Hunter at the 2010 Tour de Romandie | |
Personal information | |
---|---|
Full name | Robert Hunter |
Nickname | Robbie [1] |
Born | Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa | 22 April 1977
Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) |
Weight | 72 kg (159 lb) |
Team information | |
Current team | EF Education First–Drapac p/b Cannondale |
Discipline | Road |
Role | Rider (retired) Directeur sportif |
Rider type | Sprinter |
Professional team(s) | |
1999–2001 | Lampre–Daikin |
2002 | Mapei–Quick-Step |
2003–2004 | Rabobank |
2005–2006 | Phonak |
2007–2009 | Barloworld |
2010 | Garmin–Transitions |
2011 | Team RadioShack |
2012–2013 | Garmin–Barracuda |
Managerial team(s) | |
2014–2015 | Garmin–Sharp |
Major wins | |
|
Robert "Robbie" Hunter (born 22 April 1977) is a retired South African professional road racing cyclist who competed professionally between 1999 and 2013. Hunter competed with UCI ProTeam Garmin–Sharp during his final professional season. [1] [2]
Hunter became the first South African to compete in the Tour de France, when he did so in 2001. [3] In 2006, Hunter rode for Phonak in the UCI ProTour, but after their disbandment he signed for UCI Continental Circuits side Barloworld for 2007. His achievements include winning stages at the 1999 and 2001 Vuelta a Españas, the 2007 Tour de France, and the overall title at the 2004 Tour of Qatar, as well as the points classification at the 2004 Tour de Suisse.
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 2001 Tour de France was a multiple-stage bicycle race held from 7 to 29 July, and the 88th edition of the Tour de France. It has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong originally won the event, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced in August 2012 that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his seven Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005. The verdict was subsequently confirmed by the Union Cycliste Internationale.
Phonak was a Swiss professional cycling team from 2000 until 2006. The team was one of 20 teams in the first UCI ProTour in 2005. It won one race - Santiago Botero's victory in the Tour de Romandie - and came second in the team ranking on the 2005 ProTour circuit.
In 2007, Hunter returned to the Tour de France as team captain of Barloworld. Hunter subsequently won sprint stage 11, which was the first stage won by a South African.
Barloworld was a UCI Professional Continental cycling team that competed between 2003 and 2009. Its sponsor company was South African and the team maintained a South African identity, but it was first registered in Italy and then, from 2007, in Great Britain.
In 2008, Hunter was allowed by the Tour de France's doping controllers to fly to Switzerland on 4 July, the day before the start, to be at his wife Claudia's side for the birth of his daughter, Mandy Inga Hunter. [4]
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated in western, central and southern Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The sovereign state is a federal republic bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8.5 million people is concentrated mostly on the plateau, where the largest cities are to be found: among them are the two global cities and economic centres Zürich and Geneva.
Following the 2013 season, Hunter announced his retirement from professional cycling. [5] [6] Hunter was a directeur sportif for Garmin–Sharp in 2014 and 2015. In November 2015 he announced that he was leaving the team in order to spend more time with his family and concentrate on his role as a rider agent for a number of African cyclists, including Louis Meintjes. [7]
A directeur sportif is a person directing a cycling team during a road bicycle racing event. It is seen as the equivalent to a field manager in baseball, or a head coach in football. At professional level, a directeur sportif follows the team in a car and communicates with riders, personnel and race officials by radio.
Louis Meintjes is a South African cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Team Dimension Data. He won the South African National Road Race Championships in 2014, and has finished 8th overall in the Tour de France, on 2 occasions in 2016 and 2017. He has also finished 10th overall at the 2015 Vuelta a España.
Grand Tour | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 154 | — | DNF | DNF | 141 | |
— | — | DNF | 97 | DNF | — | DNF | DNF | 118 | 106 | — | DNF | — | DNF | — | |
72 | — | — | 118 | — | DNF | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
— | Did not compete |
---|---|
DNF | Did not finish |
Thomas "Tom" Danielson is an American former professional road racing cyclist who most recently rode for UCI ProTeam EF Education First Pro Cycling, until a positive test for synthetic testosterone in August 2015 and Cannondale's decision not to renew his contract. He previously competed professionally for Discovery Channel (2005–2007), Fassa Bortolo (2004), Saturn (2003) and Mercury (2002).
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.
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Koldo Fernández de Larrea is a Spanish retired professional road racing cyclist who last rode for UCI ProTeam EF Education First Pro Cycling. Between 2004 and 2011, Fernández competed with Euskaltel–Euskadi. In 2012, he joined Garmin–Barracuda. Born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Fernández currently resides Zurbano, Basque Country, Spain. He is now an agent.
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