The Tour de France is an annual men's multiple stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours, it consists of 21 day-long stages over the course of 23 days.
The Daytona 500 is a 500-mile-long (805 km) Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series motor race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is the first of two Cup races held every year at Daytona, the second being the Coke Zero 400, and one of three held in Florida, with the annual championship showdown Ford EcoBoost 400 being held at Homestead south of Miami. It is one of the four restrictor plate races on the Cup schedule. The inaugural Daytona 500 was held in 1959 coinciding with the opening of the speedway and since 1982, it has been the season-opening race of the Cup series.
The Giro d'Italia is an annual multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in Italy, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. The first race was organized in 1909 to increase sales of the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport; however it is currently run by RCS Sport. The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1909, except when it was stopped for the two world wars. As the Giro gained prominence and popularity the race was lengthened, and the peloton expanded from primarily Italian participation to riders from all over the world. The Giro is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI ProTeams, with the exception of the teams that the organizers can invite.
The general classification is the most important classification, the one by which the winner of the Tour de France is determined. Since 1919, the leader of the general classification wears the yellow jersey.
Thomas Simpson was one of Britain's most successful professional cyclists. He was born in Haswell, County Durham and later moved to Harworth, Nottinghamshire. Simpson began road cycling as a teenager before taking up track cycling, specialising in pursuit races. He won a bronze medal for track cycling at the 1956 Summer Olympics and a silver at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
HTC–Highroad is a former professional cycling team competing in international road bicycle races. Their last title sponsor was HTC Corporation, a Taiwanese manufacturer of smartphones but dissolved at the end of the 2011 season from a failure to find a new sponsor. High Road Sports was the management company of team manager Bob Stapleton. Past title sponsors include Columbia Sportswear and Deutsche Telekom.
Alexander Nikolayevich Vinokourov is a Russian Kazakhstani former professional road bicycle racer and current general manager of UCI ProTeam Astana. As a competitor, his achievements include two bronze medals at the World Championships, four stage wins in the Tour de France, four in the Vuelta a España plus the overall title in 2006, two Liège–Bastogne–Liège monuments, one Amstel Gold Race, and most recently, the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics Men's Road Race. Vinokourov is a past national champion of Kazakhstan, and a dual-medalist at the Summer Olympics.
John James 'Sean' Kelly is an Irish former professional road bicycle racer, one of the most successful road cyclists of the 1980s, and one of the finest classics riders of all time. From turning professional in 1977 until his retirement in 1994, he won nine monument classics, and 193 professional races in total. He won Paris–Nice seven years in a row and the first UCI Road World Cup in 1989. He won the 1988 Vuelta a España and had multiple wins in the Giro di Lombardia, Milan–San Remo, Paris–Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Other victories include the Critérium International, Grand Prix des Nations and smaller tours including the Tour de Suisse, Tour of the Basque Country and Volta a Catalunya.
Alejandro Valverde Belmonte is a Spanish road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Movistar Team. Valverde's biggest wins have been the 2009 Vuelta a España, Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2006, 2008, 2015 and 2017, La Flèche Wallonne, the Clásica de San Sebastián, the 2006 and 2008 UCI ProTours, the 2014 and 2015 UCI World Tours, and the road race in the 2018 World Championships. Overall, Valverde has 122 professional wins. Prior to this, he twice collected the silver medal in the World Championships, in 2003 and 2005, as well as the bronze four times in 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Valverde is rare in combining different specialities in road bicycle racing, being a strong climbing specialist, sprinter and a good time-trialist. After a lengthy court battle, he was suspended for two years as part of the Operación Puerto blood doping investigation, but he returned to competition in 2012 upon completion of the ban. Valverde has placed in the Top 10 of a Grand Tour seventeen times.
AG2R La Mondiale is a French cycling team with UCI WorldTeam status. Its title sponsors are the AG2R Group, which is a French-based interprofessional insurance and supplementary retirement fund group, and the La Mondiale Group, which is a French-based international group for supplementary pension and estate planning insurance. The team is predominantly French.
Gregory Henderson is a New Zealand former professional track and road racing cyclist who last rode for UnitedHealthcare. His career includes winning the 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) scratch race at the 2004 world championships and, in road cycling, winning the points competition at the 2005 Tour de Georgia. He repeated this feat in 2008. He rode in five Olympic Games and completed 11 Grand Tours. He also competed in four Commonwealth Games and was a four-time medallist, including winning gold in the points race in 2002. During an important part of his career, he served as André Greipel's main lead-out man, and they have been colleagues at both T-Mobile Team and later Lotto–Soudal. In 2007, he rode for T-Mobile Team.
Alberto Contador Velasco is a Spanish former professional cyclist. He is one of the most successful riders of his era, winning the Tour de France twice, the Giro d'Italia twice, and the Vuelta a España three times. He is one of only seven riders to have won all three Grand Tours of cycling. He has also won the Velo d'Or a record 4 times.
Walter Godefroot is a retired Belgian professional road bicycle racer and former directeur sportif of Team Telekom, later known as T-Mobile Team, professional team. He won a bronze medal in the individual road race at the 1964 Summer Olympics.
Julian Dean is a former professional road racing cyclist from New Zealand who competed as a professional between 1999 and 2013. He last rode for UCI World Tour team Orica–GreenEDGE, where he now works as an assistant sporting director and mentor. His main achievements include winning the 2007 and 2008 New Zealand National Road Race Championships, finishing 9th in the 2005 World Road Championships in Madrid, and 10th place in the 2002 World Road Championships in Zolder. At the peak of his career he was considered the best lead out rider in the world, and was highly regarded by his teammate and friend Thor Hushovd.
The 2007 Giro d'Italia was the 90th running of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place from 12 May to 3 June 2007. The race began in Sardinia and finished in Milan, and featured five mountain top finishes, of which one was an individual time trial. The race also visited France and Austria in three stages.
The 2007 Vuelta a España, the sixty-second edition of the cycle race, took place from 1 September until 23 September 2007. For the first time in a decade, the race started in the region of Galicia, at Vigo, home to Óscar Pereiro, with a flat stage. It was also an unusual Vuelta because the first summit finish came already on the fourth day of racing, with a stage ending atop the famed Lagos de Covadonga. The race was won by Denis Menchov, who also won the Mountains competition and the combined classification, and finished second in the points competition.
CCC–Sprandi–Polkowice is a UCI Professional Continental cycling team based in Poland. Formerly CCC-Mat, the team became known as CCC-Polsat in 2002. In 2004 and 2005, the team was known as Hoop CCC-Polsat, reverting to CCC-Polsat in 2006. From 2007 to 2011, the team was known as CCC-Polsat-Polkowice (abbreviated to CCC-Polsat), and team kit colours are orange and black.
The 2007 Volta a Catalunya road cycling race took place from May 21 to May 27, 2007, in Catalonia. It began in Salou with a team time trial and ends in Barcelona. The race was won by Russian Vladimir Karpets of the Caisse d'Epargne team, who won the race thanks to winning the team time trial, and second placings on the toughest mountain stage and the mountain time trial. The race also saw the first UCI ProTour victories for young British sprinter Mark Cavendish of the T-Mobile Team, when he took stages 2 and 6.
Hayden Roulston, MNZM is a former New Zealand professional racing cyclist. He won the silver medal in the men's 4000 m individual pursuit and a bronze medal in the men's 4000 m team pursuit at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Catherine "Cath" Cheatley is a retired New Zealand professional road and track cyclist. She won two New Zealand championship titles in both road race and individual track pursuit, and later represented her nation New Zealand at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Before her official retirement in June 2012 because of sustained bike crash-related injuries, Cheatley moved to the United States to race for the Cheerwine and Colavita–Sutter Home pro cycling teams in the women's elite professional events on the UCI Women's World Cup, and UCI World Championships, where she earned the bronze medal for the women's points race in 2007.
