Eric Vanderaerden

Eric Vanderaerden

Personal information
Full name	Eric Vanderaerden
Born	(1962-02-11) 11 February 1962 Lummen, Belgium
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Sprinter
Major wins
Tour de France, green jersey win (1986) Tour de France 5 stage wins (1983, 1984, 1985) Tour de France, 5 days in yellow jersey (1983, 1985) Tour of Flanders (1985) Paris–Roubaix (1987) Three Days of De Panne, 5 time winner (1986-1989, 1993)
Infobox last updated on 16 April 2007

Eric Vanderaerden (born 11 February 1962) is a retired road cyclist from the town of Lummen, Belgium.

He was a considerable talent, winning the prologue time trial of the Vuelta and the Tour de France in his professional debut year 1983. As for classics, he won the Tour of Flanders in 1985 and Paris–Roubaix in 1987. In the Tour de France, his participation in the 1985 edition was a strong one, beating the later winner Bernard Hinault in a time trial stage. The next year, he won the green jersey.

After 1988, his career went in decline, though every observer had the impression he could have achieved much more. He certainly had considerable talent as a time trial racer, but as a climber in the mountains his talent was limited. Perhaps, he was partly a victim of the high expectations the Belgian public had to get a successor for Eddy Merckx, a cyclist who was very versatile in winning both classic races and big stage races.

After his active career, Vanderaerden has led a few semi-professional racing teams and was also assistant-manager of a professional Belgo-Italian team. He became a directeur sportif with the DFL-Cyclingnews-Litespeed team in August 2006.^[1] His son Michael Vanderaerden signed a contract with the team in September 2007.^[2]

Major results

References