Personal information | |
---|---|
Full name | Christine Vardaros |
Nickname | Peanut |
Born | New York, USA | 19 July 1969
Height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in) |
Weight | 57 kg (126 lb) |
Team information | |
Current team | Stevens Pro Cycling |
Discipline | Cyclo-cross Mountain bike racing Road |
Role | Rider |
Professional teams | |
1996-1999 | Team Breezer MTB |
1999-2001 | Jamba Juice MTB Team |
2002 | Sally Spicer |
2003-2006 | Velo Bella |
2006 | Lotto-Belisol Ladies Team |
2007 | Les Pruneaux d'Agen |
2007-2008 | Vanderkitten |
2009-2010 | Zannata-Champion System |
2010-2013 | Baboco Cycling Team |
2013- | Stevens Pro Cycling |
Christine "Peanut" Vardaros is a vegan professional cyclist [1] [2] [3] , both vegan and professional since 2000. She began her cycling career in 1996 as a mountain biker for Team Breezer run by Joe Breeze while still living in her hometown of Manhattan. In 2008, she relocated to Mill Valley, California to pursue her goal of becoming a professional which she achieved two years later. In 2002, she transitioned from the mountain bike to the road and cyclo-cross. In 2008, Vardaros again relocated to her current residence in Everberg, Belgium. Since this relocation, she is most known as a cyclo-cross specialist.
She represented USA Cycling at 3 World Cyclo-Cross Championships as well as over 25 Cyclo-Cross World Cups since year 2002. In addition, she has made many appearances to the podium of UCI International events, including a few wins.
Vardaros has been profiled in many magazines, newspapers and other media outlets for her cycling accomplishments as well as for her vegan diet. She has appeared in websites such as Yoga Journal, [4] Slowtwitch.com, Vivalavegan.net, Vegtomato.org (in Chinese), Roadbikereview.com, Dailypeloton.com and Greatveganathletes.com.
In addition, Vardaros is spokesperson for In Defense of Animals, The Vegan Society, and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Vardaros graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1991. [5]
Cyclo-cross is a form of bicycle racing. Races typically take place in the autumn and winter, and consist of many laps of a short course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike while navigating the obstruction and remount. Races for senior categories are generally between 40 minutes and an hour long, with the distance varying depending on the ground conditions. The sport is strongest in the traditional road cycling countries such as Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
British Cycling is the main national governing body for cycle sport in Great Britain. It administers most competitive cycling in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It represents Britain at the world body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and selects national teams, including the Great Britain (GB) Cycling Team for races in Britain and abroad. As of 2020, it has a total membership of 165000.
Alison Dunlap is an American professional cyclist. She won the world cross-country mountain bike championship in 2001 and two Mountain Bike World Cup races. She also won the Redlands Bicycle Classic on the road in 1996.
Katie Compton is an American former bicycle racer. She specialized in cyclo-cross racing and is a 15-time national champion. Compton formerly piloted a tandem with a blind partner in Paralympic events.
Marianne Vos is a Dutch multi-discipline cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's Continental Team Team Jumbo–Visma.
Sanne Cant is a Belgian racing cyclist, who currently competes in cyclo-cross for UCI Cyclo-cross Team IKO–Crelan, and in road cycling for UCI Women's Continental Team Plantur–Pura. Cant's cousin Loes Sels is also a professional cyclist.
Kateřina Nash is a Czech cross-country skier and cyclist who competed from 1994 to 2003 in skiing and is still active in cycling for the Clif Pro Team. Competing in two Winter Olympics, she finished sixth in the 4 × 5 km relay at Nagano in 1998 and had her best individual finish of 20th in the 15 km event in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Liam Killeen, is a British professional mountain biker. He represented England in cross country racing at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 where he came 3rd, and became Commonwealth Champion in 2006. He has won the British Mountain Biking National Champion over five consecutive years; 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. He competed for Great Britain at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen as the sole male cross-country rider for the British team for the London Games in 2012.
Molly Cameron is an American professional cyclo-cross racing cyclist who rides for Portland Bicycle Studio. She was the first openly transgender athlete to compete in a UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup, and is an acknowledged vegan athlete.
Annie Last, is an English professional cyclist, representing Great Britain and England, who specialises in mountain biking and cyclo-cross. She was chosen as a female competitor in the cross country mountain bike event for the Great Britain team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, going on to take 8th place.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is a French multi-discipline bicycle racer, who currently rides for UCI Elite Mountain Bike team Absolute–Absalon–BMC in cross-country cycling. Ferrand-Prévot has also competed in road bicycle racing and cyclo-cross during her career, winning the world title in each discipline. During the 2015 season, aged just 23, she became the first person ever – in the history of cycling – to simultaneously hold the World road title, World cyclo-cross title and World cross-country mountain bike title.
Meredith Miller is a Cyclo cross and road cyclist from United States. She was educated at Guilford High School, where she graduated in 1992, and went on to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison and San Francisco State University, where she earned a B.S. and an M.A. in kinesiology in 1996 and 2002 respectively. Miller competed in track athletics in high school and soccer in both high school and college. After graduating from college she played semi-professional soccer for a team in Madison for one season before the team disbanded, following which she was introduced to cycling by her then boyfriend. She represented her nation at the 2009 UCI Road World Championships and in cyclo cross at the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships.
Victoria Wilkinson is an English runner and cyclo-cross rider who was a world mountain running champion at junior level and who has several times been a national fell running champion as a senior athlete.
Femke Van den Driessche is a Belgian former cyclo-cross cyclist, mountainbiker and road racing cyclist. As a junior, she became national cyclo-cross champion in 2011 and mountain bike champion in 2013. In 2015, Van den Driessche won the European Cyclo-cross Championships in the women's under-23 category, and in 2016 she became Belgian champion in the same category, but she was later stripped of both titles.
Global Cycling Network (GCN) is a cycling-related YouTube channel which was launched in 2013. It is run by the multi-channel network Play Sports Network, a subsidiary of Discovery. The channel is presented by Daniel Lloyd, Under-23 British National Mountain Biking champion Simon Richardson, Oliver Bridgewood, Alex Paton, Welsh former track cyclist Manon Lloyd, Conor Dunne, and James Lowsley-Williams. It is headquartered in Bath, Somerset under its parent company.
Emma White is an American former professional racing cyclist, who last rode for UCI Women's Continental Team Rally Cycling.
Rubén Ruzafa Cueto is a professional triathlete, cyclo-cross and mountain bike cyclist. He is a four-time World Triathlon Cross world champion and a three-time XTERRA Triathlon world champion.
Amy Alison Dombroski was an American professional cyclist, who competed in cyclocross, road, and mountain bike racing. An American National Champion in Road, Cyclocross, and Mountain Bike (2009), Dombroski also competed internationally, representing the United States at UCI World Championship Cyclocross, UCI World Cup Cyclocross, and UCI World Championship Cross Country Mountain Biking events.
Cycling in the United States is a minor sport in the country. It is also a mode of transport, particularly in urban areas.
Sofía Gómez Villafane is an Argentine cross-country mountain biker and cyclo-cross cyclist. She represented Argentina at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Women's cross-country.