Santiago Botero Echeverry is a Colombian former professional road bicycle racer. He was a pro from 1996 to 2010, during which he raced in three editions of the Tour de France and four editions of the Vuelta a España. He is best known for winning the mountains' classification in the Tour de France, and the Time Trial World Championship 2002.
Alexander Nikolayevich Vinokourov is a Kazakhstani former professional road bicycle racer and the current general manager of UCI WorldTeam Astana Qazaqstan Team. He is of Russian origin. 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 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. In 2007, he received a two-year ban from cycling for blood doping. In 2019, he was accused of race fixing by prosecutors in Liège but was later cleared of the charges.
Christopher Brandon Horner is an American retired professional road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 1996 and 2019.
David Zabriskie is a retired professional road bicycle racer from the United States, who competed as a professional between 1999 and 2013. His main strength is individual time trials and his career highlights include stage wins in all three Grand Tour stage races and winning the US National Time Trial Championship seven times. Zabriskie is known for his quirky nature, including singing before stages and the interviews he does with fellow riders in the professional peloton which are posted on his web site.
Jens Voigt is a German former professional road bicycle racer and, upon retirement, became a cycling sports broadcast commentator. During his cycling career, Voigt raced for several teams, the last one being UCI ProTeam Trek Factory Racing. Voigt wore the yellow jersey of the Tour de France twice, though he was never a contender for the overall title owing to the mountainous nature of the stages of the race being better suited to climbing specialists. His career achievements include winning the Critérium International a record-tying five times and a number of one-week stage races, as well as two Tour de France stage victories. In September 2014, he set a new hour record.
Johan Bruyneel is a Belgian former professional road bicycle racer and a former directeur sportif for UCI ProTour team RadioShack–Nissan, and U.S. Postal Service, a US-based UCI ProTour cycling team. On 25 October 2018, the World Anti Doping Agency imposed a lifetime ban on Bruyneel for his role in a doping scandal that also saw Lance Armstrong stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Sylvain Chavanel is a French former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2000 and 2018 for the Cofidis, Omega Pharma–Quick-Step, IAM Cycling and two spells with the Brioches La Boulangère/Direct Énergie team. His brother Sébastien Chavanel also rode as a professional cyclist. Sylvain Chavanel was noted as a strong all-rounder who won both sprints and time-trials, and was a good northern classics rider, taking 45 wins during his professional career.
Laurent Dufaux is a former professional road cyclist from 1991 to 2004. He was the Swiss National Road Race champion in 1991. Despite being a climber, he also won the hilly Züri-Metzgete one-day classic in 2000, outsprinting Jan Ullrich and Francesco Casagrande in a flat three-man group sprint finish. Notable results in the Grand Tours include a 4th place overall finish in both the 1996 and 1999 Tour de France and 2nd and 3rd place finishes in the 1996 and 1997 Vuelta a España, respectively. He also won the 1998 edition of his home region race, the Tour de Romandie, the 1993 and 1994 editions of the Dauphine Libere, and finished in the top 5 of the Tour de Suisse twice.
Christian Vande Velde is a retired American professional road racing cyclist of Belgian descent, who rode professionally between 1998 and 2013. Vande Velde competed for the U.S. Postal Service, Liberty Seguros, Team CSC and Garmin–Sharp squads. He has been a cycling analyst for NBC Sports since 2014. He is the son of cyclist John Vande Velde.
Denis Nikolayevich Menshov is a former professional Russian road bicycle racer, who rode as a professional between 2000 and 2013. He was best known as a general classification rider, a climber and an accomplished time trialist. In 2005 he finished second in the Vuelta a España and in 2007 he finished as the champion. He also won the centenary Giro d'Italia in 2009 and finished second in the Tour de France in 2010 becoming the first Russian to do so. He was later disqualified from that Tour de France, as well as the 2009 and 2012 editions, owing to adverse biological passport findings.
František Raboň is a Czech mountain biker for the Specialized Racing Factory Mountain Bike Team. He was formerly a road racing cyclist for UCI ProTeams HTC–Highroad, and Omega Pharma–Quick-Step.
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 six riders to have won all three Grand Tours of cycling, and one of only two riders to have won all three more than once. He has also won the Vélo d'Or a record 4 times.
Janez "Jani" Brajkovič is a racing cyclist from Metlika, Slovenia, who most recently rode for UCI Continental team Adria Mobil. He was the world under-23 Time Trial champion in 2004.
Luis León Sánchez Gil is a Spanish former road bicycle racer, who last rode for UCI WorldTeam Astana Qazaqstan Team. Sánchez's major achievements include winning the overall classifications of the 2009 Paris–Nice and the 2005 Tour Down Under, as well as the one-day race Clásica de San Sebastián in 2010 and 2012. He also has four Tour de France stage victories and is a four-time winner of the Spanish National Time Trial Championships. He is a time trial specialist and has improved his climbing skills over the course of his career.
Rubén Plaza Molina is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2019 for the Comunidad Valenciana–Kelme, Benfica, Liberty Seguros, Movistar Team, Lampre–Merida, Orica–Scott and Israel Cycling Academy teams. During his career, he recorded a top 5 overall placing in the 2005 Vuelta a España, and won three Grand Tour stages.
Dario Cataldo is an Italian professional road bicycle racer, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Lidl–Trek.
Tony Hans-Joachim Martin is a German former professional road bicycle racer. Martin was known as a time trial specialist, and is a four-time world champion in the discipline – having won the title in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016 – which is joint-most with Fabian Cancellara. He also won a silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, finishing runner-up to Bradley Wiggins in the event. Martin was also part of four world championship-winning team time trial squads, with Omega Pharma–Quick-Step/Etixx–Quick-Step, in 2012, 2013 and 2016, and with Germany in the mixed relay time-trial in 2021.
The 2008 Vuelta a España was the 63rd edition of the Vuelta a España, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race began with a 7 km (4.3 mi) team time trial on 30 August in Granada. The Vuelta came to a close twenty-three days later with a 102.2 km (63.5 mi) flat stage, which brought the peloton into the streets of Madrid. Nineteen teams entered the race, which was won by the Spaniard Alberto Contador of Astana. Second and third respectively were the American Levi Leipheimer of Astana and the Spanish Carlos Sastre of CSC–Saxo Bank.
Team RadioShack was a professional road bicycle racing team, with RadioShack as the title sponsor, the creation of which was announced on July 23, 2009. Lance Armstrong co-owned and led the team, which raced in the Grand Tours and the UCI ProTour. The team was managed by Capital Sports and Entertainment, an Austin, Texas sports and event management group that also manages the Trek-Livestrong U23 development cycling team and that ran the former Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team.
Phil Zajicek is an American ex-professional road racing cyclist who last rode professionally for the Fly V Australia Team in 2010. On June 10, 2011, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced that Zajicek had accepted a life-ban from competition.
