Bjarne Lykkegård Riis, nicknamed The Eagle from Herning, is a Danish former professional road bicycle racer who placed first in the 1996 Tour de France. For many years he was the owner and later manager of the Oleg Tinkov associated Russian UCI WorldTeam Tinkoff–Saxo. Other career highlights include placing first in the Amstel Gold Race in 1997, multiple Danish National Championships, and stage wins in the Giro d'Italia. On 25 May 2007, he admitted that he placed first in the Tour de France using banned substances, and he was no longer considered the winner by the Tour's organizers. In July 2008, the Tour reconfirmed his victory but with an asterisk label to indicate his doping offences.
HTC–Highroad was 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.
The 1998 Tour de France was the 85th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The 3,875 km (2,408 mi) race was composed of 21 stages and a prologue. It started on 11 July in Ireland before taking an anti-clockwise route through France to finish in Paris on 2 August. Marco Pantani of Mercatone Uno–Bianchi won the overall general classification, with Team Telekom's Jan Ullrich, the defending champion, and Cofidis rider Bobby Julich finishing on the podium in second and third respectively.
Erik Zabel is a German former professional road bicycle racer who raced for most of his career with Team Telekom. With 152 professional wins and 211 wins in his career, he is considered by some to be one of the greatest German cyclists and cycling sprinters of all time. Zabel won a record nine points classifications in grands tours including the points classification in the Tour de France six consecutive years between 1996 and 2001 and the points classification in the Vuelta a España in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Zabel won the Milan–San Remo four times and numerous six-day track events. He was one of the few road cyclists of recent times who raced all year, including track cycling in winter. For season 2012 he joined Team Katusha as sprint coach. He previously held that same position with the HTC–Highroad team until their dissolution. Zabel admitted to doping from 1996 to 2003. He is the father of cyclist Rick Zabel.
The 1996 Tour de France was the 83rd edition of the Tour de France, starting on 29 June and ending on 21 July, featuring 19 regular stages, 2 individual time trials, a prologue and a rest day. It was won by Danish rider Bjarne Riis.
Brian Holm Sørensen is a retired Danish professional rider in road bicycle racing from 1986 to 1998, who rode for Team Telekom from 1993 to 1997 and was part of the team that brought his fellow Dane Bjarne Riis to victory in the 1996 Tour de France.
Stefan Schumacher is a German former professional road racing cyclist. Schumacher won the bronze medal in the road race at the 2007 UCI Road World Championships, two stages in the 2006 Giro d'Italia and two stages in the 2008 Tour de France. After positive results on doping products in the 2008 Tour de France and the 2008 Summer Olympics, he received a suspension for two years, later reduced by some months. After his suspension, he came back as a professional cyclist before retiring in 2017.
Bernhard Eisel is an Austrian former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2001 and 2019 for the Mapei–Quick-Step, Française des Jeux, HTC–Highroad, Team Sky and Team Dimension Data teams. Following his retirement, he worked as an analyst and presenter for Eurosport and the Global Cycling Network (GCN), before joining Bora–Hansgrohe as a directeur sportif in 2022.
Gerald Michael Ciolek is a German former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2005 and 2016. He currently works as a directeur sportif for UCI Continental team Dauner–Akkon.
Udo Bölts is a retired German racing cyclist, the brother of Hartmut Bölts. Bölts confessed publicly in 2007 to having used EPO and growth hormones in 1996 and 1997.
The Festina affair was a series of doping scandals within the sport of professional cycling that occurred during and after the 1998 Tour de France. The affair began when a large haul of doping products was found in a support car belonging to the Festina cycling team just before the start of the race. A resulting investigation revealed systematic doping involving many teams in the Tour de France. Hotels where teams were staying were raided and searched by police, confessions were made by several retired and current riders, and team personnel were arrested or detained. Several teams withdrew completely from the race.
Jesús María Manzano Ruano is a former Spanish professional road racing cyclist. He is famous as the whistleblower of systematic doping within his cycling team and his statements led the Guardia Civil to conduct the Operación Puerto investigation around the sports doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.
Team Qhubeka was a UCI WorldTeam based in South Africa. The team rode to raise awareness and funds for Qhubeka, a South African not-for-profit organisation. The team was founded in 2007 and was the first-ever African team to ride the Tour de France (2015).
Andreas Stauff is a German former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2007 and 2015. He now works as a directeur sportif for UCI Continental team Team Lotto–Kern Haus PSD Bank.
Tiffany Jane Cromwell is an Australian road and gravel cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam Canyon–SRAM.
Barbara Guarischi is an Italian racing cyclist, who rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam Team SD Worx–Protime. She competed in the 2013 UCI women's team time trial in Florence. In November 2015 she was announced as part of the Canyon–SRAM team's inaugural squad for the 2016 season.
The 2015 Vattenfall Cyclassics was a one-day classic cycling race that took place in Northern Germany on 23 August. It was the 20th edition of the Vattenfall Cyclassics one-day cycling race, and was the twenty-third race of the 2015 UCI World Tour. The race started in Kiel and ended in Hamburg. The course was mainly flat; the race generally suits sprinters, such as the defending champion, Alexander Kristoff.
Bert Dietz is a German former racing cyclist. He won the Hessen-Rundfahrt in 1992.
The year in which the 1998 Tour de France took place marked the moment when cycling was fundamentally shattered by doping revelations. Paradoxically no riders were caught failing drug tests by any of the ordinary doping controls in place at the time. Nevertheless, several police searches and interrogations managed to prove existence of organized doping at the two teams Festina and TVM, who consequently had to withdraw from the race. After stage 16, the police also forced the virtual mountain jersey holder Rodolfo Massi to leave the race, due to having found illegal corticosteroids in his hotel room. The intensive police work then led to a peloton strike at stage 17, with a fallout of four Spanish teams and one Italian team deciding to leave the race in protest.
National Champion (2000)
