Bjarne Riis

Bjarne Riis

Personal information
Full name	Bjarne Lykkegård Riis
Nickname	Ørnen fra Herning (The Eagle from Herning)
Date of birth	April 3, 1964 (1964-04-03) (age 45)
Country	Denmark
Team information
Current team	Team CSC Saxo Bank
Discipline	Road
Role	Team Manager
Rider type	All-rounder
Professional team(s)
1986 1987 1988 1989–1991 1992–1993 1994–1995 1996–1999	Roland Lucas Toshiba Castorama Ceramiche Ariostea Gewiss-Ballan Telekom
Managerial team(s)
1999–	Team CSC Saxo Bank
Major wins
1989 Giro d'Italia, 1 stage 1993 Giro d'Italia, 1 stage 1993 Tour de France, 1 stage 1994 Tour de France, 1 stage 1996 Tour de France, and 2 stages 1997 Amstel Gold Race
Infobox last updated on:
December 28, 2006

Bjarne Lykkegård Riis (born April 3, 1964 in Herning), nicknamed the Eagle from Herning^[1] (Danish: Ørnen fra Herning), is a Danish former professional road bicycle racer who won the 1996 Tour de France, and is now the team owner and manager of Danish UCI ProTour outfit Team CSC Saxo Bank. Other career highlights include winning the Amstel Gold Race in 1997, multiple Danish National Championships, and stage wins in the Giro d'Italia. On May 25 2007 he admitted that he won the Tour de France using banned substances, and he was no longer considered the winner by the tour's organizers.^[2] In July 2008 he is back on the list of Tour winners, but with additional notes about his use of doping.

Career

Riis began cycling at local club Herning CK. His professional career started in 1986, his first result was a fifth place finish in the GP Wallonie that year. Following a few years with no personal wins, he had yet to impress when his contract ran out in 1988.

At the 1988 Tour of European Community race, while riding for the Toshiba team, Riis and fellow Danish rider Kim Eriksen were contacted by the former Tour de France winner Laurent Fignon from the Systeme U team. Fignon was leading the Tour of European Community race, but he needed a few riders to help him secure the victory. In the hope of earning a contract with Systeme U,^[3] Riis helped Fignon achieve the victory and in December 1988 he moved to sports director Cyrille Guimard's Systeme U team as a support rider for Fignon. For the next three years Riis rode as Fignon's eternal helper in both flat and mountainous terrain, and they became close friends.^[4] Riis helped Fignon win the 1989 Giro d'Italia, while Riis himself won his first professional victory as he secured the 9th stage of the Giro.

Tour de France success

When Fignon retired in 1992, Bjarne Riis contacted fellow Danish rider Rolf Sørensen, who got him a job as a rider for Italian team Ariostea under sporting director Giancarlo Ferretti. Riis won the Châlon-sur-Marne stage during the 1993 Tour de France and also wore the polka dot jersey for a day. He finished 5th place overall, which was the best Danish result in Tour history at the time, beating Leif Mortensen's 6th place finish in the 1971 Tour de France. Riis was ill during the 1994 Tour de France but managed a stage win by going on a break-away and then racing solo for the last 30 km of the day. With the sprinter teams chasing him, he won the stage by just a few seconds. Riis finished 3rd at the 1995 Tour de France, the first Dane to reach the podium in Paris.

For the 1996 season, Riis switched to the Telekom team. The week before the 1996 Tour de France, he had won the Danish Road Racing Championship. As a result of snow on both the Col de l'Iseran and the Col du Galibier, the scheduled 190 km stage 9 from Val-d'Isère to Sestriere in Italy was truncated and reduced to a 46 km sprint from Le-Monetier-les-Bains which was claimed by Riis, opening a 44 second gap over Jan Ullrich. Riis ended up winning the 1996 Tour by one minute forty one over Ullrich, ending Miguel Indurain's 5 year winning streak. The win was instrumental in turning then Telekom (now Team Columbia) from a small team, struggling to get an invitation to the 1995 Tour and only managing to send half a team, into one of the biggest teams in road racing. It also had a huge positive effect on the development of cycling in Denmark - both in terms of participation and in spectator interest.

In 1997, he won the spring classic Amstel Gold Race, with a great effort, riding solo from a long way out, in pouring rain. Bjarne Riis was the favourite at the 1997 Tour de France, but instead it was his young German teammate Jan Ullrich, who won the overall competition, with Riis finishing 7th. On his way to the startup at stage 2 of the 1999 Tour de Suisse, Bjarne Riis hit the curb and crashed. The sustained injuries to his elbow and knee ultimately forced him to retire in the spring of 2000 at the age of 36.

Doping allegations

In the aftermath of the performance enhancing drugs crisis in cycling following the 1998 Tour de France, Riis acquired the nickname of Mr. 60%, a suggestion that he has used doping. It is generally understood that this was Riis' nickname in the peloton. The 60% is an allusion to a high hematocrit (red blood cell) level, an indication of EPO usage. It has been published, but never proven, that Riis had a hematocrit level of 56% during one test in July 1995; well above typical natural levels, as well as his published reading of 41% in the offseason earlier that year.^[5] The earliest mention of the nickname can be traced to interviews with riders of Festina in 1998-2000, who apparently suggested that if they had been doped above 50%, then Riis must have been doped to at least 60% since he was able to win the Tour de France in 1996 ahead of the Festina rider Richard Virenque: nn Willy Voet's book Breaking the Chain, he mentions that Festina's team doctor would not allow EPO to be administered if a rider's hematocrit level was near 55%.

Bjarne Riis never tested positive as a rider, though no EPO test existed at that time. Reports have noted, however, that police in Italy found evidence that Riis may have been among riders treated with EPO in 1994 and 1995 by medical researchers under Professor Francesco Conconi at the University of Ferrara, which resulted in prosecutions against Conconi and also involved Michele Ferrari. Files used in the court case apparently showed fluctuations in Riis' hematocrit from 41% to 56.3%.^[1]

Speculations about Bjarne Riis's doping use was further fuelled by his ambiguous denials. When asked whether he used doping he repeatedly stated that "I have never been tested positive". A statement that falls somewhat short of an outright denial.^[6]

Doping admission

Bjarne Riis, winner of the 1996 Tour de France, admitted having used doping and EPO in the 1990s.

On May 25, 2007 Riis issued a statement confessing to taking EPO, growth hormone and cortisone for 5 years, from 1993 to 1998, including during his victory in the 1996 Tour de France.^{[7] [8]} Earlier in the week, several of Riis' former teammates from Team Telekom confessed to having used banned substances during the 1990s when Riis won the Tour. Riis said that he bought and injected the EPO himself, and team coach Walter Godefroot turned a blind eye to the drug use on the team.^[9][10] Riis was removed from the official record books of Tour de France,^[11] but in July 2008 he was written back into the books, along with additional notes about his use of doping.

The reactions on Riis’s admission have been truly mixed. Many Danish newspapers have stamped him as a cheater, and claimed that the results Riis has achieved in his career are worthless.^[12] Others have argued that Riis is still a worthy winner of 1996 Tour de France, among them former Tour de France commentator and bike enthusiast Jørgen Leth.^[13]

Team manager

Following his retirement, a new life opened up. Bjarne Riis had from the start been one of the people behind Danish cycling team Home-Jack & Jones, which became the first Danish team competing in the Tour de France. Following doping allegations and suspension of Home-Jack & Jones rider Marc Streel in 1999, Home withdrew its sponsorship. Bjarne Riis bought the majority of the team through its controlling company Professional Cycling Denmark (PCD), and he became the team manager. In 2001, the team changed sponsor to CSC/World Online, then CSC/Tiscali, and as of the 2003 season the American IT company CSC has been the sole sponsor of Team CSC. Riis renamed PCD to Riis Cycling A/S in 2003. Before the 2005 season, Team CSC had financial problems and some of the riders were asked to take a wage cut. Riis used his own money to keep the team running throughout his first years as team manager, an expenditure he later vowed never to repeat^[14] when a new sponsor deal was signed during the 2005 Tour de France.

As a team manager, his team has been involved in relatively few doping cases, with no rider being convicted for using doping while on his team. However, Ivan Basso, who was Team CSC's 2006 Tour de France general classification contender was removed from the team prior to the beginning of the Tour according to the UCI ProTour rules due to his possible involvement in the Operación Puerto doping case, an involvement confirmed by Basso himself in April 2007. Basso maintained a private relationship with Dr Luigi Cecchini, a sports scientist who worked with Conconi and who was also Riis' coach in 1996 and involved with CSC until 2004.^[15] Italian police have alleged that Cecchini had an ongoing relationship with Eufemiano Fuentes.^[1] Basso's contract with Team CSC has since ended.

Major results

Literature

• Mader, Jørn. Ørnen fra Herning - bogen om Bjarne Riis (The eagle from Herning - the book about Bjarne Riis), Denmark, 1995, ISBN 87-412-2850-2
• Werge, Lars. Drømmeholdet - historien om CSC (The dream team - the history of CSC), Denmark, 2005, ISBN 87-7731-206-6

See also

• List of doping cases in cycling
• List of sportspeople sanctioned for doping offences

References

External links

• Riis Cycling

Tour de France Yellow jersey winners 1903 Maurice Garin · 1904 Henri Cornet · 1905 Louis Trousselier · 1906 René Pottier · 1907-1908 Lucien Petit-Breton · 1909 François Faber · 1910 Octave Lapize · 1911 Gustave Garrigou · 1912 Odile Defraye · 1913-1914 Philippe Thys · 1915-1918 World War I · 1919 Firmin Lambot · 1920 Philippe Thys · 1921 Léon Scieur · 1922 Firmin Lambot · 1923 Henri Pélissier · 1924-1925 Ottavio Bottecchia · 1926 Lucien Buysse · 1927-1928 Nicolas Frantz · 1929 Maurice De Waele · 1930 André Leducq · 1931 Antonin Magne · 1932 André Leducq · 1933 Georges Speicher · 1934 Antonin Magne · 1935 Romain Maes · 1936 Sylvère Maes · 1937 Roger Lapébie · 1938 Gino Bartali · 1939 Sylvère Maes · 1940-1946 World War II · 1947 Jean Robic · 1948 Gino Bartali · 1949 Fausto Coppi · 1950 Ferdinand Kübler · 1951 Hugo Koblet · 1952 Fausto Coppi · 1953-1955 Louison Bobet · 1956 Roger Walkowiak · 1957 Jacques Anquetil · 1958 Charly Gaul · 1959 Federico Bahamontes · 1960 Gastone Nencini · 1961-1964 Jacques Anquetil · 1965 Felice Gimondi · 1966 Lucien Aimar · 1967 Roger Pingeon · 1968 Jan Janssen · 1969-1972 Eddy Merckx · 1973 Luis Ocaña · 1974 Eddy Merckx · 1975 Bernard Thévenet · 1976 Lucien Van Impe · 1977 Bernard Thévenet · 1978-1979 Bernard Hinault · 1980 Joop Zoetemelk · 1981-1982 Bernard Hinault · 1983-1984 Laurent Fignon · 1985 Bernard Hinault · 1986 Greg LeMond · 1987 Stephen Roche · 1988 Pedro Delgado · 1989-1990 Greg LeMond · 1991-1995 Miguel Indurain · 1996 Bjarne Riis · 1997 Jan Ullrich · 1998 Marco Pantani · 1999-2005 Lance Armstrong · 2006 Óscar Pereiro · 2007 Alberto Contador · 2008 Carlos Sastre