Michael Rasmussen (cyclist)
 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Michael Rasmussen |
| Nickname | Kyllingen fra Tølløse (The Chicken from Tølløse) |
| Height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) |
| Weight | [undue weight? – discuss] |
| Team information | |
| Current team | Rabobank |
| Discipline | Road (formerly MTB) |
| Role | Rider |
| Rider type | Climbing specialist |
| Major wins | |
Tour de France, 3 stages,
| |
Michael Rasmussen (born June 1 1974 in Tølløse) is a Danish professional road bicycle racer who rides for Dutch team Rabobank. Specializing in climbing, Rasmussen has shown a propensity for attempting spectacular stage wins in mountain stages in which he breaks away from the peloton early and rides alone for most of the stage.
Michael Rasmussen is known for his care for detail when considering weight and he is known to constantly pester his mechanics to make his bike lighter. He doesn't climb with any water bottles because they weigh too much. In the 2006 Tour de France he perfected his bike to be just 10 grams above the minimum weight for a bike; he is also known for peeling off unnecessary stickers from his bike, and is rumored to have the lowest body fat percentage of any rider in the pro ranks. He only carries one water bottle holder and his bike, the Colnago Extreme-C weighed in at 6810g (6.81kg), only 10g more than the allowed limit.
His nickname is Chicken or Chicken Legs but this actually has nothing to do with his posture. The name originates from his period as a mountainbiker, when a couple of teammates were watching Danish children's TV show Bamses Billedbog, about a bear and a chicken. One of his teammates was nicknamed Bear, and so Rasmussen was dubbed Chicken.[1]
Biography
Rasmussen began his cycling career as a mountain biker, and he won the Mountain Bike World Championships in 1999 before becoming a stagiaire at professional cycling team CSC-Tiscali in 2001. Here he secured a one-year contract for the 2002 season, and following a string of good results in August and September, including his first professional win, he switched from CSC-Tiscali to the Rabobank team in the 2003 season.
His first Tour de France was in 2004 in which he failed to get any stage wins and the polka dot jersey went to Richard Virenque who won the mountain competition. Since then, he asked his team to allow him to train completely alone and only focus on the Tour de France for the 2005 season, which was granted.
At the 2005 Tour de France his training paid off when he took the lead for the polka dot jersey on Stage 8. The next day he won Stage 9 after riding alone for about 75% of the course; he had broken away from the peloton after only 3 km and remained ahead all the way to the finish line 168 km later. He topped the first category 1 climb of the Tour de France, the Ballon d'Alsace. In the penultimate stage (Stage 20), an individual time trial, he suffered a disastrous performance, losing his overall third place following a fall after 4 km, two bike changes, two wheel changes and crashing into a ditch. After his first fall, he lost his self-confidence and his downhilling strength (as said by Rabobank's sports director Erik Breukink). Rasmussen finished in 77th place on the day and dropped from 3rd to 7th on the GC. However, by that time, he needed only to finish the final stage the next day to assure his status as the King of the Mountains for the 2005 Tour.
After stage 20 he was seen slaloming on a three-lane highway in Saint-Étienne. Rasmussen said he did that to clear his mind after what happened that day.[2] After earning the maillot à pois rouge (polka dot jersey) during the 2005 Tour de France, Rasmussen not only wore the jersey, but a polka dot helmet, shorts, gloves, socks. For the final stage of the race, he rode a polka dot bike made by Ernesto Colnago, founder of the Colnago company.[3]
In the 2006 Tour de France, he finished well in the overall GC but wasn't the team leader, that honour went to Russian Denis Menchov. Rasmussen nevertheless won the King of the Mountains polka dot jersey for the second year in succession and claimed stage 16 in the process. On Stage 16 he broke away after just 4km and took the "Souvenir Henri Desgrange" (awarded to the first rider across the summit of the highest mountain in each year's tour) on the Col du Galibier (2645m), winning 5000 euros for his efforts. He led over all of the climbs and won stage 16 by over a minute to the nearest chaser, Carlos Sastre of Team CSC.
In the 2007 Tour De France he won the 8th stage from Le Grand-Bornand to Tignes and took the Yellow jersey.
Major results
- Mountain Bike World Champion (1999)
- Giro dell'Emilia (2002)
- Stage 4 in Tour of Burgos (2002)
- Stage 7 in Vuelta a España (2003)
- Stage 6 in Dauphiné Libéré (2004)
- Mountains classification in Tour de France (2005, 2006)
- Stage 9 in Tour de France (2005) from Gérardmer to Mulhouse
- Stage 16 in Tour de France (2006) from Bourg d'Oisans to La Toussuire
- Stage 8 in Tour de France (2007) from Le Grand-Bornand to Tignes
- Maillot jaune after Stage 8
- Combativity award for Stage 8
References
- ^ Anthony Tan, To Rule the Roost, CyclingNews.com, July 10, 2004
- ^ Shane Stokes, Magnificent seven for Armstrong, CyclingNews.com, July 25, 2005
- ^ John Stevenson, Michael Rasmussen's Colnago Extreme C Special Pois, CyclingNews.com, July 26, 2005
External links
