Daily Cycling Facts 20.06.2014

Stage 10, 1926 - Bottecchia, who will not finish the stage,
struggles through difficult conditions on Izoard

On this day in 1926, 126 riders set off from Evian on the first stage of the 20th Tour de France. For the second time in its history, the race didn't start in Paris, and it had been reduced to 17 stages from 18 in 1925 - however, it was most definitely not easier. For a start, riders would face the Alps twice, on the way out and the way back in and again, and Henri Desgrange (who believed that the ideal Tour would be one in which only one rider finished) hadn't cut a stage for their benefit - he did it to increase the average stage length. What's more, the parcours followed the nations borders more closely than ever before or since; making this the longest Tour in history at 5,745km (for comparison, the 2012 edition was 3,497km).

Automoto's Ottavio Bottecchia was most fans' favourite as he'd won in 1924 and 1925, but many others fancied Alcyon's Adelin Benoit who had surprised everyone with a stage win and five days in the maillot jaune in 1925. A classic battle was expected, but as tends to be the way in the Tour de France it turned out far better than anyone had hoped. Right from the first stage unexpected things happened, beginning with a perfect solo break by Jules Buysse (brother of Marcel, who won six stages in 1913, and Lucien, who had finished in second place overall in 1925) that saw him win the stage with an advantage of thirteen minutes. Stage 2 ended with a bunch sprint won by little-known Belgian rider Aimé Dossche, who had picked up his first professional contract with Automoto at the the start of the year but seems to have switched to Christophe (which, like Automoto, was co-sponsored by Hutchinson at that time) before the Tour; so the GC remained virtually unchanged. Then in Stage 3 Gustaaf van Slembrouck managed to grab a lead that kept him in the maillot jaune for six days.

During Stage 3, Lucien Buysse received news that his infant daughter had died but, after thinking things over, decided to honour his family's request that he continue and try to win a stage that could be dedicated to the memory. Stage 4 was perhaps too soon and went to Félix Sellier instead; Stage 5 to Adelin Benoit. Another little-known Belgian named Joseph van Daam won Stage 6 after judges declared that Sellier had broken race regulations (van Daam would win two more later on, so he was much more famous when the race ended), then Nicolas Frantz won Stage 7; since Frantz had finished fourth in 1925 and showed enormous promise, instantly made him a favourite too (he's have to wait another year for the first of his two overall victories, however). Van Daam won Stage 8, this time on his own merit, then Frantz took Stage 9. The race had truly begun now, with a new challenger making things difficult for Bottecchia and Benoit.

One of the Tour's more inexplicably iconic images: a cow watches Jules Buysse

Desgrange, ever since he'd been convinced that it was possible to ride the high mountains and that the riders wouldn't be eaten by bears (something that, perhaps unfortunately in the eyes of some fans, has yet to happen in the Tour) and that in fact the public enjoyed the race more when it was an heroic spectacle, was always on the look-out for ways to make his race more difficult. Stage 10, however, went far beyond anything from previous years - and, say the ever-dwindling number of people who were there to see it, since. In terms of distance, it wasn't the longest stage that year - ten stages were longer, the longest 433km - but its 326km took the riders over some of the toughest roads in France, and they set out at midnight to be in with a chance of finishing by the following afternoon. Matters were not improved by a storm on the Col d'Aspin, but the Buysse brothers were made of stern stuff: while the rest of the peloton survived, they attacked hard and Lucien won after riding for seventeen hours. He had taken the maillot jaune, but better still he could dedicate the hardest stage in the history of the Tour to the memory of his daughter.

By 18:00, only ten men had arrived at the finish line and Desgrange was becoming concerned, perhaps worried that bears did have a taste for cyclists after all. He sent race organisers out in cars to search of the missing men and before long some had been located, in various states of exhaustion, strung out along the route. A full 24 hours after the stage had begun, 47 of the 76 starters had crossed the line, at which point it was decided that all riders would be permitted an extra 40% of the winning time (6 hours and 48 minutes) in which to finish as the standard cut-off time in which all riders must finish in order to escape disqualification would leave a field so depleted it would reduce competition and make for a boring race. The remaining 22 were disqualified. Incredibly, despite the harsh stage, only one rider abandoned: Bottecchia. The stage had been so difficult that judges had turned a blind eye when some of the riders had arrived at the end of the stage by bus and when a member of the public confessed that he had carried some riders to the finish line in his car but insisted they'd been in such a poor state he had done so through altruism rather than being offered money, officials declined to disqualify the riders - and paid the man for helping them.

Buysse leads over the Tourmalet, Stage 11

When Buysse won Stage 11 two days later, he gained a lead of more than an hour over his nearest rival. From now on, he was able to stay tucked safely away in the peloton, conserving his energy and simply making sure that he finished (which didn't prevent him winning the meilleur grimpeur, a prize for the best climber from the days before the King of the Mountains competition). Frantz won two more stages once the race returned to the flatlands, but he didn't have a hope of getting anywhere near the leader now and had to be content with second place. As they crossed the finish line in Paris behind stage winner Dossche, the gap between them was 1h22'25" (Buysse's overall time was 238h44'25" - around two-and-three-quarter times as long as Cadel Evan's 2011 winning time); a far greater memorial to his daughter than a stage win.

Another rider who experienced extraordinarily bad luck in 1926 was the Marcel Bidot, riding his first Tour that year. Misfortune first struck him on the second stage, between Mulhausen and Metz, when the axle of his pedal sheared through. It was, of course, forbidden for a rider to receive any sort of help in those days and a rider was expected to finish on the bike he'd started on unless a race official declared the machine to be ruined - since Bidot's bike still worked, he was not given permission to continue on a replacement. For a while, he tried to ride on, but soon realised he was losing so much time due to only being able to pedal through half of each revolution of the cranks that he'd soon be out of contention. He managed to bodge a repair using a leather toe strap to hold the pedal in place, but it soon fell off again. Eventually, an official showed some mercy and allowed the rider to borrow a bike offered by a spectator, but for some reason of his own demanded that Bidot's wheels be fitted to the spectator's bike. The new machine was much to small, but at least Bidot could continue; he arrived at the finish completely exhausted but still in the race.

Derailleur gears had been around for some years by 1926, but were considered too unreliable to be used in a professional race (and were banned in the Tour because Desgrange believed they'd make things too easy for the riders); instead, bikes had rear wheels fitted with two cogs - a smaller one on one side and a larger one for climbing on the other, allowing gear changes to be carried out by unbolting the wheel, flipping it over and then bolting it back in place, with horizontal drop-outs allowing chain slack to be taken up. Later in the race, on Tourmalet in Stage 10, Bidot's 25-tooth climbing freewheel disintegrated. Once again, he was not permitted a replacement bike; he climbed the 1,489m Col d'Aspin and the 1,569m Col du Peyresourde with the 22-tooth freewheel he'd intended to use on the flat sections and descents. With his 43-tooth chainring, it would have been agonising even without the atrocious weather. As we've seen, only 47 riders had finished the stage by midnight. When the weather got even worse, with the wind turning gale-force and the freezing rain pelting down, Bidot considered abandoning the race; but he did not. He reached the finish line one-and-a-half hours after stage winner Buysse. Henri Desgrange, either unaware of the ordeal Bidot had endured or, as was sometimes the case with him, out of simple dislike for the rider, rounded on him: "Bidot does not know how to suffer," he thundered in his L'Auto editorial the next day. "He will not finish the Tour!"

Remarkably, Bidot didn't tell him where to stick his race and continued - not just riding the race, but trying to ensure he still received a respectable time by using clever tactics. That irritated Desgrange, who felt that a race should be won by heroic, Corinthian athleticism rather than by being clever; once again, he attacked the rider in his newspaper, claiming that Bidot was making the Tour boring by marking all the attacks, controlling the pace at the front of the pack and generally doing everything that a modern-day rider hoping to win a Tour would do. "Bidot can ride any race he chooses next year between the 19th of June and the 19th of July - except the Tour de France," he wrote.

Bidot would face even more bad luck - on the Izoard, in the unearthly Casse Deserte, a sharp shard of stone pierced his tyre. It goes without saying that, either because the Fates were treating him cruelly or because Desgrange was and had made sure the rider wasn't going to get away with anything - there was an official on hand to make sure he didn't have any help in repairing it. The weather, again, was atrocious; Bidot's hands were so numb with the cold that he tried to use his teeth to peel the tubular tyre away from the rim. The Alcyon team car drove by and its driver, a man named Meunier, tried to surreptitiously toss Bidot a penknife, but the official spotted it: "I forbid you to pick it up," he ordered. Finally, he managed to prise the tyre off the rim using a wingnut, which were used to fasten the rear wheel in place to make gear changes easier, but he'd again lost significant time.

In the end, through a combination of what was, despite Desgrange's mistaken belief, an enormous capacity for suffering and more intelligent racing, Bidot finished tenth overall, 2 hours, 53 minutes and 54 seconds behind Buysse - an incredible achievement considering all he'd been through. It is one of the most remarkable tales of perseverance, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness, both the good and bad types, in the history of the Tour.

Fortunately, Desgrange did eventually relent and allowed Bidot to enter the race again - in 1928 he won Stage 5 and was eight overall; in 1929, when he was National Road Race Champion, he won Stage 12 and was sixteenth overall. His prize money, totaling nearly 52,000 francs, was enough to buy a comfortable home, and he lived to be 92 years old.

For the first time, not one single stage had been won by a Frenchman (this wouldn't happen again until 1999). Desgrange, who wanted the race to be a spectacle of every-man-for-himself heroism, was not happy with several teams, accusing them as he had Bidot of using tactics in an effort to survive the superhuman distances, and as a result, all but three of the flat stages in 1927 were run as team time trials. Buysse said that he would win again in 1927, but Automoto experienced financial difficulties and, as his best years were gone by the time they could afford to send a team back to the Tour, 1926 was his only victory. Bottecchia decided to retire following his problems on Stage 10. One year later he was dead, possibly due to murder at the hands of Italian Fascists.


Fabian Wegmann

Fabian Wegmann

Fabian Wegmann, born in Münster on this day in 1980, turned professional with Gerolsteiner in 2002 and remained with them until the end of 2008 (older brother Christian, once a professional rider himself, joined the team's management in 2006). In 2009 he followed general manager Christian Henn to Milram, staying there for two seasons until he received an invite to join the new Leopard Trek in 2011. However, as Leopard Trek was based around climbers Andy and Frank Schleck and RadioShack had climbers of its own, Wegmann was judged surplus to requirements when the teams merged at the end of the year and was not one of the riders who made the jump; later being picked up by Garmin-Barracuda. He remained with the team when it became Garmin-Sharp for 2013 and, early in the season of that year, took 12th place at the Amstel Gold Race.

A climber of considerable repute, Wegmann does better in races that favour the grimpeurs. He won the King of the Mountains at the 2004 Giro d'Italia, the 2005 GP San Francisco with its two 18% climbs and the GP Miguel Indurain in 2006 and 2008. He won the National Championships in 2007, 2008 and 2012.


Considering their geographic position between cycling-mad Italy and Eastern Europe - who, while not quite as passionate as the tifosi, do enjoy a bike race - the Greeks are strangely under-represented in the annals of cycling history. One name that does show up is that of Zafeiris Volikakis, who was born in Volos on this day in 1990. While he has been successful primarily in track competitions at home, he also won a silver medal in the Team Sprint at the 2006 European Junior Championships and a bronze at the Worlds the same year, also placing 17th in the Keirin at the 2010 Worlds (his team were 13th in the Sprint) and third for the Keirin at the Moscou track meet in 2011 (his older brother Christos was first).

Belgian cyclo cross rider Dieter Vanthourenhout was born in Brugge on this day in 1985 and won the National Debutants Championship in 2001, then the Juniors a year later. In 2006, he was third at the Under-23 Nationals and has added podium finishes in several races since.

Other cyclists born on this day: Rita Razmaitė (Lithuania, 1967); William Morton (Canada, 1880); Hailu Fana (Ethiopia, 1967); Eduardo Cuevas (Chile, 1951); Eduardo Trillini (Argentina, 1958); Ilias Kelesidis (Greece, 1953, died 2007); Adrian Timmis (Great Britain, 1964 ); Noël de la Cruz (Cuba, 1968); Zsigmond Sarkadi Nagy (Hungary, 1955); Antón Villatoro (Guatemala, 1970); Émile Demangel (France, 1882).

Daily Cycling Facts 07.05.2014

The 26th edition of La Flèche Wallonne fell on this day in 1962. The 201km parcours ran from Liège to Charleroi, as it had done with some changes for the previous two years and would again for two more. The winner was Henri Dewolf, who had celebrated his 38th birthday the day before.

Louis Mottiat

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest Classic of them all, fell on this date in 1922. It was the 12th edition of the race which had first been held in 1892 and the winner - for the first of two consecutive years - was Louis Mottiat. The race was never held on this day again.

The Giro d'Italia began on this day in 1938, 2005 and 2011. 1938 was won by Giovanni Valetti, who would win again the following year. 2005 was won by Paolo Savoldelli, who took the maglia rosa in Stage 13 and retained it for the rest of the race - he was a rider apparently destined to one day win a Grand Tour as he was a very rare example of one who could ride fast up and down mountains (most climbers dislike descending as they don't have the physical weight required to prevent the bike skipping around at high speed). 2011 came under widespread criticism among riders who claimed that it was too difficult, and it was marked by the tragic death of LeopardTrek's Wouter Weylandt, who died in a crash on the Passo del Bocco. To commorate hi life, Wouter's 108 race number will not be issued to future entrants. The winner was Alberto Contador, who has since been found guilty of doping and stripped of the victory, leaving Michele Scarponi de facto winner. Due to concerns that in trying to organise a spectacular race he had overlooked rider safety, director Angelo Zomegnan was removed from his position after the race.

Andrea Tafi, Il Gladiatore
Born in Fucecchio on this day in 1966, Andrea Tafi finished off the job his hero Francesco Moser started and finally killed of the old stereotype that Italian riders couldn't perform well in the harsh northern Classics - and his tendency to do well when even the Belgians considered giving up earned him his nickname, The Gladiator.

Having already gained a reputation as a hardman, Tafi signed to Mapei-CLAS in 1994 and remained with them for eight years, forming a part of the break that powered Johan Museeuw to his first Paris-Roubaix victory in 1996. That same year he won a Monument, the Giro di Lombardia; then in 1999 he replicated Museeuw's win with his own Hell of the North - confirming his tough guy credentials forever.

Paul Kimmage
Born in Dublin on this day in 1972, Paul Kimmage would become, alongside his friend David Walsh, one of the most famous cycling journalists of the 1990s when he published Rough Ride, in which he recounted several tales of doping (including by himself), and later for his willingness to lock horns with Lance Armstrong.

Kimmage's own career as a cyclist was impressive, beginning with numerous victories whilst he was still an amateur - he was Amateur National Champion in 1981 and 1984 and came second at the Amateur Manx International in 1983 before turning professional with Bernard Thévenet's RMO-Meral-Mavic team in 1986. Ireland had in the last few years fallen in love with cycling due to the successes of Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche and the newspapers were, as a result, willing to give Kimmage far more coverage than the average neo-pro domestique could even dream of receiving. Before too long an editor realised that Kimmage was fully capable of writing quality articles himself; as a result his journalistic careeer began soon after his professional cycling career. That first year, Kimmage rode the Tour de France and performed remarkably well with ninth place on Stages 7 and 8 before coming 131st overall - a result that boded well for the future, but in fact 1986 would be the only time that he ever completed a Tour.

Kimmage rode the Tour again in 1987, but the team's emphasis that year was on the World Championships which would take place in the Austrian city Villach. Thévenet created an Irish team-within-a-team consisting of leaders Roche and Kelly, backed up by Kimmage and Martin Earley, and ensured that the four men spent much of the season training and racing together so that by the time of the Championships they knew one another's personalities and skills inside out. Roche had already won both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour, an incredible feat that, prior to that year, had been achieved only seven times and which had left him in no fit state to challenge for the Championship but impressed throughout the race as he pulled hard to support Kelly, who had been chosen to be team leader. However, when Roche got away in a break, Kelly remained with a chase group so as to be in a position to mark his rival Moreno Argentin of Gewiss-Bianchi. This proved a bad move - the break stayed away and, as they began to test one another's strength near the finish line, Kelly had no way to get back into contention. Then Roche found a new reserve of strength, opening up the sprint a full half-kilometre from the line and somehow held on to be the first over it. He had become World Champion, but having won the Giro and Tour that season too he'd also won the greatest prize in cycling: the entirely unofficial Triple Crown, for which there is no trophy nor prize money, and which only Eddy Merckx had ever won before.

1988 was a less successful year, Kimmage's best result being third on Stage 6 at the GP du Midi-Libre and at the end of the season he moved to Fagor-MBK where he once again rode with Roche who had spent the previous year with Carrera Jeans-Vagabond. Sadly, both men were already in decline - Roche had sustained a knee injury from which he never fully recovered at a six-day race in 1986 and was forced to abandon the 1989 Tour in great pain after hitting the injured joint on his handlebars; when he left, Kimmage decided that it was time to end his own career and retired.

In 1990 Kimmage published Rough Ride, still the finest tale of life as a professional cycling domestique in print. In it, he pulled no punches in describing the drug use he saw and engaged in and soon found himself persona non grata in the cycling world, variously attacked and ignored by people who had once been his friends for spitting in the soup - including Roche who, despite Kimmage's obvious admiration for him and his achievements, threatened to sue due to being named as a doper in the book (it was later proved beyond reasonable doubt by an Italian court that Roche had in fact doped with EPO). Meanwhile, cycling fans appreciated his honesty and, when he left the Irish Sunday Independent in 2002 following a row when the paper's editor took a comment concerning football player Roy Keane out of context in order to support a story claiming that Keane was about to divorce his wife, many readers switched to the Sunday Times so as to be able to continue reading Kimmage's columns there. Yet, in 2012, the Times ended his contract; Kimmage argues that this was because a large number of his stories on doping in cycling were prevented from being published by the paper's lawyers to avoid possible legal repercussions. He was also being sued for defamation by the UCI over various claims he'd made concerning the organisation (specifically his claims that ex-UCI president Hein Verbruggen was "corrupt," Once again, fans showed their appreciation: when websites NYVelocity and Cyclismas set up a Paul Kimmage Defense Fund, allowing the writer to counter-sue the UCI, more than $21,000 was donated. Questions arose in the days prior to Kimmage's birthday in 2013 regarding the account and he had to suspend legal action as a result.

Following the election of Brian Cookson as UCI president, the organisation's legal case against Kimmage was dropped.


Darryl Webster, a British cyclist born in Walsall on this day in 1962, won the Schoolboy's National 10-mile TT Championship in 1978, was third at the National Hill Climb Championship in 1981, won the National Hill Climb Championship in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986, won the Manx Trophy in 1987 and was eighth in the Tour of Britain in 1988. Webster has always been a vocal opponent of drugs use in sport, so the news in April that he'd been arrested and charged with growing 37 cannabis plants at two locations made it into the national newspapers.

Mikhail Ignatyev

Mikhail Ignatyev, born in Leningrad on this day in 1985, won numerous World Championships on the track as a Junior and later made a successful transition into road racing. Since 2009 he has raced with Katusha, taking second place on Stage 5 and third on Stage 18 at the Tour de France that year, winning Stage 6 at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2010, becoming National Time Trial Champion of Russia in 2011 and winning the Sprints classification at the Tour of Turkey in 2013.

Today is also Paolo Savoldelli's birthday. Nicknamed Il Falco (The Falcon), he was born in Clusone, Bergamo in 1973 and is a climber with a (rare among climbers) talent for descending fast - a combination that would win him the Giro d'Italia in 2002 and 2005, the latter race having started on his birthday.

Giovanni Rossi, a Swiss rider born in Bidart, France on this day in 1926, became Amateur Swiss Champion in 1949 and signed to the professional Tigra team for the following season. In 1951 he took part for the first and last times in the Tours de Suisse and France; in Switzerland he won Stage 5 and then in France he won Stage 1. That same year, he won the Circuit de la Côte d'Or and finished the National Championship in second place behind Ferdy Kübler, who had won the Tour de France the previous year (and who, on the 7th of May 2013, is the oldest living Tour winner). Those are the kind of results that promise a superb career, but Rossi failed to make any further marks until 1954 when he was second behind Bernard Gauthier on Stage 1 at the Critérium du Dauphiné. Then, he vanished from professional cycling.

Jean-François Laffillé, born in Eu, Haute-Normandie, picked up numerous good results as an amateur from the middle of the 1980s through to the middle of the 1990s. Among them were four victories at the Circuit du Port de Dunkerque (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990), three (the joint record, shared with Benoît Daeninck) at the Grand Prix de la Ville de Lillers (1990, 1991 and 1994) and the 1995 Tour de la Manche.

Italy is one of only six nations able to claim to have had athletes competing in every edition of the modern Olympics, but it can do so only thanks to Francesco Bizzoni, a track cyclist born in Lodi on this day in 1875 - eliminated during the quarter-mile race, he was the only Italian athlete at the 1904 Games. By that time, he hadn't lived in Italy for six years, having emigrated to Bournemouth in England where he found work as a waiter in 1898 before moving on to New York, where he again worked as a waiter and made extra income as a chauffeur, the year before his Olympic appearance. In official records from the Games, his name is given as Frank Bizzoni and his nationality as American. However, he enlisted in the US Army during the First World War, and from Army records we learn that he retained Italian nationality until at least 1917 - Italy's claim is therefore shaky, but holds up. Bizzoni died in the Bronx on Christmas Day in 1926 and was evidently popular among local cyclists, a memorial race bearing his name being held for several years after his death.

George E. Wiley was an American cyclist born on this day in 1881 who competed at the same Games as Bizzoni. He won silver and bronze in the 5 and 25 mile events and was fourth in the half mile.

Vlastimil Moravec was a Czech cyclist born on this day in 1949 who won the Tour of Slovakia in 1970 and the Peace Race in 1972 and came second behind Alexandr Kisliak in Stage 8 at the 1978 Milk Race, the predecessor to the modern Tour of Britain. Following his 1981 retirement from competitive cycling, he became a coach at an Army sports facility in Brno, and was still employed there in that capacity in 1986 when, cycling home after work on the 15th of April, he was fatally injured by a truck. Ten days previously, he had married his pregnant girlfriend.

Other cyclists born on this day: Carlos Castaño Panadero (Spain, 1979); Alan Grieco (USA, 1946); Andriy Yatsenko (USSR, 1973); Boncho Novakov (Bulgaria, 1935); Emmanuel Magnien (France, 1971); Bent Jørgensen (Denmark, 1923); Wedell Østergaard (Denmark, 1924, died 1955); Stanisław Podgórski (Poland, 1905, died 1981); José Moreno (Spain, 1969); Tord Filipsson (Sweden, 1950); Don McKellow (Great Britain, 1925); Hui Chak Bor (Hong Kong, 1968); Jean-Pierre Kuhn (Luxembourg, 1903); Serge Blusson (France, 1928, died 1994).

Daily Cycling Facts 18.02.2014

Amber Neben
(image credit: Crikey)

Amber Neben
Amber Neben, born in Irvin, USA on this day in 1975, originally competed in football (soccer) and cross-country running whilst at college, only adopting cycling when stress injuries forced her to give up running. She first took up mountain biking but soon discovered she performed better in road cycling and rapidly came to the attention of team managers, being signed up to ride with the USA World Championships squad in 2001 and winning a silver medal in the National Championships that same year. One year later, she took silver in both the Road and Time Trial National races.

She became National Road Race Champion in 2003 and began to show promise in stage races, finishing the Giro della Toscana in 7th place overall the next season. This would be bettered with a win at the Tour de l'Aude and a third National Time Trial silver medal in 2005, her l'Aude success repeated in 2006 along with podium finishes at the Route de France Feminin, Thuringen-Rundfahrt and other races, another National Time Trial silver and a bronze in the National Road Race. 2007 was similar, but she topped it all by becoming World Time Trial Champion in 2008. In the following years, she continued to win stages in a series of races and in 2011 won the Chrono des Nations.

Neben's HTC-Highroad team folded at the end of 2011; however, the organisation's communications officer Kristy Scrimgeour established a new company known as Velocio Sports to take over the women's squad which, once new sponsors had been found, became Specialized-Lululemon. Neben was a driving force in the team's highly successful first year: having won the Individual Time Trial at the PanAmerican Games in March, she went on to be third at the GP El Salvador, won two stages and finished fourth overall at the Vuelta El Salvador, came sixth at the GP Elsy Jacobs, won the National Individual Time Trial Championship and took seventh place in the ITT at the Olympics. At the World Championships in Valkenburg, she rode with team mates Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, Trixi Worrack, Evelyn Stevens, Charlotte Becker and Ellen van Dijk to win the Team Time Trial, came seventh in the ITT and fourth in the Road Race, then a little over a month later won the Chrono des Nations for a second time.

For 2013 Neben switched to Pasta Zara-Cogeas, a Lithuanian-registered team made up of fellow American Amber Pierce, three Lithuanian riders, two Italians and an El Salvadorean. With them, she came eighth at La Flèche Wallonne and sixth at the Chrono des Herbiers,

Neben was at the centre of a doping case in 2003 after she tested positive for 19-Norandrosterone, a recognised metabolite of nandrolone - a banned anabolic steroid. However, the result was delayed for some time and the rider accepted provisional suspension from racing during the following investigation, also stating her belief that the drug had come from dietary supplements. The Court for Arbitration in Sport decreed that while there was evidence to suggest she had been affected by the drug in races that took place prior to the announcement of the positive test, in their opinion she had not intentionally doped and had been truthful throughout the investigation. She received a six-month ban beginning from the start of the provisional suspension with the agreement that she would submit to increased checks over the subsequent 18 months and returned to racing. She has passed every test to which she has been subject ever since, yet her results did not drop for several years, only starting to slacken off over the last few seasons as would be expected for an athlete of her age.

Roy Cromack

Roy Cromack was born on this day in 1940 in Doncaster, Great Britain. In 1969, he entered the Road Time Trials Council 24 hour competition and covered 507 miles (816km) - the first time he'd ever ridden as far and a new record that would stand for 28 years. Cromack was that rare breed of cyclist, a true all-rounder; and could perform well in anything and everything from short sprints on the track to major multi-stage events such as the Peace Race. He also represented Britain at the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968.

Dimitri Konyshev, born on this day in 1966 in Gorki, Russia, is a retired cyclist who became National Road Race Champion three times (once of the USSR in 1990, twice of Russia in 1993 and 2001), won the Coppa Agostini in 1989, the Hofbrau Cup in 1996, the Grand Prix de Fourmies in 1999 and the Giro della Romagna in 2000 along with a series of other prestigious races. He was also a Grand Tour rider of some note, winning a total four stages at the Tour de France, one at the Vuelta a Espana and four at the Giro d'Italia - also winning the Combination Classification and InterGiro Award in 1997 and the Points Classification in 2000.

On this day in 2011 Joanna Rowsell, Wendy Houvenaghel and Sarah Storey set a new British Women's Record when the completed the 4000m Team Time Trial at the World Track Cup in Manchester with a time of 3'19.757".

Other cyclists born on this day: Cristiano Salerno (Italy, 1985); Henry George (Belgium , 1891, died 1976); Hansjörg Aemisegger (Switzerland, 1952); Jacques Suire (France, 1943); Alan Grindal (Australia, 1940); Jesper Agergård (Denmark, 1975); Jānis Vītols (Latvia, 1911, died 1993); Adri Zwartepoorte (Netherlands, 1917, died 1991); Florian Vogel (Switzerland, 1982); Fernando Cruz (Colombia, 1953); Egon Adler (Germany, 1937).

Daily Cycling Facts 16.02.2014

Brent Bookwalter
(image credit: Fanny Schertzer CC BY-SA 3.0)

Brent Bookwalter, born on this day in 1984 in Albuquerque, USA, became National Time Trial Champion in 2006 and enjoyed widespread popularity at home. He would later come to the attention of the European cycling scene with 2nd and 3rd place stage finishes at the Vuelta Ciclista a Cartagena in 2007. He concentrated on American races for the next two years before returning to Europe for a 2nd place finish in the 2010 Giro d'Italia individual time trial, finishing both the Giro and the Tour de France that year. In 2011, he came 2nd in Stage 2 of the Tour, an indication that he was entering his best years; in 2012 he took a bronze in the National Individual Time Trial Championships, two third place stage finishes at the Tour of Utah and was 78th overall at the Vuelta a Espana.

Bookwalter won the first stage of the 2013 Tour of Qatar after escaping with Martin Elmiger (IAM) and Gregory Rast (RadioShack-Leopard) when crosswinds split the peloton. A powerful chase group was upon them as they arrived at the finish, but all three got in just ahead. Bookwalter finished second overall, trailing Mark Cavendish - who won the final four stages - by 11".


Anna Szafraniec, born in Myślenice, Poland on this day in 1981, won a silver medal at the 2002 World Championships, became National Road Race Champion in 2011 and was third in the National Cross Country MTB Championships of 2012.


Vincenzo Rossello, born in Stella San Bernando, Italy, on this day in 1923, won Stage 2 at the 1948 Tour de France and Stage 18 in 1949. He won Stage 15 at the 1948 Giro d'Italia and Stage 14 in 1949, and would later came 9th overall in the 1951 and 10th in 1953 and came 3rd in the overall Mountains classification in 1954.


Noël Foré was born in Adegem, Belgium, on the 23rd of December in 1932. He won Paris-Roubaix in 1959, a year his victory in the Tour of Belgium and two years after he won the Dwars door Vlaanderen. Four years later, he added Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne and the Ronde van Vlaanderen to  palmares that totalled 53 professional wins. He died on this day in 1994.


On this day in 2011, Lance Armstrong announced that he was retiring from competitive cycling "for good." A little over a year later, his record seven Tour de France wins were disqualified amid a huge doping scandal.


Other cyclists born on this day: Don Campbell (Cayman Islands, 1975); Sergio Bianchetto (Italy, 1939); André Aumerle (France, 1907, died 1990); Ulrich Schillinger (Germany, 1945); Torvald Högström (Finland, 1926); Herbert Bouffler (Great Britain, 1881); Peter Muckenhuber (Austria, 1955); Albert De Bunné (Belgium, 1896); Robert Bintz (Luxembourg, 1930); Rupert Kratzer (Germany, 1945); Michal Baldrián (Czechoslovakia, 1970); Werner Stauff (Germany, 1960); Carl Olsen (Norway, 1893, died 1968); Hiroshi Daimon (Japan, 1962); Kazuyuki Manabe (Japan, 1970).

Daily Cycling Facts 21.12.2013

Iljo Keisse

Happy birthday to Iljo Keisse, who finally returned to competition in 2011 after a doping investigation that has seen him banned, cleared and re-banned before the ban was eventually - and, apparently, finally - overturned. Keisse was born in 1982 in Ghent, Belgium, where his ban remained in place until the 27th of January 2012 - a few months later, at the Tour of Turkey, he crashed near the end of Stage 7 when his chain came off; he was able to put it back on and remounted to win just ahead of the chasing pack. In addition to a superb track cycling palmares, Keisse finished 6th overall in the 2006 Tour of Britain.

Marcel Cadolle was born in Paris on this day in 1885 and turned professional in 1905. His 2nd place finish at the 1906 Paris-Roubaix (when he was beaten by 1904 - and youngest ever - Tour de France winner Henri Cornet) and Stage 4 win at the 1907 Tour de France suggest that he would probably not be so forgotten as he now is and might even have been among the greats had his career not have been ended prematurely during Stage 7 at the 1907 Tour when he crashed and seriously injured his knee. He died on the 21st of August, 1956.

Scheuenman in 2007

Niels Scheuneman
Born in Veendam, Netherlands on this day in 1983, Niels Scheuneman is the son of Bert Scheuneman who rode for Kondor and other teams during the late 1970s and early 1980s and won stages at the Österreich-Rundfahrt, Milk Race (Tour of Britain) and Tour of Luxembourg. Despite coming from a cycling family, Niels was not particularly interested in bikes during childhood and preferred other sports; however, when he was finally persuaded to give cycling a go that his natural talent - few riders in his age group could keep up with him - was discovered. He then enjoyed an extremely promising amateur career that included a silver medal at the Junior World Road Race Championship in 2001, suggesting that he was destined to outdo his father's palmares and leading many to predict that he was the next big star of Dutch men's cycling. His medal earned him a place on Rabobanks's GS3 development team, where he remained for two years during which he won a stage at the Triptyque Ardennais which, combined with numerous second and third places at various prestigious races, including at the 2003 Under-23 World Individual Time Trial Championship, earned him his first full professional contract with Relax-Bodysol for the 2004 season. Rabobank GS3 had been rated UCI 3 whereas his new team were UCI 1; finding the increased level of competition too great, Scheuneman failed to impress with only one notable result (in a team time trial) all year.

In 2005 Scheuneman returned to Rabobank with a junior contract, this time riding at ProContinental level; remaining for two years he rode his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, that year. 2006 got off to a bad start when a crash at the Nokere Koerse in March left him with an elbow injury that put him out of action for some time, though he recovered in time to take third place at the LUK Challenge duo time trials in July. Rabobank chose not to renew his contract at the end of 2006 and he moved to Unibet, but was unable to race for much of the season due to Unibet's row with the Amaury Sports Organisation that resulted in the team being kept away from many events. At the end of the season, having decided that he wasn't destined to make in the world of professional cycling, he retired; less than a year later he changed his mind and found a contract with the Continental class KrolStone team, where he apparently found his niche - that same year he won a stage at the Tour de Loire-et-Cher, then in 2009 he won the Omloop Houtse Linies and took second place on Stage 6 at the Tour de Normandie.

At the end of the 2009 season, Scheuneman announced his retirement from road racing. He has not retired from cycle sport altogether, meanwhile, and rides for the Belgian-based Fuji MTB Masters mountain bike team.


Other cyclists born on this day: Aldo Parecchini (Italy, 1950); Ian Chapman (Australia, 1939); Jhon Jarrín (Ecuador, 1961); George Giles (New Zealand, 1913, died 1973); David Spears (Canada, 1963).

Daily Cycing Facts 18.12.2013

Lizzie Armitstead (image credit: johnthescone CC BY 2.0)

Lizzie Armitstead
Happy birthday to Lizzie Armitstead, the British track and road cyclist born in Otley on this day in 1988. Armitstead has built up such an impressive palmares that her youthful age comes as something of a surprise: already, she has won numerous one-day and stage races and achieved excellent results in a whole host of national and international championships.

Armitstead had no interest in competitive cycling until 2004, when her school was visited by the British Cycling Olympic Talent Team. Inspired, she obtained a bike and was spotted by the national federation's Olympic Podium Programme a short while later - by the following year, she had won the silver medal for the Junior Scratch race at the World Championships. In 2007 she signed to the Global Racing Team managed by legendary women's cycling directeur sportif Stef Wyman and won the Cheshire Classic, a brace of Belgian races and the Scratch at the Under-23 European Track Championships; then the following year with Halfords Bikehut she took three Belgian races, the Six Days of Amsterdam (with Alex Greenfield), the Under-23 European Scratch Championship and, riding with Katie Colclough and Joanna Rowsell, the U-23 European Team Pursuit Championship before going on to win three events at the Manchester round of the World Cup and two more in Melbourne.

2009 marked Armitstead's first move to a foreign team, Lotto-Belisol. That year, she became Elite National Points and Scratch Race Champion, was part of the victorious World Team Pursuit Championship squad and enjoyed her first big road racing success when she won Stage 6 (sharing the victory with Grace Verbeke) and finished third overall at the Tour de l'Ardèche - while she has continued to race on the track in subsequent years and has performed superbly with two silver medals at the World Championships in 2010 and gold for the Omnium at the Beijing round of the 2011 World Cup, she has gradually began to concentrate on road racing and it is in that discipline that she has found worldwide fame. In 2010 she won Stage 1 and was third in the overall Sprints and Youth classifications at the Tour de l'Aude,  finished the National Road Race Championship in second place, won Stage 6 and was fourth overall at the Route de France then returned to the Tour de l'Ardèch where she won Stages 3, 4 and 5 before finishing the season with ninth place in the World Road Race Championships and second in the Road Race at the Commonwealth Games. In 2011 she won Stage 1 at the Tour of Chongming Island, became National Road Race Champion, won Stage 7 at the Thüringen-Rundfahrt and was seventh at the World Road Race Championships.

Armitstead in 2012

That Armitstead had good form was evident to cycling fans early in the 2012 season when she was tenth at the difficult Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and she confirmed it with good stage finishes at the Emakumeen Saria, Emakumeen Bira, Giro Donne and Thüringen-Rundfahrt, leading to an expectation that she would also do well at the Olympics. She did not disappoint, taking an excellent second place when she recorded the same time as the unstoppable Marianne Vos, and by doing so became the subject of newspaper headlines that made her perhaps the best-known female cyclist in among the non-cycling public in Britain after Victoria Pendleton.

2013 would be a superb year with a series of excellent results at the season-openers and Classics (seventh at the Ronde van Drenthe, ninth at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, second at the Holland Hills) preceding the National Championships where she was second in the Individual Time Trial and won the Road Race. She took a series of good finishes at the Route de France and was sixth overall, then did the same at the Holland Ladies' Tour where she was third overall.

Janez Brajkovič
Janez Brajkovič, born in the Slovenian town Metlika on this day in 1983, became World Junior Time Trial Champion in 2004 which earned him a neo-pro contract with the Discovery Channel team despite the fact that, due to obligations to his previous team, he couldn't ride for them for the first half of his first professional year. In 2005, he won the World Time Trial Championship.

In 2007, Brajkovič won both the General Classification and the Youth Category at the Tour de Georgia and one year later the World Time Trial Championship, then the National Time Trial Championship in 2009. The next year, he won the Critérium du Dauphiné and entered the Tour de France for the first time, finishing in 43rd place. He was expected to do better at the Tour in 2011 but was forced to abandon following a crash in Stage 5, then recovered in time for the Vuelta a Espana where he finished consistently well and came 22nd overall. At the end of the season he announced that for 2012 he would be going to Astana, the team for which he'd ridden in 2007 and 2008; that year, he was seventh at the Critérium du Dauphiné and won the Tour of Slovenia, then returned to the Tour de France where he again finished consistently well including two eighth place stage finishes before coming ninth overall. He remained with Astana in 2013 and enjoyed a good start to the season but was again unable to finish the Tour; he later returned to the Vuelta and was 26th overall.

Brajkovič has confirmed that he will remain at Astana for 2014.



Choppy Warburton

Choppy with some of his cyclists. The very short one in
the middle is Jimmy Michael, the others appear to be the
Linton brothers (Arthur in the fleur-de-lys jersey?)

James Edward "Choppy" Warburton, who died on this day in 1897, was perhaps the first soigneur in cycling - and may have been the first to introduce the sort of nefarious activities that would culminate in cycling's great doping affairs of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries - from the death of Tom Simpson to the Festina Affair and from Operacion Puerto to the fall of Lance Armstrong.

Choppy was born on the 13th of November 1845 in Coal Hey, Lancashire and inherited his nickname from his father, a sailor who when asked how the conditions on his latest voyage had been would always reply "choppy." He came to note as a runner, turning professional at the late age of 34 (sports at that time being the pursuit of wealthy gentlemen, which Choppy - raised single-handed by his mother after his father died - was not) and went to the USA in 1880 where he won 80 races.

Anti-doping tests of those times were non-existent, so the sport relied on athletes and trainers being caught red-handed. Choppy never was and neither were any of the cyclists he trained, but there is some apparent evidence against him. A writer named Rudiger Rabenstein stated that Choppy's star rider Arthur Linton was "massively doped" during the 1896 Bordeaux-Paris race, and biography of the cyclist written after his death by an anonymous author who claimed to have known him well agreed. Also, Choppy's cyclists seem to have had a tendency to die young - very young, in some cases. Linton was only 24, his death being recorded variously as typhoid or strychnine poisoning (strychnine in small doses acts as a stimulant) and, eventually, considered the first doping-related death in any sport. Arthur's younger brother, also a cyclist, was 39 when he died, the cause once again being recorded as typhoid. Jimmy Michael, the Welsh-born 1895 World Champion, was also in Choppy's care, was 28 when he died in mysterious circumstances. No link to any form of doping, administered by the soigneur or otherwise, was ever proved (nor has been since) and at least one modern researcher has concluded that the deaths were in fact down to typhoid; but suspicions were sufficiently high for him to be banned from working in any capacity within professional cycling.

Vélodrome Buffalo by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
On the bike - Jimmy Michael; with hat and greatcoat - sports
journalist Frantz Reichel; bending over to look in bag: the
notorious Choppy Warburton.

He died in Wood Green, Haringey, North London. Choppy appears in a sketch made by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in preparation for an advertising poster commissioned by Jimmy Michael's sponsor Simpson Chains and which also features the rider. The sketch, of which Toulouse-Lautrec made and sold many lithograph copies, is still popular and frequently reproduced to this day.


Canadian Michael Barry, born in Toronto on this day in 1975, won the 1997 National Under-23 Road Race Championship. He has also won stages at the Volta a Catalunya, Vuelta a Espana, Österreich-Rundfahrt (where he also won the Points classification), Tour de Romandie and Tour of Missouri.

Other cyclists born on this day: Guglielmo Pesenti (Italy, 1933, died 2002); Brian Walton (Canada, 1965); Agustín Alcántara (Mexico, 1946, died 1979); Ruslan Ivanov (Moldova, 1973); Bechir Mardassi (Tunisia, 1929); Henri Duez (France, 1937); Benny Schnoor (Denmark, 1922); Algot Lönn (Sweden, 1887, died 1953); Narihiro Inamura (Japan, 1971); Claus Martínez (Bolivia, 1975); José Andrés Brenes (Costa Rica, 1964); Nelson Mario Pons (Ecuador, 1967); Raymond Reaux (France, 1940); Jiří Háva (Czechoslovakia, 1944); Mitsugi Sarudate (Japan, 1962); Hong Seok-Han (South Korea, 1975); Adan Juárez (Mexico, 1969); Takafumi Matsuda (Japan, 1951); Iván Álvarez (Spain, 1981).

Daily Cycling Facts 14.12.2013

Rochelle Gilmore

Rochelle Gilmore

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

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

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

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

Alberto Fernandez Blanco, 1955-1984

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

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

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

Harry Reynolds, 1874-1940

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

Godfrey Gahemba,
1991-2008

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

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 09.12.2013

Ashleigh Moolman

Moolman at the 2012 Olympics

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

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

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

Kateřina Nash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Christian Pfannberger

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

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

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

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

Daily Cycling Facts 07.12.2013

Fiorenzi Magni is 91 today

Fiorenzo Magni
On this day in 1920 Fiorenzo Magni - known as "The Third Man of Italian Cycling's Golden Age" after Coppi and Bartoli - was born in Vaiano, Tuscany. He's the only man to have won three Tours of Flanders in a row and also won three Giros d'Italia, three National Championships and seven Tour de France stages during his sixteen years as a professional.

Magni's other claim to fame is that he was the first rider to find sponsorship with a firm that wasn't a manufacturer of bikes or bike components. Nowadays, when we're used to banks, mobile phone firms, TV networks and providers of liquid gas products financially backing teams, the storm that blew up when Magni announced he would be sponsored by the beauty products company Nivea seems rather odd. What's also odd is that Nivea were interested in backing Magni - while the man can't be described as having been ugly, he had the sort of rugged looks that suggest he wasn't exactly a regular user of moisturiser.

In fact, it's not entirely true that he was the first because the British team in 1947 had been sponsored by a football pools company called ITP - Magni's sponsor, however, was the first sponsor not previously connected with sport, a phenomenon that be came known as an extra sportif sponsor until it became so common it no longer drew comment. It's also not true that the row about it was entirely down to opposition to an extra sportif, as it seems that other riders stoked what was originally a minor argument into an inferno because they didn't like him. And not without reason, either: he may have been a heroic rider but Magni was, say those who knew him, a dyed-in-the-wool fascist, and he fought for the Fascists during the Second World War.

He was an exceptionally strong rider, proving his hardman credentials in the 1956 Giro d'Italis which he rode with a broken shoulder. Finding that his injury made it impossible for him to pull up on the bars, thus preventing him from climbing, he asked his mechanic to tie a length of inner tube (some say it was a bandage, others surgical tubing) in a loop to his handlebars so that he could pull up using his teeth. Because he couldn't brake properly he crashed again four days later, landing on his broken collar bone and also breaking his arm, then fainted from the pain. When he regained consciousness in the ambulance he managed to escape, found his bike and finished the stage. Four days later, on a stage that had such bad weather sixty riders abandoned the race, he came second behind Charly Gaul.

Magni would almost certainly have won a Tour de France had his career not have coincided with those of Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. Hardman or not, the two Italian greats completely over-awed him, especially Bartali and had he ever have threatened Bartali's chances of winning, it's a safe bet that Magni would have dropped back to let him win. In 1950, when Bartali left the Tour after being threatened by fans angered by a very minor tussle with Jean Robic on the Col de Portet d'Aspet, Magni unquestioningly abandoned the race and went with him.

In fact, Magni's lifelong admiration of Bartali is somewhat surprising: while Magni had been a Fascist, Bartali risked his own life working for the Italian Resistance and saved many Jewish lives by smuggling refugees over the border into Switzerland. When he died on the 19th of October in 2012, some obituaries mentioned evidence that towards the end of the war he had changed sides and fought for the anti-Fascist partisans - had he turned against his old beliefs, perhaps after being horrified by the evil done by the Italian fascists, the Nazis and their sympathisers, or was he simply trying to ensure his own safety when it became apparent that Fascism would be defeated? We will probably never know.

Jan Bárta

Jan Bárta
(image credit: Team NetApp CC BY-SA 3.0)

Born in Kyjov in Czechoslovakia on this day in 1984, Jan Bárta came to international attention with his Under-23 National Road Race title in 2002. He then returned consistently impressive results with numerous podium places until 2009 when he won a stage at the Tour of Austria, demonstrating stage race potential. This was confirmed when he finished both the Tour de Normandie and Tour of Slovakia in 7th place in 2010, followed by 8th at the Tour of Austria and a very impressive 3rd at the Tour of Britain in 2011, during which he faced some very stiff competition.

As a rider with NetApp, a team in the Professional Continental class, his chances to prove his mettle at the Grand Tours will had to wait until NetApp got a chance to enter on a wildcard invitation, as was the case at the Giro d'Italia in 2012 - and he finished Stage 14 in second place, taking 65th place overall before going on to win the National Individual Time Trial Championship and take seventh in the same event at the Worlds. Those were results that must surely have caught the eye of the Pro Tour teams, but if he received any offers for 2013, Bárta declined them and stayed with NetApp. That year, he won the Individual Time Trial and the Road Race at the Nationals, then rode another Grand Tour when NetApp got an invite to the Vuelta a Espana. he was 19th on Stage 11 and finished 96th overall after working hard for his team, then finished the Individual Time Trial at the Worlds in 11th place - more good results that must again have drawn interest from the Pro Tour ranks, but he has again chosen to remain with NetApp for 2014.

Mathias Brändle
Mathias Brändle,  who was born on this day 1989 in Hohenems, Austria, rode with Bárta at NetApp in 2012. In 2004, he won the Novices National Hill Climb and Individual Time Trial Championships, then took five victories in Junior races in 2007 before going to the Ista team the following season and taking second place in the Under-23 Tour of Berlin and the U-23 National ITT Championships as well as a very impressive fourth at the Chrono Champenois. Then, in 2009 when he rode for Pro Continental ELK Haus, he became National ITT Champion at Elite level; so for 2010 he went to Pro Tour Footon-Servetto and, having finished the Tour de Langkawi in eighth place, went to the Giro d'Italia where, for a rider in his first Grand Tour, he did remarkably well despite suffering badly in the mountains with 21st place on Stage 1 and 19th place on Stage 21, coming 90th in the General Classification. In 2011, he switched to Geox-TMC and won the Sprints classification, also competing at the Vuelta a Espana and managing a surprising 63rd place on Stage 15, which climbed the infamous Alto del Angliru. When Geox pulled out of cycling, he moved to NetApp and rode another Giro, once again performing well with eighth place on Stage 9 and seventh on Stage 16; like most sprinters, he was hurt once more in the mountains and ended in 111th place. Surprisingly, despite showing real potential as a Grand Tour stage-winner of the future, in 2013 Brändle moved back down to the Pro Continental level with the Swiss team IAM. However, the move seems to have suited him as he was fourth at the GP Cholet-Pays de Loire and won the Points classification at the Tour de Romandie, the National ITT Championship and the General Classification at the Tour de Jura


John Boyd Dunlop
On this day in 1888, John Boyd Dunlop obtained a patent for his invention, the pneumatic tyre. He had  qualified as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Edinburgh, then set up a surgery and practiced for ten years before relocating to Northern Ireland and setting up another surgery. Dunlop had a sick son who suffered great pain as a result of the vibrations transmitted through the metal tyres of his tricycle, so his father set out to find a way to reduce this - resulting in the pneumatic tyre. He quickly realised that his invention had a future and patented it. With help from the cyclist Willie Hume, who used the tyres to win a string of races, he soon found a market.

Then in 1891, it was discovered that a pneumatic tyre of very similar design had been patented in France by another Scottish inventor named Robert William Thompson more than forty years previously. A business deal also didn't work out which, combined with the subsequent declaration of invalidity on his patent, meant that Dunlop made very little money from "his" invention.

Jørgen Hansen

Jørgen Hansen, the Danish cyclist who represented his country in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics and was a part of the bronze medal-winning squad in the Team Time Trial event at the last, was born on this day in 1942.


On this day in 2000, Jeannie Longo set a new Women's Hour Record of 45.094km in Mexico City, breaking the record she had set a month earlier. She was 42 at the time.


Fermo Camellini was born on this day in Scandiano, Italy, in 1914. He won some 37 races during his career, including some high-profile events such as the Circuit du Mont Ventoux (1941), Paris-Nice (1946) and La Flèche Wallonne (1948). He also managed two top ten Tour de France finishes, 7th overall in 1947 and 8th in 1948, winning two stages (8 and 10) the first time round. In 1947, he took French citizenship and remained there until his death at the age of 95 on the 27th of August 2010.


Other cyclists born on this day: Jacques Marcault (France, 1883, died 1979); Pitty Scheer (Luxembourg, 1925, died 1997); Jean-Claude Meunier (France, 1950, died 1985); Radamés Treviño (Mexico, 1945); Pedro Salas (Argentina, 1923, died 2000); Chen Chiung-Yi (Taipei, 1976); Warren Coye (Belize, 1965); Ramón Noriega (Venezuela, 1951); Andrzej Mierzejewski (Poland, 1960); Jure Golčer (Slovenia, 1977); Hjalmar Pettersson (Sweden, 1906, died 2003).