Juan Antonio Flecha
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni |
| Date of birth | September 17, 1977 |
| Country | Argentina |
| Team information | |
| Current team | Rabobank |
| Professional team(s) | |
| 2000-2001 2002-2003 2004-2005 2006-Present |
Fuenlabrada-Colchon iBanesto.com Fassa Bortolo Rabobank |
Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (born September 17, 1977 in Junín, Buenos Aires) is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer for the UCI ProTour team Rabobank.
He gained fame in 2003 when he became the first rider born in Argentina to win a Tour de France stage while riding for the Spanish iBanesto.com team. As he rode across the finish line he performed a unique victory salute: he pantomimed releasing an arrow from a bow in homage to his family name.
The 2004 season saw him as a co-leader in the Italian Fassa Bortolo for the Classics and one-day races, with notable finishes in various races from the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and victories in Züri-Metzgete and the Giro de Lazio. He often shares team leadership with Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara, with whom he says to work very well with.
The following season with Fassa Bortolo in 2005 saw podium finishes in Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix, establishing him as one of the best one-day racers in the UCI ProTour today. Euskaltel-Euskadi rider Egoi Martinez said in an interview that in a race "one should have a head and an attitude like the one Juan Antonio Flecha has," in tribute to his perseverence and positive attitude in racing.
When the Fassa Bortolo team closed down after the 2005 season, Flecha moved on to Dutch team Rabobank.
| Riders on Rabobank |
| Mauricio Alberto Ardila Cano | Michael Boogerd | Jan Boven | Graeme Brown | Erik Dekker | Thomas Dekker | Theo Eltink | Juan Antonio Flecha | Óscar Freire | Bram de Groot | Mathew Hayman | Pedro Horrillo | Aleksandr Kolobnev | Gerben Löwik | Marc de Maar | Denis Menchov | Grischa Niermann | Joost Posthuma | Michael Rasmussen | Kai Reus | Niels Scheuneman | Roy Sentjens | Rory Sutherland | Jukka Vastaranta | Thorwald Veneberg | Marc Wauters | Pieter Weening |
| Manager |
| Theo de Rooij |
