Richard Virenque
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Virenque during the 2004 Tour de France | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Richard Virenque |
| Date of birth | November 19, 1969 |
| Country |  France |
| Height | 1m79 |
| Weight | 65kg |
| Team information | |
| Discipline | Road |
| Role | Retired |
| Rider type | Climber |
| Professional team(s) | |
| 1991–1992 1993–1998 1999–2000; 2001–2002 2003–2004 |
R.M.O. Festina Polti Domo-Farm Frites Quick Step-Davitamon |
| Major wins | |
 7 X King of the Mountains competition Tour de FranceParis-Tours (2001) |
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| Infobox last updated on: | |
| March 28, 2008 | |
| Medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Competitor for France |
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| Road bicycle racing | |||
| World Championships | |||
| Bronze | 1994 Agrigento | Elite Men's Road Race | |
Richard Virenque (born November 19, 1969 in Casablanca, Morocco) is a retired French professional road racing cyclist. He is known as a climbing specialist and for his role in a highly-publicized doping scandal.
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[edit] Early career
Virenque turned professional in 1991 and became very successful in the Tour de France when he wore the maillot jaune in 1992. From 1993 to 1998, he was in the Festina cycling team. His top placing in the general classification of the Tour de France and his multiple wins of the Polka dot jersey placed him at the top of the French hopefuls as a potential winner of the Tour de France.
[edit] Festina Affair
In 1998 the Festina cycling team was disgraced by a doping scandal (see Doping at the Tour de France) after health assistant Willy Voet was arrested with large quantities of prescription drugs and illegal drugs used for doping.
Virenque's teammates Christophe Moreau, Laurent Brochard and Armin Meier admitted taking EPO after being arrested during the 1998 Tour de France[1] and were subsequently ejected from the race.[2] Virenque maintained his innocence. While Virenque's former teammates were served six-month suspensions and returned to racing in spring of 1999[3], Virenque changed teams to Team Polti and prepared for the 1999 Tour de France by riding the 1999 Giro d'Italia where he won a stage.
In 1999, Virenque released a book called Ma Vérité. The book was written as a response to the accusations and an assertion of innocence[4] and included comments of how doping must be fought.[5] Virenque also said in his book that his teammates confessed to using EPO due to pressure from the police saying that Moreau's urine samples had shown that he was innoncent of EPO use as EPO had not been detected.[6]
Around this time, Bruno Roussel, Virenque's directeur sportif at Festina from 1995 to the Festina affair, began to break his silence regarding the affair. In an interview with l'Équipe, Roussel alleged that when he told Virenque of Voet being arrested, Virenque replied Mes produits, comment je vais faire maintenant? which could be translated as my products/stuff - what am I going to do now?[7] For the 1999 Tour de France, race director Jean-Marie Leblanc initially banned Virenque from contesting the event on moral grounds, only to have to re-instate Virenque. LeBlanc publically stated that he hoped Virenque would not win the race.[8]
In October 2000, Richard Virenque went to trial as a witness with much of the former Festina team in Lille. After initially denying that he had doped himself, he confessed to having doped himself.[9]
Richard Virenque denied doping himself intentionally, while Willy Voet charged that he was perfectly conscious of what he was doing, and even participated in trafficking between professional cyclists. Virenque claimed that all this had happened, in his own words, without his approval. The satirical television programme, Les Guignols de l'info changed his words to "à l'insu de mon plein gré" ("of my own free will but without knowing"), and this phrase soon passed into French popular culture as a sign of hypocritical denial. Voet also wrote a book, Massacre à la Chaîne, published in a legally-censored English edition as Breaking the Chain, in which he clearly (although not fully) identified Richard Virenque as an unrepentant doper in full knowledge of his own abuses.
Virenque was highly criticized by the media and satirists for his stubborn denial in the face of increasing evidence and his pretense of having been doped without his knowledge. Later Voet was quoted in L'Équipe as saying he had preferred Virenque when he was an amateur "because he didn't dope himself much".
[edit] Post-suspension career
After serving a suspension, he eventually returned to the sport, winning the UCI Road World Cup race Paris-Tours in a day-long, apparently suicidal breakaway in which he finally dropped compatriot Jacky Durand and against all odds crossed the finish line just seconds ahead of the charging peloton.
While he was bettered by fellow Frenchmen Laurent Jalabert in the 2001 and 2002 editions of the Tour de France for the King of the Mountains competition, he won his sixth polka dot jersey in 2003 to tie the previous record of Federico Bahamontes and Lucien van Impe while riding for the new Quick Step-Davitamon team. His day-long breakaway also saw him wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.
In the 2004 edition he again won the "King of the Mountains" competition as best climber, establishing a record of seven times. Belgian Lucien van Impe, having himself won the classification 6 times, publicly claimed that Virenque was disrespecting the previous record holder Bahamontes and himself, and that he himself gave up the chance to break Bahamontes' previous record out of respect for Bahamontes.
In the Tour de France, Virenque has also finished twice on the final podium (3rd in 1996 and 2nd in 1997) and won several stages, among them the legendary climb up to Mont Ventoux in 2002.
On September 24, 2004, Richard Virenque announced his retirement from competitive cycling, but has stayed in the public eye, appearing on and winning Je suis une célébrité, sortez-moi de là! (the French version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!).
He is sometimes nicknamed "spotted dick" by the English language media, in reference to his frequent ownership of the polka dot jersey (for the TdF King of the Mountains) and the dessert of the same name.[citation needed]
[edit] References
- ^ Tour riders down wheels over drug use. London independent. Retrieved on 2007-07-28.
- ^ A hint of doping at Tour de France. Herald Tribune. Retrieved on 2007-07-19.
- ^ Dopage 2. Humanite. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
- ^ Traval P and Duret P (2003). "Le dopage dans le cyclisme profesionnel:accusations, confessions et dénégations". . STAPS. 60:59-74
- ^ Tel quel Ce que Virenque expliquait deja dans son livre. Humanite.fr. Retrieved on 2007-12-31.
- ^ Aveux et pression policière. Cyclisme Dopage free. Retrieved on 2007-12-31.
- ^ Virenque"Je cours pour ceux qui m'aiment". Obs.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-31.
- ^ Cycling: The feted and hated one. Retrieved on 2007-12-31.
- ^ L’AVEU Richard Virenque a fini par admettre s’être dopé. Luc Leblanc lui a emboîté le pas. Humanite.fr. Retrieved on 2007-12-31.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Richard Virenque on the Tour de France 2004 exclusive photo of Richard with Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich
- 1996 Olympic Road Race Results
