Stuart O'Grady

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Stuart O'Grady
Personal information
Full name Stuart O'Grady
Nickname Stuey
Date of birth August 6, 1973 (age 33)
Country Flag of Australia Australia
Height 1.76 m
Weight 73 kg
Team information
Current team Team CSC
Discipline Road and track
Role Rider
Rider type Sprinter
Professional team(s)
1995-2003
2004-2005
2006-		 Crédit Agricole
Cofidis
Team CSC
Major wins
Tour de France, 2 stages
HEW Cyclassics (2004)
Olympic Team Pursuit Champion (2004)
World Team Pursuit Champion (1997)
Infobox last updated on:
January 15, 2007

Stuart O'Grady (born on 6 August 1973), nicknamed Stuey, is an Australian professional road bicycle racer, who started his career as a track cyclist. His most prominent victory came when he and Graeme Brown won a gold medal in Men's Madison at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

O'Grady has participated in the Tour de France since 1998, and he has contended for the prestigious sprinters' maillot vert (green jersey) on several occasions, finishing second in the 1998 and 2005 edition of the race. He has also worn the maillot jaune (yellow jersey) of the race leader in the 1998 and 2001 edition of the Tour. He currently rides for Team CSC in the UCI ProTour road racing series and is contracted to them through to 2008.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Stuart O'Grady grew up as a part of a cycling family. His father represented South Australia several times in road and track cycling, and his uncle competed for Australia at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He started his career in track cycling, and most notably won a silver medal in the Men's Team Pursuit (4000m) of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. In the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta he won bronze medals in both the Men's Point Race, and the Men's Team Pursuit (4000m).

When it was time to turn professional, he joined the GAN team (now Crédit Agricole), which at the time included English time-trial specialist Chris Boardman. "I talked to Motorola, Polti and GAN, and everybody was pushing me towards Polti. Then one day I saw (Chris) Boardman being helped by a GAN mechanic and soigneur but didn't see any Polti mechanics or Motorola staff around at all. It really wasn't a hard decision after that." he commented on his choice of team.[citation needed]

In the 1998 Tour de France he wore the race leader's maillot jaune (yellow jersey) for three days. He also won his first stage of the race. Again in 2001, he rode in the yellow jersey, this time for five days, and Stuart O'Grady was named Australian Cyclist of the Year and Australian Male Road Cyclist of the Year in both 1998 and 2001. In 1998 he finished second overall in the sprinters' green jersey classification. In 2001, O'Grady had been in contention for the sprinters green jersey in competition with Erik Zabel from Germany, but he was defeated on the final day's racing in the streets of Paris.

In 2001 he was diagnosed with a blocked artery, after early tests established that his right leg produced more power than his left leg. After a surgery in the April 2002, he started a new rehabilitation program to get back into racing form by the summer, and O'Grady was again in contention in the 2002 Tour de France. In 2003 and 2004 he was overshadowed in the green jersey competition by fellow Australian sprinters Baden Cooke (2003) and Robbie McEwen (2004). O'Grady still managed to win his second Tour de France stage win at the 2004 Tour De France.

Stuart O'Grady riding for Cofidis during the Stage 20 individual time trial of the 2005 Tour de France.
Stuart O'Grady riding for Cofidis during the Stage 20 individual time trial of the 2005 Tour de France.

O'Grady moved to the Cofidis team in 2004, intending to put emphasis on the Spring classics races such as Paris-Roubaix and Ronde van Vlaanderen. After a near-disastrous start to the season, fraught with injuries and doping allegations in his team, he made a comeback by winning two stages and the points classification in the Dauphiné Libéré race. He continued with a stage win in the 2004 Tour de France, where he also spent a few days in the green jersey. He rounded his road racing season off by winning the World Cup race HEW Cyclassics. He topped his list of victories by winning an Olympic gold medal in the Madison cycling with Graeme Brown.

In the 2005 Tour de France, O'Grady came second in the green jersey classification to Thor Hushovd of Norway, closely followed by Robbie McEwen in 3rd place. Late in 2005, he signed a one-year contract with Bjarne Riis to ride on Team CSC for 2006, however his 2006 season has been plagued with injury, breaking several ribs in an early season race in Italy and fracturing a vertebra in the Tour de France. O'Grady continued riding the Tour despite the considerable pain caused by the fracture coming third in the sprint for the final stage.

O'Grady has also set up and financially supports an Australian junior cycling development team, CSC Team O'Grady.

[edit] Career highlights

[edit] Olympics

Olympic medal record
Men's Cycling
Silver Barcelona 1992 4000m Team Pursuit
Bronze Atlanta 1996 4000m Team Pursuit
Bronze Atlanta 1996 Points Race
Gold Athens 2004 Madison

O'Grady successfully teamed with Graeme Brown to win a gold medal with 22 points in the Madison cycling event at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. (See Cycling at the 2004 Summer Olympics)

He has attended the three previous Olympics, representing Australia:

[edit] Tour de France

1998
1999
  • Points Classification; 3 days in maillot vert (After Stages 9-11)
2001
2002
  • 3rd overall, Points Classification
  • 3rd, Stage 10
2003
  • 1st overall, Centenaire classification
  • 7th overall, Points Classification
2004
  • 1st, Stage 5 (Amiens - Chartres)
  • 2nd overall, Points Classification; 2 days in maillot vert (After Stages 6 and 7)
  • 2nd, Stage 6
  • 3rd, Stage 9
2005
  • 77th overall, General Classification
  • 2nd overall, Points Classification
  • 65th overall, Mountains Classification
  • 2nd, Stage 13
  • 3rd, Stage 3
2006
  • 91st overall, General Classification
  • 15th overall, Points Classification
  • 38th overall, Mountains Classification
  • 3rd, Stage 20

[edit] Other cycling highlights

1993
1994
  • 3rd (Bronze Medal), Team Pursuit, UCI Track Cycling World Championships
  • Commonwealth Games: 1st (Gold Medal), Team Pursuit; 1st (Gold Medal), 10 Miles Scratch; 2nd (Silver Medal), Points Race; 3rd (Bronze Medal), Individual Pursuit
1995
  • 1st (Gold Medal), Team Pursuit, UCI Track Cycling World Championships
1998
2002
2003
2004
2006

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:


Riders on Team CSC

Kurt Asle Arvesen | Lars Bak | Michael Blaudzun | Matti Breschel | Fabian Cancellara | Íñigo Cuesta | Matthew Goss | Juan José Haedo | Volodymyr Hustov | Allan Johansen | Bobby Julich | Kasper Klostergaard | Alexandr Kolobnev | Karsten Kroon | Marcus Ljungqvist | Anders Lund | Lars Michaelsen | Stuart O'Grady | Martin Pedersen | Luke Roberts | Carlos Sastre | Andy Schleck | Fränk Schleck | Chris Anker Sørensen | Nicki Sørensen | Christian Vandevelde | Jens Voigt |  David Zabriskie
Manager
Bjarne Riis
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