Bjarne Riis

Bjarne Lykkegård Riis (born 3 April 1964), nicknamed The Eagle from Herning (Ørnen fra 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.

He finished 5th place overall, which was the best Danish result in Tour history at the time, bettering former World Champion Leif Mortensen's 6th-place finish in the 1971 Tour de France.

When he was not selected for the 1984 Summer Olympics, former cyclist Kim Andersen advised Riis to start his professional career not in Italy, but in Luxembourg.

His professional career started in 1986, his first result was a fifth-place finish in the GP Wallonie that year.

Following a few years with no personal wins, he had yet to impress when his contract ran out in 1988.

At the 1988 Tour of European Community race, while riding for the Toshiba team, Riis and fellow Danish rider Kim Eriksen were contacted by the former Tour de France winner Laurent Fignon from the Système U team.

Fignon was leading the Tour of European Community race, but he needed a few riders to help him secure the victory.

In the hope of earning a contract with Système U, Riis helped Fignon achieve the victory and in December 1988 he moved to sports director Cyrille Guimard's Système U team as a support rider for Fignon.

For the next three years Riis rode as Fignon's eternal helper in both flat and mountainous terrain, and they became close friends.

Riis helped Fignon win the 1989 Giro d'Italia, while Riis himself won his first professional victory as he secured the 9th stage of the Giro.

When Fignon left Guimard in 1992, Bjarne Riis contacted fellow Danish rider Rolf Sørensen, who got him a job as a rider for Italian team Ariostea under sporting director Giancarlo Ferretti.

Riis won stage 7 of the 1993 Tour de France and also wore the polka dot jersey as leader of the mountains classification for a day.

Riis was ill during the 1994 Tour de France but went on a break-away and then racing solo for the last 30 km of the day.

With the sprinter teams chasing him, he placed first on the stage by just a few seconds.

Reports have noted, however, that police in Italy found evidence that Riis may have been among riders treated with EPO in 1994 and 1995 by medical researchers under Professor Francesco Conconi at the University of Ferrara, which resulted in prosecutions against Conconi and also involved Michele Ferrari.

Files used in the court case apparently showed fluctuations in Riis' hematocrit from 41% to 56.3%.

Riis finished 3rd at the 1995 Tour de France, the first Dane to reach the podium in Paris.

Following his excellent showing in the high climbs of the 1995 Tour, Riis was confident that he was capable of winning.

He asked his new teammates to support him, and convinced them that if they worked for him he could bring the yellow jersey to Team Telekom.

By the start of the Tour he was in superb condition, winning the Danish Road Racing Championship the week before the prologue.

As a result of snow on both the Col de l'Iseran and the Col du Galibier, the scheduled 190 km stage 9 from Val-d'Isère to Sestriere in Italy was truncated and reduced to a 46 km sprint from Le-Monetier-les-Bains which was claimed by Riis, opening a 44-second gap over his teammate Jan Ullrich.

By the Tour's end Riis had placed first in the General classification, with a lead of 1:41 over his young teammate Ullrich.

In so doing he ended the string of five successive victories won by Tour great Miguel Indurain.

The win by Riis was instrumental in turning Telekom from a second tier cycling team which struggled just to be invited into the 1995 Tour, into one of the biggest teams in road racing.

It also had a huge positive effect on the development of cycling in both Denmark and Germany, massively increasing spectator interest and participation in the sport as well.

It has been published, but never proven, that Riis had a hematocrit level of 56% during one test in July 1995; well above typical natural levels, as well as his published reading of 41% in the offseason earlier that year.

For the 1996 season, Riis was brought on to the Telekom team as team captain.

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.

In 1997, he placed first in the spring classic Amstel Gold Race, with a great effort, riding solo from a long way out, in pouring rain.

Bjarne Riis was the favourite at the 1997 Tour de France, but instead it was his young German teammate Jan Ullrich, who won the overall competition, with Riis finishing 7th.

In the aftermath of the performance-enhancing drugs crisis in cycling following the 1998 Tour de France, Riis acquired the nickname of Mr. 60%, a suggestion that he has used doping.

The 60% is an allusion to a high hematocrit (red blood cell) level, an indication of EPO usage.

The earliest mention of the nickname can be traced to interviews with riders of Festina in 1998–2000, who apparently suggested that if they had been doped above 50%, then Riis must have been doped to at least 60%, since he was able to win the Tour de France in 1996 ahead of the Festina rider Richard Virenque: in Willy Voet's book Breaking the Chain, he mentions that Festina's team doctor would not allow EPO to be administered if a rider's hematocrit level was near 55%.

Bjarne Riis never tested positive as a rider, though no EPO test existed at that time.

On his way to the startup at stage 2 of the 1999 Tour de Suisse, Bjarne Riis hit the curb and crashed.

The sustained injuries to his elbow and knee ultimately forced him to retire in the spring of 2000 at the age of 36.

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.

Born in Herning, Riis began cycling at local club Herning CK.