Roger Hassenforder has died aged 90. A Tour de France stage winner, a yellow jersey wearer, a hunter, a clown, a restaurateur… he was above all a big personality and one of cycling’s first television superstars.
2021 Pro Cycling Calendar
Happy New Year. Here’s to another lap around the sun, and with it the pro cycling calendar for 2021, free to download for your diary or phone. It’s packed with racing… but already some events have gone and more might follow.
Highlights of 2020 – Part V
Tough choice to pick the last of five highlights from the year but the Tour de France’s penultimate stage stands out, above all as a moment of sporting drama, but also a healthy exercise in forecasting, bias and review.
Christmas Holidays Quiz
Some are obvious, some odd, most can’t be Googled and a few are fiendish. By all means have a go and there’s a Tour de France polka-dot t-shirt prize for the winner… but most will probably find fun in the answers that will appear here next week.
Highlights of 2020 – Part IV
After three stage races, now for a one day race and no less than the Tour of Flanders.
Highlights of 2020 – Part III
Next up in the parade of highlights this year is the final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, a thriller from start to finish.
Highlights of 2020 – Part II
In the second of the 2020 highlights here’s the Tour de l’Ain. Normally a modest 2.1 stage race, in 2020 it had all the right ingredients to set up a summer of sport and told us plenty about the upcoming Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de France, setting up the Jumbo vs Ineos duel.
Highlights of 2020 – Part I
The first of five picks looking back at 2020 is Paris-Nice. Held in March it almost feels like two seasons ago now. The final stage had to be scrapped but there was plenty to enjoy along the way despite a fraught atmosphere as the coronavirus spread across Europe. Max Schachmann led from start to finish but there was never a sense of inevitability and he was tested right until the final moments of the final stage.
Jean-Pierre Carenso
Jean-Pierre Carenso has died aged 86. A former director of the Tour de France, Carenso – pictured on the right – is one of several “forgotten” directors from the 1980s and did a lot to change the race and the business of pro cycling in a short space of time.