Stefan Schumacher

Stefan Schumacher

Schumacher at the 2006 Tour de Pologne
Personal information
Full name	Stefan Schumacher
Born	(1981-07-21) July 21, 1981 Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	68 kg (150 lb)
Team information
Current team	Christina Watches-Dana
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder/Time-trialist
Amateur team(s)
2001	Telekom-Jan Ullrich
Professional team(s)
2002–2003 2004 2005 2006–2008 2010–2011 2012–	Team Telekom Team Lamonta Shimano-Memory Corp Gerolsteiner Miche-Silver Cross-Selle Italia Christina Watches-Onfone
Major wins
Grand Tours Giro d'Italia 2 individual stages Stage races Eneco Tour (2006) Tour de Serbie (2012) Tour of China II (2012) One-day races and Classics Amstel Gold Race (2007)
Medal record Competitor for  Germany Road bicycle racing World Championships Bronze 2007 Stuttgart Elite Men's Road Race
Infobox last updated on 14 July 2013

Stefan Schumacher (born July 21, 1981) is a German professional road racing cyclist. Schumacher won the bronze medal in the 2007 Road Race World Championship, two stages in the 2006 Giro d'Italia and two stages in the 2008 Tour de France. After positive results on doping products in the 2008 Tour de France and the 2008 Summer Olympics, he received a suspension for two years, later reduced by some months. After his suspension, he came back as a professional cyclist.

Career

First professionally employed with Team Telekom in 2002, he was released the following year. In 2006, he made his UCI ProTour debut with Team Gerolsteiner after posting impressive continental circuits results on the UCI Europe Tour.

Schumacher has been involved in a series of controversial incidents during his career. He was implicated in a doping case in 2005 when he tested positive for an amphetamine. His mother, a doctor, had prescribed an asthma medication after failing to find it on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances, and checking with the appropriate Dutch agency. He was cleared by the German cycling federation of a doping offence.

In 2006 Schumacher, now riding for Gerolsteiner, won the Eneco Tour of Benelux by one second after colliding with his main rival George Hincapie in the closing metres of the final stage, when time bonuses were available for the leading finishers. Schumacher claimed he had collided first with a spectator and the race jury accepted his story.

Following his third place in the 2007 world championships in his home town of Stuttgart, Schumacher was arrested for drunken driving. Four months later he revealed that the blood test taken at the time of his arrest had shown traces of amphetamines, whilst denying that he had knowingly taken drugs or had any knowledge of how the positive test had come about. Since a rule change in 2004 amphetamines were no longer on the WADA's out-of-competition banned list; as a result the German federation again exonerated him.

In the 2008 Tour de France, Schumacher, riding as leader of Gerolsteiner, won both time trials, beating Swiss favorite Fabian Cancellara, and took the yellow jersey of race leader after the first. After Gerolsteiner was announced to be folding, Schumacher signed a two-year contract with Quick Step.^[3]

On October 6, 2008, the media reported that Schumacher had tested positive for the controlled substance CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator), a new generation of EPO, in a blood sample taken during the 2008 Tour de France.^[4] CERA was also the drug for which Italian cyclists Riccardo Riccò and Leonardo Piepoli tested positive during the Tour de France. The German cycling federation is likely to take disciplinary action ^[5] Schumacher continues to assert his innocence, believed he was eligible to ride in the 2009 season, and was at time still officially under contract with Quick Step, though Quick Step manager Patrick Lefevre has said Schumacher's contract would not be honored.^[6]

At 19 February 2009, Schumacher was banned for two years by the UCI.^[7] In January 2010, the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) reduced Schumacher's ban, allowing him to ride again per August 2010.^[8]

In April 2009, Schumacher's name was raised in connection with a positive test for performance enhancing drugs at the 2008 Summer Olympics.^[9] Both his "A" and "B" samples tested positive for CERA at the 2008 Summer Olympics.^[10] Schumacher was disqualified after this positive test, and appealed against this at the CAS, but dropped his appeal in April 2010.^[11]

Schumacher's ban ended in August 2010. He came back to ride for the Miche team, and joined Christina Watches-Onfone for the 2012 season.^[12] In March 2013, Schumacher confessed to doping in an interview with the news magazine Der Spiegel. He stated he started doping in his mid-twenties and used "EPO, growth hormone and corticosteroids".^[13] He also said that his former team Gerolsteiner tolerated doping and it became as banal as "having a plate of pasta after training".^[14]

Palmarès

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

• [ttp://www.stefan-schumacher.com Official website]
• Stefan Schumacher profile at Cycling Archives