Portal:Cycling/Did you know archive

16 Aug 2006 to Sept 2008

• ...that retired Spanish road bicycle racer Igor González de Galdeano holds the record for the fastest stage win in the Vuelta a España at an average of 55.17 km/h, a feat which earned him the nickname Speedy González?
• ...that cyclist Gerald Ciolek became the youngest ever German National Cycling Champion, aged just 18 in 2005?
• ...that road cyclists Dutchwoman Leontien van Moorsel and Frenchwoman Jeannie Longo are the only two women to have won, over their careers, the rainbow jersey in both the time trial and road race disciplines?

July 25 to August 16, 2006

• ...that American freestyle bicycle motocross rider Dave Mirra, who contests the vert (formerly street) and park disciplines of his sport, has won fourteen gold, four silver, and two bronze medals at the multi-action sport X Games, and, having captured at least one medal in each of the eleven iterations held between 1995 and 2006, owns more X Games medals than any other Summer X Games athlete?
• ...that only three riders—Belgians Roger De Vlaeminck (pictured), Rik Van Looy, and Eddy Merckx—have won each of the five road cycling Classic races—the Italian Milan-Sanremo and Giro di Lombardia, the Belgian Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and the French Paris-Roubaix—which constitute half of the ten races currently featured in the UCI ProTour, of whom Merckx is also one of just four riders to have won each of the three Grand Tour stage races?
• ...that the record for greatest distance achieved on a bicycle travelling on a banked track enclosed in a velodrome is, as kept the Union Cycliste Internationale, styled as two different records—the UCI Hour Record, which restricts equipment, generally, to that which was extant in 1972, notably excluding time trial helmets and certain aerodynamic frames, and the Best Human Effort, in pursuit of which any equipment on an upright bicycle may be used—but, as kept by the International Human Powered Vehicle Association, not restricted to those riders using upright cycles, such that three men (Briton Chris Boardman, Czech Ondřej Sosenka, and American Fred Markham, of whom the last uses a recumbent bicycle?

Image:Roger de Vlaeminck.jpg

• ...that, of the 57 World Cyclo-cross Championships held since 1950, 23 have been won by riders from Belgium, more than from any other nation, including multiple winners Eric De Vlaeminck (seven), Roland Liboton (four), Mario De Clercq (three), and Bart Wellens (two)?
• ...that, though American Mountain Bike Hall of Famers Ned Overend and John Tomac won one bronze and two gold medals across the 1990 and 1991 Mountain Bike World Championships, only one American–Tinker Juarez–has won a cross-country world championships medal since, whilst riders from Canada, of which a racer did not medal before 2000, including triple-medallist Roland Green, have claimed four medals?

July 3 to July 25, 2006

• ...that Swiss Hugo Koblet became the first non-Italian cyclist to win the maglia rosa as general classification champion at the Giro d'Italia during the race's 33rd iteration in 1951, having defeated then three-time winner Fausto Coppi?
• ...that in nine track cycling world championships between 1981 and 1989, Estonian Erika Salumäe, then representing the Soviet Union, won 10 gold and three silver medals, along the way establishing 15 world records?
• ...that American Dave Mirra has won 20 X Games bicycle motocross (freestyle BMX) medals, including 14 gold, having won gold in both the vert and park disciplines in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2004?
• ...that Italian Paola Pezzo and Canadian Alison Sydor, who had combined to win the previous four world championships, finished first and second in the mountain biking event contested at the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, held in Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, in 1996, when first a mountain biking event was added to the program?
• ...that Raymond Poulidor, a five-time Critérium International champion, 1964 Vuelta a España jersey de oro winner, and 1963 Grand Prix des Nations individual time trial titleist, never led the general classification of the Tour de France, held in his homeland, and thus never wore the maillot jaune?

June 3 to July 3, 2006

• ...that Henri Desgrange, who directed the Tour de France for 36 years, was also the co-founder and an editor of and sportswriter for L'Auto and in 1893 set a world record in the hour ride, travelling 21.950 miles (35.325 kilometers) in one hour?
• ...that only four cyclists (Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Eddie Merckx, and Bernard Hinault) have won the general classification in each of the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and Vuelta a España—the three races that compose the Grand Tour?
• ...that France's Anne-Caroline Chausson has won 16 mountain bike world championships, having won the downhill event in eight consecutive years?
• ...that cycling is one of only five disciplines to have been featured in every modern Olympic Summer Games, having comprised six events at the 1896 Summer Olympic Games and 18 events at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games?
• ...that Canadian Clara Hughes, who won the bronze medal in the individual road race and road cycling time trial at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, is the only athlete ever to have won multiple individual medals at the Summer and Winter Olympic Gamess?