four years after Tour de France was released) was born in Amberg on this day in 1956.

Frans Brands, born in Berendrecht, Belgium on this day in 1940, won Stage 18 at the 1963 Tour de France, Stage 8 at the 1965 Giro d'Italia and eight place overall at the Tour the same year and won the Tour of Luxembourg in 1967. With numerous criterium and one-day race wins on his palmares, he should be far more well-known that he is. However, few cycling fans will have noticed when he died on the 9th of February in 2008.

Other cyclists born on this day: Carlo Scognamiglio (Italy, 1983); Yuri Barinov (USSR, 1955); Johnny Dauwe (Belgium, 1966, died 2003); Aleksandr Sharapov (USSR, 1971); Edward Barcik (Poland, 1950); Alex Wrubleski (Canada, 1984); Shaun O'Brien (Australia, 1969); Masoud Mobaraki (Iran, 1953); Alfred Tonna (Malta, 1950); Éric Louvel (France, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 29.05.2014

Houa was born in Liege on the 8th of November 1867
and died on the 31st of January 1918 at Bressoux 

On this day in 1892, 33 amateur cyclists met in the Belgian city of Liege and embarked on a race organised by the local cycling union and the Pesant Club Liègois. The event was financed by L'Expresse, a newspaper then published in French-speaking Belgium and Northern France, and by their request the race stayed within Wallonia. The winner, Léon Houa, took 10h48'36" to complete the 250km parcours and the last of the seventeen riders to finish crossed the finish line five hours and eighteen minutes later. Few would ever have believed that in 2012 the race would still be going; often called La Doyenne, it is Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest, most venerable and, for many, the most prestigious of the five Monument one-day races.

Louis Mottiat, 06.07.1889 - 05.06.1972

Liège-Bastogne-Liège has fallen on this date on two other occasions, 1921 and 1930, but as it's now held from mid to late April so as to fit in with the other Classics (the so-called Northern Classics all take place within weeks of one another), it will never again be held on this date. 1921 was the 11th edition as the race was not held for a period of fourteen years from 1894 and stopped again during the First World War. The parcours covered 209km and was won for the first of two consecutive years by Louis Mottiat, who would win four stages at the Tour de France that same year. The 20th edition, taking place in 1930, was won for the first time by a German, Hermann Buse -  German fans would have to wait almost half a century until 1979 for another victory.

Hubert Opperman
Born in Victoria, Australia on this day in 1904, Hubert Opperman was the son of British-German immigrants who made a living from any sort of work that came their way. His father was variously employed as a butcher, a lumberjack, a coach driver and a miner and, whilst still a child, Hubert earned extra money driving a horse-drawn plough - and by delivering telegrams on a bicycle, which he turned out to be rather good at riding fast.

Hubert Opperman

Aged 17, he entered his first race. Coming third didn't win him the prize he'd been hoping for - a Malvern Star racing bike - but it did bring him to the attention of Malvern Star proprietor Bruce Small, who sought the rider out after the race and offered him a sponsorship. Less than three years later he repaid the company with victory in the National Road Race Champion of 1924, and then again in 1926, 1927 and 1929.

In 1927, three newspapers - Australia's Melbourne Herald and Sporting Globe, alongside New Zealand's Sun - joined forces and started a fund to send an Australasian team to the Tour de France. Australian riders had first appeared at the Tour in 1914 but had not made much of an impact; now - in the brave new world between the First World War and the Great Depression, the nation saw sport as a means to increase its profile on the international stage. By 1928, enough money had been raised and Opperman, accompanied by Harry Watson of New Zealand and Australians Ernie Bainbridge and Percy Osborne, was on his way to France. Journalist René de Latour noted what he called "a marked contrast" between the attitudes of Opperman and the other men: whilst to them it was " a trip in which to collect a few souvenirs to take home, to the eager Oppy it was a wonderful chance to reach the top in international competition." Nevertheless, the Europeans failed to recognise that a serious, if yet not fully-formed, talent had arrived in their midst. "Whom did he beat over there, anyway?" they asked one another. "Let's see him on the road, then we'll know. We've yet to see any classy Australian road rider."

Opperman had been to Europe before, in 1928 when he took part in the Bol d'Or 24-hour classic racing behind tandem pacers (and had won on a borrowed utility bike after persons unknown sabotaged his chain), and he realised that the team would now be competing against rivals performing on a far higher level that those they had faced at home; so he applied for a place for the team on a Vélo Club Levallois training camp run by rider-turned-coach Paul Ruinart. They were accepted and, after a few weeks, were entered into their first European race - the now defunct Paris-Rennes. 32 riders took part, among them some of the finest of the day including Nicolas Frantz (who, the previous year, had won the Tour de France) and Gaston Rebry (who had won Paris-Nantes and would later add an impressive selection of Tour stages), meeting at a cafe in Paris at midnight before riding away into a night full of rain and hailstorms when the race started at 2am. Frantz won, Eugène Archambault was second and Rebry third - but Opperman proved he had the ability to make a name in European racing when he finished in eighth place. At Paris-Brussels shortly afterwards, he cam third behind Georges Ronsse and Frantz.

Opperman rode from Perth to Sydney, a distance of 4,110km, in 1937. The time he took to
complete the journey - 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes - held as a record for 30 years

The Tour was to start one month later; however, despite Opperman's success, the team entered with a serious deficit in numbers - while other teams consisted of ten men, the Australasian's plan to recruit six European riders had come to nothing and they still had only four. To make things worse, the aging Bainbridge was far slower than he had once been and tended to be the first man in the autobus, generally after no more than 70km or so. Time and time again, they were defeated by stronger squads. Help came from an unexpected source. Perhaps Ludo Feuillet, manager of the mighty Alcyon team, saw potential in Opperman and wanted to make friends so that he'd be able to poach him for his own team in the future or perhaps he just felt sorry for the Australian who was putting in so much effort only to be soundly defeated day after day - no matter; he took him under his wing and ave him advice on tactics, equipment and so on, and was largely responsible for him finishing in 18th place overall.

Oppy, as he was becoming known, never did win a Tour de France, though he improved his result to 12th place in 1931. Meanwhile, he did well in other French events such as Paris-Brest-Paris that same year, which he won against Frantz and Maurice Dewaele (who had won Oppy's first Tour) and, in time, was adopted as a national hero. Still with Malvern Star, which acted as sales agent for the British manufacturer BSA, he came to Britain during the time when road racing was still banned by the National Cycling Union. Setting new records - provided the rider wore dark, normal clothing rather than anything that might give away the fact that he or she was up to anything that might be deemed competitive upon the King's highway - meanwhile, was not; and he set a new record for Land's End to John o'Groats, then the 1000 Miles, then London-York and the 12 Hours.

Back in Australia five years later, he broke no fewer than 100 records during a single 24-hour race before signing up to the Royal Australian Air Force. He would end the War as a flight lieutenant, one step down from squadron leader, but as was the case with so many riders of the day the conflict took away many years during which he might still have been winning races. He returned to competition in 1945, but now in his forties he was simply unable to perform as he once had and retired in 1947.

After his racing career was over, Opperman realised that he could still serve his nation by putting his fame to good use and getting elected into government. Though an ardent Socialist, the Labor Party's doctrines were too close to Communism for his tastes and so instead he joined the Liberal Party, where he would eventually become a parliamentary whip. Among his many accomplishments, perhaps the most honourable were his efforts to relax Australia's notoriously strict (and, to our modern eyes, shockingly racist) laws barring entry to immigrants of mixed ethnicity and he received well-deserved recognition for his humane views, becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 and, fifteen years later, a Knight Bachelor; yet was never so pleased as he was when half a million French fans voted for him as L'Auto's Sportsman of the Year. He continued to ride his bike every day until the age of 90, when his wife Mavys persuaded him to stop for fear that he might not survive an accident, and died on his stationary bike on the 18th of April in 1996.

Greg Ball
Paracyclist Gregory Ball, born in Ipswitch, Queensland on this day in 1974, broke the 1km Time Trial World Record during his first year competing for Australia, then took a gold medal for the Team Sprint at the 2000 Paralympic Games. Two years later he won the 1km TT at the World Championships, then went on to even greater Paralympics success with gold for the 1km TT and the Team Sprint.

In 2011, Ball set a new 1km TT World Record - and failed a voluntary anti-doping test afterwards. He still claims that the drug that was discovered in his sample - anabolic steroid stanozolol, the same drug that saw Ben Johnson stripped of his gold medal at the 1988 Olympics - got there through "an honest mistake," most likely the pills given to him by a friend and which he says he assumed were vitamins that he believed would help him to cope with depression.

There are those who say that he must be innocent, because why else would he have voluntarily submitted himself to a test? We need to bear in mind, of course, that had he have refused the test when it was suggested, his achievement would immediately have been called into doubt. Finally, what athlete, in 2011, would willingly swallow any pill without knowing first of all what it was and secondly that he or she could trust the person giving it to them? The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority apparently thought along the same lines and, on the 26th of October 2011, upheld Cycling Australia's decision to ban him from competition for two years. He will also have to repay Aus$27,500 granted to him by the Australian Sports Commission and will not attend the 2012 Paralympics - at the age of 37, his racing days are almost certainly over; a sad end to the career of a man who seemed to be an inspirational athlete.


Kathryn Curi, born in Goshen, Connecticut on this day in 1974, became National Road Race Champion in 2005 and, three years later, won the Geelong World Cup.

Other cyclists born on this day: Stefan Ciekański (Poland, 1958); Horacio Gallardo (Bolivia, 1981); Valentina Yevpak (USSR, 1960); Franco Ongarato (Italy, 1949); Norbert Dürpisch (East Germany, 1952); Eom In-Yeong (South Korea, 1971); Milan Křen (Czechoslovakia, 1965); Lu Suyan (China, 1965); José Mercado (Mexico, 1938); Eric Magnin (France, 1967); Magdaleno Cano (Mexico, 1933, died 2009); Choy Mow Thim (Malaysia, 1947); Łukasz Kwiatkowski (Poland, 1982)

Daily Cycling Facts 13.05.2014

Stefano Garzelli
(image credit: Sebastián García CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Giro d'Italia started on this date five times - 1909 (see below), 1981, 1982, 1995 and 2000. In 1981, the race consisted of 22 stages and covered 3,895km. The winner was Giovanni Battaglin who had also won the amateur version of the race nine years earlier and would go on to win the Vuelta a Espana five months later, one of only three men to have won both races in a single season. The 1982 edition was again 22 stages, but it had grown to 4,010.5km. Bernard Hinault won, then won the Tour de France - the Giro/Tour double being considered a more impressive achievement than the Giro/Vuelta though seven men have achieved it, three of them twice (Hinault became one of them in 1985) and one three times (that, as tends to be the case with unique road racing achievements, being Eddy Merckx).

By 1995, the race had shrunk down to 3,736km but retained the 22 stage format. Marco Pantani had been a favourite but was kept away by injury, which left the unusual spectacle of sprinter and a climber battling one another for victory: Mario Cipollini was the sprinter and Tony Rominger was the climber, and they fought one another tooth and nail but on different stages all the way to the end. In the end, Rominger's secondary ability in the time trials stood him in good stead and he won the race. In 2000 there were 21 stages and a prologue, adding up to 3,676km in total. Stefano Garzelli won with 98h30'14".

The First Giro d'Italia

Luigi Ganna, photographed
shortly after finishing Stage 8
at the first Giro d'Italia

1909 was the very first edition of the Giro d'Italia. Organised like most races of the day to advertise a newspaper (La Gazzetta dello Sport on this case; which like L'Auto, the paper that organised the Tour de France, wanted to out-sell and ideally completely crush a rival title - the difference being that whereas L'Auto's rival Le Vélo was dead and buried within a year of the first Tour, Corriere della Sera sells around 220,000 more copies each day than La Gazzetta.

The race covered 2,445km over eight stages which, despite the daunting prospect of stages an average of 306km in length (the longest was in fact 397km, Stage 1), makes it the shortest edition ever held. Stage racing was a new concept when the Tour started in 1903 and as a result only 60 riders took part - and then only because director Henri Desgrange halved the entry fee and increase the prizes - but six years later the idea was both established and popular with a number of smaller events having sprung up in the intervening years (sadly, none have survived. The Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, first run in 1911, is the world's third oldest stage race), so 123 Italians and four Frenchmen showed up at the start line. Another similarity with the Tour was that the results were decided on points in early editions, rather than on overall elapsed time as is the case today, with the lowest number of points getting the win. Luigi Ganna, born in Induno Olana in 1883, was declared victor with 25 - had it have been decided in the modern manner, his time of 89h48'14" would have seen Giovanni Rossignoli (third place with 40 points) take the honour.

The race started and finished in Milan, the riders setting off on Stage 1 at 02:53 in the morning. Ganna's prize was 5,325 lira, while La Gazzetta editor and race director Eugenio Costamagna was paid the princely sum of 150 lira. La Gazzetta, incidentally, was and still is printed on pink paper - which is why the race leader's jersey, known as the maglia rosa and first adopted in 1931, is pink; just as the Tour de France's maillot jaune is yellow to reflect the yellow paper used by L'Auto.

Marianne Vos - very possibly the greatest
cyclist in the history of the sport
(image credit: Maarten Thys CC BY 3.0)

Marianne Vos
If you've been reading these Daily Cycling Facts and wondering, as I did while writing them, why it is that an apparently smaller number of notable professional professional cyclists were born in May than any other month, here's the reason: when Marianne Vos was born on this day in 1987, she was given the entire month's-worth of talent for several years in either direction.

A native of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, Vos' father and brother were both keen cyclists and, when she was five, she decided that she'd like to have a go too. Her first bike was too big for her, but even then she refused to give up. By the time she was six she was out training two nights a week. A few years later, she was taken to see the Alpe d'Huez stage of the Tour de France and spent much of her time hanging around the hotels to meet riders - it's tempting to wonder any of them remember the little Dutch girl who asked them for their autograph, now that her career has eclipsed all of theirs. In fact, and with the arguable exception of Eddy Merckx, Vos has now eclipsed all those who came before her; she is quite simply a phenomenal athlete and very welcome to younger fans who missed out on seeing the greats of days gone by, riders such as Hinault, Ancquetil, Burton, Bartali, Coppi and, of course, Merckx himself.

Vos has won all of the most prestigious races in women's road cycling including three World Road Race Championships (2004 Junior Championships, 2006 and 2012 Elite Championships, two European Championships, six National Championships and an Olympic Road Race gold medal in 2012. In addition, she has won two National Time Trial championships (despite claiming not to be very good at time trials), more than 70 stages, 18 criteriums and 30 general classifications. By her 27th birthday, on this day in 2014, her total number of victories in road racing, cyclo cross, track and mountain biking added up to 307. Merckx clocked up 525 by the time he retired shortly before his 33rd birthday: the great Belgian has been asked for his thoughts on her by several journalists and makes it clear that he admires her enormously, perhaps even expecting her to beat his tally sooner or later.

Vos is also known for being one of the most personable professional cyclists around. Highly intelligent and articulate, she regularly talks to fans on Twitter and is as popular among the riders who race against her as she is with her supporters. If you don't already follow women's cycling, Vos is one of many reasons to start doing so - all indications suggest that we have not seen her like in professional cycling before, one who is limited not by her own abilities but by the number of races available to her.

Johnny Hoogerland 

Johnny Hoogerland
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet
CC BY-SA 3.0)

Born in Yerseke, Netherlands on this day in 1983, Johnny Hoogerland became one of the stars of the 2011 Tour de France for his repeated attacks, five days in the polka dot jersey as leader of the King of the Mountains classification and a horrific crash that could very easily have ended his career.

Nicknamed The Bull of Beveland due to a large tattoo depicting a bull on his arm, Hoogerland came to international attention when he won the Junior Tour of Flanders in 2001 and then followed it up with numerous wins over the next few years, including the tough GP Briek Schotte - a race designed to reveal those riders who can be aid to be Flandriens, the toughest cyclists of them all, of which Schotte is considered to be the definitive example.

Hoogerland - a Flandrien to the core
(unknown copyright, believed public domain due to widespread use)

It was at the 2011 Tour that Hoogerland proved just how tough he is. During Stage 9, as he cycled alongside Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha, an inattentive driver in France Télévisions official car realised he was about to hit a tree. Rather than slamming on the car's brakes - as all drivers at the Tour are trained to do - he swerved right, hitting the two riders. Flecha hit the road hard and received extensive bruising, but Hoogerland was catapulted into a barbed wire fence hard enough to smash a wooden fence post and become entangled in the wire, which tore his shorts to shreds and left him with deep lacerations to his buttocks and legs.

Both men got back on their bikes and finished the stage. Organisers extended the maximum permitted time so that they could do without being disqualified, then jointly awarded them what must have been the most-deserved Combativity Award for many years. Afterwards, Hoogerland was given 33 stitches.

Peter Longbottom
Peter Longbottom, born in Huddersfield on this day in 1959, was one of those cyclists whom were there any justice in this world would have been a household name. Respected among cyclists for his superb tactical mind, he was for many years in high demand among Tour of Britain teams for his ability to re-organise a team "on the road" according to rider performance, terrain, weather, opponents and a host of variable factors; frequently getting it correct and driving his team mates on to victory even when aware that he himself could not win. His skills saw him ride with Chris Boardman, assisting him at the Commonwealth Games, yet he chose never to turn professional and worked a full-time job even during the racing season.

Longbottom retired from competition in 1996 and spent the remaining two years of his life encouraging young people to take up the sport. On the 10th of February 1998, he was hit by a car on the A64 near York, the impact throwing him onto the opposite carriageway where eye-witnesses say he was hit by several vehicles


Gerrit de Vries, born in Oldeberkoop, Netherlands on this day in 1967 (and, so far as we can tell, no relation to Marijn de Vries of AA Drink-Leontien.nl) shared victory in the 1986 Amateur World Team Time Trial Championship. A a professional rider he took part in six editions of the Tour de France, his best result being 34th overall in 1991.

Eugène Van Roosbroeck was born in Antwerp on this day in 1928. At the time of writing, he is the oldest of the three surviving members of the gold medal-winning road race team at the 1948 Olympics.

Nino Schurter, born in Tersnaus, Switzerland on this day in 1986, was World Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion in 2009.

Other cyclists born on this day: David López García (Euskadi, 1981); Tony Gowland (Great Britain, 1965); Fitzgerald Joseph (Belize, 1967); Morten Sæther (Norway, 1959); Marc Blouin (Canada, 1953); Josef Landsberg (Sweden, 1890, died 1964); Domenico Cecchetti (San Marino, 1941); Eugène Van Roosbroeck (Belgium, 1928); Pavel Cherkasov (USSR, 1972); Edoardo Severgnini (Italy, 1904, died 1969); Thomas Harrison (Australia, 1942); Mark Barry (Great Britain, 1964).

Daily Cycling Facts 05.04.2014

Gaston Rebry

Paris-Roubaix was held on this day in 1931 when it was won by Gaston Rebry. He would again in 1934 and 1935, becoming the first man to win three editions of the race since Octave Lapize in 1911.

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1936, 1964, 1970, 1981, 1987, 1992, 1998 and 2009. The 1936 edition was won by the Belgian Louis Hardiquest who took 7h30' to cover the course before beating Edgard De Caluwé, François Neuville and Cyriel Van Overberghe - all Belgians, as were the rest of the top ten - in a final sprint. For the first time that year, an amateur's race was run parallel to the main event - the winner was W.T Jolijn.

Rudi Altig became the first German winner in 1964 after battling against strong headwinds along the coastal sections to escape a powerful group of riders that included Rik van Looy who won in 1959 and 1962, Tuur Decabooter who won in 1960 and Jo de Roo who would win a year later in 1965; building up a 4'05" lead by the time he crossed the finish line.

Eric Leman won in 1970, the first of his record-equaling three victories (he was the third man to win three in the history of the race). Perhaps even more impressive are the riders he beat - 2nd place went to Walter Godefroot and 3rd to Eddy Merckx. Out of 173 starters, only 37 finished. In 1981, the year the race began to be held on the 14th Sunday of the year so as to always fall one week before Paris-Roubaix. The winner was Hennie Kuiper, followed by Frits Pirard in 2nd and Jan Raas in third, making it the only year in which Dutch riders took all three steps of the podium.

Skibby, inches away from being run over
(image credit: Cadenced)

Claude Criquielion won in 1987, but that race will forever be remembered as the one in which Danish rider Jesper Skibby nearly got run over by the race director's car on the Koppenberg. With an advantage of almost two minutes, he had fallen on the notoriously slippery cobbles right in front of the vehicle but, with the peloton fast approaching, the car needed to get by - the driver misjudged the width of the narrow road and, just missing the rider who was still lying in the road, drove right over his back wheel. The climb was subsequently deemed too dangerous even for this race and was taken out, not to return until 2004.

Jacky Durand was victorious in 1992, the first Frenchman to win the race since Jean Forestier in 1956. Durand was famous for his (often) suicidal breaks, which inspired Vélo magazine to publish a monthly Jackyometer keeping check of how much time he spent riding ahead of the pelton - this race was no different, and he broke away with Thomas Wegmüller with 217km still to go. Often, breaks like this fail because it takes less effort to ride in a peloton that it does alone or in a small group and the riders will tire quicker, but when it works the results are spectacular. On this occasion, it worked: Wegmüller used up his reserves and was unable to remain with the Frenchman as he sprinted to the finish and crossed the line alone. Some years later, he was stopped for speeding. The gendarme walked up to the window of his car, looked inside, and was speechless for a few moments. "You won Flanders in 1992," he told the rider, then let let him go.

Ina-Yoko Teutenberg
(image credit: GSL2.0 CC BY-SA 3.0)

1998 brought Johan Museeuw's record-equaling third win - it took Museeuw's protégé Tom Boonen would be next to manage three with his win in 2012; Stijn Devolder won twice, his second coming on this day in 2009, when the complete race was shown live on television for the first time

The winner of the Ronde van Vlaanderen voor Vrouwen in 2009 was Germany's Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, a year after her HTC-Highroad team mate Judith Arndt had won. The women's race was not televised.

Albert Champion
In the early day of the race, many races were motorpaced with riders utilising the slipstream provided my small motorcycles that would travel just ahead of them as is still seen in modern day derny races such as keirin. This would sometimes allow riders known primarily for track racing - as they would be more used to trailing the derny - to gain an upper hand over riders with more road racing experience; as proved to be the case in 1899 when Albert Champion managed to build a sufficient lead early in the event to maintain his advantage even as he lost time to his opponents on the cobbles. Only Émile Bohours could get anywhere near him and may have caught him, coming within 30 seconds before his own motorpacer hit a spectator. He slowed considerably later on in the race as he became hungry, but by this time he was so far ahead of closest rivals Paul Bor and Ambroise Garin that he crossed the line some 23 minutes ahead of them. Despite the surprise, the win was not considered a great victory - one year previously Maurice Garin (Ambroise's brother and, in five years' time, the winner of the first Tour de France) had won the event with a time ten minutes' quicker than Champion, despite much worse weather.

Champion signing on at the start of the 1899 Paris-Roubaix

Shortly after winning Paris-Roubaix, Champion emigrated to the USA in order to avoid being drafted into the French Army. He continued racing on American tracks, competing against the great names of the day such as Choppy Warburton's star rider, the Welshman Jimmy Michael. He earned enough money to purchase a racing car and switched sports. A high-speed crash, which required a stay in hospital of several months, left him one leg shorter than the other. Thinking this would mean the end of his racing career, he wisely used some of the proceeds from his success in a factory producing magnetos and spark plugs. The yearning for speed and competition had not left him, however - using a bike fitted with cranks of differing length on either side, he returned to cycling and became French Motorpaced Champion at Henri Desgrange's Parc des Princes velodrome on the 25th of November 1904. The race proved so strenuous that it caused the scar left by his motor-racing injury to reopen and he once again required surgery - as he lay in a hospital bed, he saw a rider named Charles Albert Brécy being brought in with terrible injuries after he'd crashed at 90kph during the same event. Brécy would die as a result of his injuries, which convinced Champion to draw his own career to a close.


By this time, Champion's factory was performing well and the company expanded into the American market, establishing the Champion Spark Plug Factory in Boston. After an argument with the American team providing financial backing in 1908, Champion simply walked out and set up a new company named the Champion Ignition Company in Flint, Michigan - the fact that he shared office space with Buick no doubt probing highly advantageous. Champion Spark Plugs were not happy about the new factory's name and began legal proceedings, causing Champion to rename the company The AC Spark Plug Company. Both are still with us - Champion Spark Plugs is now part of the Federal-Mogul stable which continues to market spark plugs under the Champion brand and AC Spark Plugs is now ACDelco. He said that one of his proudest moments was when he was told that the Spirit of St. Louis, the aeroplane in which Charles Lindbergh completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight by a heavier-than-air craft in 1927.

Champion in later life

Champion had been married before he first emigrated back at the turn of the century, but it appears they either divorced or his wife remained in France and presumably for a way for the marriage to be annulled on grounds of desertion. In 1922 he married a showgirl who, as he was now 44, is likely to have been many years his junior. Five years later on the 26th of October 1927, she proved too much for him and he suffered a fatal heart attack as he escorted her onto the dance floor at the Hôtel Meurice by the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. He was 49 years old and left a sum equivalent to US$15 million - an almost unimaginably vast fortune at the time.


Per Pedersen
Per Pedersen, who was born in Vestervig, Sweden on this day in 1964, turned professional with RMO-Meral in 1986 and remained with the team for five seasons during which he achieved some good results including 7th in Stage 13 at the Tour de France in 1989, 1st in Stage 7b at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya a year later, 1st in Stage 2 at the Vuelta Ciclista a la Communidad Valenciana in 1991 and 1st in Stage 6 at the Volta ao Algarve in 1993.

Pedersen rode in four Tours de France (1989, 1991, 1992 and 1993) but was never able to come even close to his Stage 13 result in 1989; so he did what so many riders of the day did when they found the top results they so desired just out of reach and turned to performance-enhancing drugs. He admitted in 2006 that he had used doping subsequently banned from competition, telling the press that "it involved cortisone." After retiring at the end of 1993, he was employed briefly as a directeur sportif at Team CSC. He now runs a bike shop near Herning, birthplace of CSC (now Saxo Bank-Sungard) general manager, 1996 Tour de France victor and self-confessed ex-doper Bjarne Riis.

Tournant (on the bike), 2008
(image credit: Jejecam CC BY-SA 3.0)

Arnaud Tournant, born in Roubaix on this day in 1978, is a French track cyclist who became the first rider to complete the Kilo in under a minute in 2003 at La Paz in Bolivia, recording a time of 58.875 seconds. Tournant spent the entirety of his 12 professional years with Cofidis and won fourteen World Championships, also taking gold, silver and bronze Olympic medals. In retirement, he remained with the team and became directeur sportif of the track squad.

Anouska van der Zee, born in Utrecht on this day in 1976, won numerous podium finishes on both track and road over her eight-year career and won Stage 3 at the 2003 Holland Ladies' Tour. She competed in the Road Race at the Olympics of 2004, but didn't finish and retired shortly afterwards.

Kristof Vandewalle, born in Kortrijk, Belgiumon this day in 1985, won Stages 1 and 2 and the overall General Classification at the 2003 Tour de l'Avenir, then won Stage 3 at the same race a year later. His best results since have been at the 2010 Grosser Preis des Kantons Aargau semi-Classic, which he won, and 2nd place in Stage 18 at the 2011 Vuelta a Espana. In 2012, he will continued to ride with Quick Step following its merger with Omega Pharma-Lotto, and was with the team when it won the World Team Time Trial Championship in both years. For 2014 he has switched to Trek Factory Racing.

Willy Planckaert, born in Nevele on this day in 1944, enjoyed considerable success during the 1960s and 1970s when he won Stage 4, 7 and the Points competition at the 1966 Tour de France; Stages 5, 9 and 22b at the 1967 Giro d'Italia and the Dwars door Vlaanderen in 1973, along with numerous victories in other prestigious races. His younger brother Eddy (born 1958) would also win the Tour's Points competition 22 years later in 1988 and middle brother Walter won the Tour of Flanders in 1976 and two Dwars door Vlaanderen (1977 and 1984). His son Jo also became a professional cyclist and finished the 1997 Paris-Roubaix in 2nd place.

Laima Zilporytė, born in Mediniai, USSR on this day in 1967, represented her nation at the 1988 Olympics and won bronze in the Road Race; having been out-sprinted by Dutch Monique Knol and German Jutta Niehaus to gold and silver.

Rafał Ratajczyk, born in Żyrardów on this day in 1983, is a Polish track cyclist who became European Under-23 Points Race Champion in 2004 and won the National Under-23 Individual Time Trial Championship on road in 2005. In 2009 he was suspended from competition for a period of six months by the Polish federation after he tested positive for the banned sympathomimetic amine stimulant ephidrine. In 2011, he won the European Elite Point Race Championship at Apeldoorn.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jeong Yeong-Hun (South Korea, 1973); Henry O'Brien, Jr. (USA, 1910, died 1973); René Brossy (France, 1907); Masazumi Tajima (Japan, 1933); Norbert Sinner (Luxembourg, 1907, died 1945); Vadim Kravchenko (Kazakhstan, 1969); Vlado Fumić (Yugoslavia, 1956); Charles Pile (Barbados, 1956); Josef Schraner (Switzerland, 1929); Pierre Nihant (Belgium, 1925, died 1993); Aleksandar Strain (Yugoslavia, 1919, died 1997); Yngve Lundh (Sweden, 1924); Merlyn Dawson (Belize, 1960).

Daily Cycling Facts 04.04.2014

The legendary Paris-Roubaix race fell on this day in 1926 and 1948. The 1926 winner was Julien Delbecque, a now almost-forgotten Belgian rider born in Harelbeke on the 22nd of October 1903 and whom had won the Tour of Flanders one year previously. In 1948 it was won by Rik Van Steenbergen, whose 24-year professional career earned him a place among the ranks of Belgium's all-time greatest riders.

The Ronde van Vlaanderen was held on this day in 1953, 1954, 1971, 1976, 1982, 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2010. The 1953 edition was won by Wim van Est who - rather remarkably, considering the close links between Flanders and Netherlands and his nation's love of cycling - was the first Dutch rider to win. Two years earlier, he had also been the first Dutchman to wear the yellow jersey of the Tour de France (for more about that - and how he fell into a ravine while wearing it - see the entry for the 25th of March). Raymond Impanis won both the Ronde and Paris-Roubaix a year later on 1954, one of the few men to have won the hardest one-day races in a single season.

1971 was won by Evert Dolman after a hard race in which Eddy Merckx tried - and, unsually, failed - to take the victory; working hard to break up a peloton that stuck together and resisted his efforts all the way to the end. Dolman proved fastest to the finish line and finished in 6h12' - his advantage over the following nine riders, who all received the same time, a mere two seconds. Merckx, meanwhile, was 74th.

Koppenberg - one of the hardest sections of any race
(image credit: Mick Knapton CC BY-SA 3.0) 

1976 was won by Walter Planckaert, but all events in the race were overshadowed by the first appearance of the Koppenberg - a climb which, though rising just 64m to 77m above sea level, is discussed by cyclists in the same reverential, respectful tones at Angliru, Mortirolo and Ventoux because of its maximum gradient of 25% (the majority of the rest hovers around 22%). As if the slope isn't bad enough, the climb is made even more difficult by the cobbles that give it its name (because they're the size of children's skulls - kinderkoppen) and make it virtually unridable even when dry. When it rains, most rider will have to push their bikes up, and even then several will slip and painfully smash their knees. In fact, as Koppenberg has usually come around 180km from the finish, being the first to the top has offered no tactical advantage - any lead gained there can be lost later in the race relatively easily. However, it's so difficult that getting up faster than anyone else is seen as a victory in its own right, a glorious achievement. In 2012, the route will be changed to that the climb is 60km from the end - close enough to be strategically important. This new layer of competition will make what is already a legendarily difficult race even harder.

1982 was won by René Martens, who had also won Stage 9 at the Tour de France a year earlier. It was another hard race with only 51 of 212 starters finishing. 1993 brought a first victory for the legendary Johan Museeuw, who would become the fourth rider to win three times five years later and is rated as perhaps the best Classics specialist of the last two decades. 1999 was won by Peter van Petegem, who would win again four years later and then Paris-Roubaix, becoming the first man to have won both races in a single year since Roger de Vlaeminck did so in 1977.

Zulfiya Zabirova, winner of the first Ronde van Vlaanderen
voor Vrouwen in 2004
(image credit: James F. Perry CC BY-SA 3.0)

Steffen Wesemann won in 2004 - at the time, he was German and as such is the second rider from Germany to have won (Rudi Altig was the first, in 1964) but he took adopted Swiss nationality one year later and is sometimes erroneously credited as being the second Swiss rider to win.

2004 was especially notable as it saw the advent of the Ronde van Vlaanderen voor Vrouwen, the race for women, which follows part of the men's route, climbs some of the same hills and - since the first race - has constituted a round of the Women's World Cup. The winner that year was Zulfiya Zabirova.

Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2010
(image credit: Paul Hermans CC BY-SA 3.0)

The first Swiss winner was Heiri Suter in 1923, the second was Fabian Cancellara, almost nine decades later in 2010. He had stated earlier in the year that the race was one of his primary objectives for the year, but faced stiff competition from the Classics specialist Tom Boonen and the two men battled it out after escaping the peloton on the Molenberg but, in the end, the Belgian was unable to respond to his rival's legendary turn of speed which allowed him to sprint away on Muur-Kapelmuur and build a big lead. Keeping up the pace for the remainder of the parcours, Cancellara won by 1'14" - and one week later, repeated Suter's achievement of winning the  Ronde and Paris-Roubaix in the same year. Roger Hammond, who took 7th place some 2'34" behind the winner, put in the best performance by a male British rider for many years (see the 8th of April for why it wasn't he best performance by "a British rider").

The Ronde van Vlaanderen voor Vrouwen was won in 2010 by Grace Verbeke, who had won the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad  a week earlier and would also win La Flèche Wallonne a few weeks later - and, as such, proved herself to be one of the finest Classics riders in cycling's history.




Emile Daems - winner of the 1963 Paris-Roubaix, Stages 9a and 19 at the 1960 Giro d'Italia, Stage 3 at the 1961 Tour de France and Stages 5, 16, 18 and 2nd place in the Points competition at the 1962 Tour - was born on this day in 1938.


Marco Giovannetti

Marco Giovannetti
(licence unknown)

Marco Giovannetti, who was born in Milan on this day in 1962, won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics before turning professional and winning the Youth Category at the 1986 Giro d'Italia, coming 8th overall. The next year, he won Stage 6 and 4th overall at the Tour de Suisse, a race that - like the Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de l'Avenir - has frequently offered those who pay attention hints revealing those young riders who have the potential to achieve future greatness in the Grand Tours; as was confirmed by his improved 6th place Giro result  that same year.

In 1989, having moved to the Seur team, he was 8th again in the Giro and then 26th in the Vuelta a Espana, thus proving himself capable of riding two Grand Tours in a season, then in 1990 he was 3rd in the Giro and won the Vuelta; the fourth Italian to have done so in the history of the race and earning his victory with a perfectly-orchestrated attack on the Las Palomas mountains in Stage 6 which, though he was only 5th over the finish line, devastated his opponents and moved him into 2nd place overall - precisely where he needed to be to start whittling away at Pedro Delgado's lead. The next year, he was 8th in the Giro, 30th in the Tour de France and 18th in the Vuelta - the lack of podium finishes more than compensated by becoming one of only 31 riders to have ridden all three Grand Tours in a single year - that only two riders (Raphaël Geminiani in 1955 and Gastone Nencini two years later) have achieved top ten finishes in the Tours in a year is evidence of how difficult merely completing all three is.

Giovannetti won his National Championship in 1992 and finished the Giro in 4th place overall after winning Stage 17. His career began to tail off afterwards, with 1993 bringing a string of 2nd and 3rd place finishes in numerous races but no victories and he retired in 1994.

Briek Schotte
(image credit: Retrosport)

Alberic Schotte
Alberic "Iron Briek" Schotte, who was born in Kanegem, Flanders on the 7th of September 1919 and died in Kortrijk on this day in 2004, enjoyed a career in cycling that spanned almost five decades with 20 years as a cyclist followed by very successful team management.

Beginning his professional life with Mercier-Hutchinson in 1939, Briek won one-day races and the Tour de l'Ouest in his first season and then continued racking up victories throughout the Second World War. With the conflict over - and races that had been suspended during the war being run again - he started to win prestigious events such as Paris-Brussels and the Tour de Luembourg in 1946, then Paris-Tours in 1947. That year, he also won Stage 21 at the Tour de France.

Briek finished in 2nd place at the 1948 Tour de France, a 4,922km epic that saw the first live television broadcast of the race. Schotte battled against riders such as Louison Bobet, Guy Lapébie and a selection of the strongest riders of all time; some in the twilight of their careers and some on the cusp of domination, but all very capable of riding hard. Among them was Gino Bartali, who was riding not just for glory but to prevent Italy descending into civil war: in the end, Schotte could not beat the legendary Il Pio - but 2nd place behind Bartali is an achievement of which any rider (with the possible exception of Fausto Coppi) could justifiably feel proud. He also won the Ronde van Vlaandaren and the World Road Race that year, making it the best of his career.

He would win a second World Championship title in 1950, also crossing the line first at Gent-Wevelgem, then won another Paris-Brussels a year later and the Tour of Flanders in 1953; and would win the latter two races again in 1955 and added numerous triumphs in other races before retiring in 1959. Schotte died on this day in 2004 - the same day the Ronde van Vlaandaren was being held.

Juli Furtado

Juli Furtado
(image credit: Autokton World)

Juliana "Juli" Furtado (born in New York on this day in 1967), like many cyclists, came to the sport via another having taken up cycling as a means of maintaining her fitness during the off-season when she was a professional skier (she was the youngest member on the USA National Skiing Team between 1980 and 1987). After an injury forced her to temporarily give up skiing, she started riding more - and never looked back.

In 1989, Furtado announced her arrival on the cycling scene in memorable style by winning the National Road Race Championship, then followed it up by becoming World Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion a year later. After spending 1991 winning numerous cross country races, she had a go at the World Down Hill Championship in 1992 - and won that, too. Concentrating on mountain biking and developing further the extraordinary endurance and peak heart rate skiing had left her with, she won 22 races between 1993 and 1996, becoming one of the most successful mountain bikers of either gender in the history of the sport with four consecutive NORBA titles between 1991 and 1994).

Towards the end of 1996, Furtado's results began to tail off. Beginning to suffer from fatigue, she consulted a doctor and was diagnosed with Lyme Disease - an infection spread by ticks from which, especially if detected early, patients can recover; though doing so may take many years (and may suffer life-long effects or in rare cases die). However, the disease had been misdiagnosed and further investigation revealed that she was in fact suffering systemic lupus, an incurable autoimmune condition that ended her career.

Thomas Löfqvist
(image credit: Haggisni CC BY 3.0)

Thomas Löfkvist
Thomas Löfkvist (sometimes spelled Lövkvist, including by Löfkvist himself, although since 2010 he's settled on the official Swedish spelling Löfkvist) is a Swedish professional cyclist who was born in Visby on this day in 1984. In 2001, he won a National Junior Mountain Bike title, two National Junior Individual Time Trial Championship (individual and team classes) and the National Junior Team Time Trial (with Henrik Gustavsson and Per-Erik Johansson). One year later, having retained those titles, he won two more National titles, added a European Junior Cross Country Mountain Bike Champion title and came 2nd in the Juniors General Classification at the Niedersachsen Rundfahrt.

It goes without saying that he didn't have to wait long for a professional contract, signing up to Bianchi Scandinavia for 2003 and winning nine races - including more National Championships - with them. The following year he joined FDJeux, remaining with the team after the La Française des Jeux rename in 2005 and through to the end of the 2007 season, then swapped to Highroad and stayed with them for three seasons as they became Team Columbia until 2010 when he signed to the new British-based Team Sky.

Löfkvist's major wins started in 2004 when he won the National Individual Time Trial Championship at Elite level. The same year, he won the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe and took 2nd place in the General Classification at the Tour de l'Avenir, a race that often reveals young riders destined to become future greats. 2005 passed without victory as he concentrated on his first Tour de France, then he rode with the winning team in the National Time Trial Championship and took his first National Elite Road Race title a year later in addition to riding a second Tour in 2007. He formed part of the winning time trial team at the Nationals in 2007, also riding another Tour and his first Vuelta a Espana where he achieved his best Grand Tour result so far with 54th overall, his 2nd place finish in Stage 14 the best performance by a Swedish rider for a quarter of a century since Sven-Ake Nilsson won Stage 10 and finished 3rd in the overall General Classification in 1982.

Löfqvist in 2008
(image credit: Leptictidium CC BY-SA 2.0)

He was 41st overall at the Tour one year later, also winning the Points competition at the Tour of Germany, then came 3rd in Stage 5 at the 2009 Giro d'Italia, his first time at the race, and shared victory for the Stage 1 Team Time Trial alongside illustrious names such as Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw. 2010 brought his best Grand Tour result to date with 17th overall at the Tour de France - since that result made him the best-placed Team Sky rider, he led Sky in the Vuelta that year before the team abandoned the race after Stage 7 following the death of soigneur Txema González. In 2011 he led Sky at the Giro and came 21st overall, later finishing the Vuelta 52nd overall. His best result in 2012 was 8th at the Critérium International, though he also managed some decent stage finishes and 17th overall at the Tour de Suisse before moving to the Swiss IAM team at the end of the season. With them, he won the Tour Méditerranéen early in 2013.


Today is the most likely date of the death of Jobie Dajka, an Australian track cyclist whose body was found by police at his home on the 7th of April 2009. Dajka had been implicated in a doping scandal but cleared; however, he was found to have lied when giving evidence (a charge he always denied). As a result, he was banned from competition for two years. The ban led to depression and he began drinking heavily, which in turn led to an assault on the Australian team coach and the vandalism of his parents' home and he was subsequently placed under a restraining order and banned for another three years. He obeyed the order and sought treatment, gradually regaining his health in time for the end of the two-year ban; the three-year ban being ended early due to the efforts he had made to get his life back on track shortly before his death aged 27. No cause has ever been found, but investigation ruled out suspicious circumstances.

René Wolff, born in Erfurt on this day in 1978, won a gold medal for Germany in the Team Sprint at the 2004 Olympics. In 2010, he became coach to the Dutch National Track team.

Jon Mould is a Welsh track cyclist born in Newport on this day in 1991. He won the National Team Pursuit Championship with James Boyman, Christopher Richardson and Joel Stewart in 2008, the European and National Madison Championships in 2009 (the former with Chris Whorral, the latter with Mark Christian) and the National Derny Championships the same year. Mould represented Wales at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India.

Rémi Pauriol, born in Aix-en-Provence on this day in 1982, won the Mountains Classifications at both the Tour Méditerranéen and Paris-Nice in 2011.

The Restaurant, Maurice de Vlaminck

Maurice de Vlaminck, son of a Flemmish father and a French mother, is considered alongside Henri Matisse and André Derain (he shared a studio and produced a series of pornographic novels with the latter) to have been one of the most important artists of the Fauvism movement. According to the Gale Encyclopedia of Biography, he moved to Chatou when he was 16 (1892/3) and earned a living as a violinist and by racing bikes.

Other cyclists born on this day: Zhang Lei (China, 1981); Erik Pettersson (Sweden, 1944); Leontien van der Lienden (Netherlands, 1959); Willy Falck Hansen (Denmark, 1906, died 1978); Doug Peace (Canada, 1919); Van Son (Cambodia, 1934); Yemane Negassi (Ethiopia, 1946); Óscar Pineda (Guatemala, 1977); Patrick Matt (Liechtenstein, 1969); Robert Charpentier (France, 1916, died 1966); Raúl Halket (Argentina, 1951); László Morcz (Hungary, 1956); Wakako Abe (Japan, 1966); Kjell Nilsson (Sweden, 1962); Jens Sørensen (Denmark, 1941).