Andy Schleck

In July, a few days after his brother won the Alpe d'Huez stage of the Tour de France, Andy won the major mountain stage in the Sachsen Tour, followed by the final stage, finishing 23rd overall.

Johny's father, Gustav Schleck, also contested events in the 1930s.

Their father Johny Schleck rode the Tour de France and Vuelta a España between 1965 and 1974.

Andy Schleck was born in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, and is the youngest of Gaby and Johny Schleck's three sons.

His older brother Fränk Schleck was also a cyclist on Trek Factory Racing, and his oldest brother Steve Schleck is a politician in Luxembourg.

Andy's father, Johny Schleck, is a former professional cyclist and rode the Tour de France at the service of 1968 winner Jan Janssen and 1973 winner Luis Ocaña, and also managed to finish in the top 20 twice: 19th in 1970 and 20th in 1967.

He won a stage in the 1970 Vuelta a España and the Luxembourg National Championships.

Andy Raymond Schleck (born 10 June 1985) is a Luxembourgish former professional road bicycle racer.

Schleck was only the second man to ever win the white jersey for best young rider 3 times; the first was Jan Ullrich who won between 1996 and 1998.

He also won two mountain stages, and rode in the yellow jersey for six days.

He is the younger brother of Fränk Schleck, also a professional rider between 2003 and 2016.

Andy Schleck joined the VC Roubaix cycling club in 2004, and caught the attention of Cyrille Guimard, a sports director who became famous as the directeur sportif for several Tour de France winners, including Bernard Hinault, Laurent Fignon, Lucien Van Impe and American Greg LeMond.

Guimard described Schleck as one of the biggest talents he had seen and compared him to Laurent Fignon.

Still an amateur, Schleck won the 2004 Flèche du Sud stage race at 18.

As the Danish national team were in the race, word spread to the Danish manager Bjarne Riis.

Riis asked Fränk, already on Team CSC, about his brother, and Andy started as a stagiaire for Team CSC on 1 September 2004.

Schleck secured a professional contract with in 2005, and made his debut in a ProTour race at age 19, in the 2005 Volta a Catalunya.

He and Fränk shared the 2005 National Championships, Fränk taking the road race and Andy the individual time trial.

In 2006, Schleck crashed in the GP Cholet and took an eight-week break before returning for the Volta a Catalunya in May.

In 2007, he won the young rider classification in the Giro d'Italia and was second in the general classification behind Danilo Di Luca.

He finished fourth at the Giro di Lombardia after helping his brother Fränk, who crashed with six kilometres to go.

In 2008, Schleck finished 4th in the Liège–Bastogne–Liège.

He has also been the runner-up at the Tour twice; in 2009 and 2011.

In 2009 he achieved the biggest victory of his career at that point, when a strong April culminated with an impressive victory in Liège–Bastogne–Liège, as he became the first winner of the race from Luxembourg since Marcel Ernzer in 1954.

A few days before he had finished runner-up in La Flèche Wallonne.

He won the 2010 Tour de France, being awarded it retroactively in February 2012 after Alberto Contador's hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

His success continued in the Tour de France, in which he finished 12th overall, winning the young rider classification ahead of Roman Kreuziger and helping CSC win the team classification and Carlos Sastre the maillot jaune.

In February 2012 after Contador's CAS hearing Schleck was retroactively awarded the 2010 Title.

In the Tour de France, he finished the race in second place, behind Alberto Contador and ahead of Bradley Wiggins, along with finishing Stage 17 in 3rd place behind his brother Fränk Schleck, who won the stage, and Contador.

He again won the young rider classification in the process.

In the Tour de France, he was much closer to the victory – against Alberto Contador again – but took what was at the time second place (by 39 seconds) and won the young rider classification for the third time in a row.

Schleck was involved in a controversial incident on the Port de Balès during stage 15 while wearing the maillot jaune and attempting to extend his lead.

He was riding with incredibly good form and with 24 km to go Schleck attacked at the front of the group of favorites dropping some riders but the main favorites contained this initial attack.

With 22 km to go he attacked again and initially there was no response from his rivals but almost immediately his chain fell off.

His main rival for the Tour, Alberto Contador, did not stop even though he likely knew that Schleck had a mechanical issue and had not cracked.

Samuel Sánchez and Denis Menchov attacked as well leaving Schleck behind as Contador took the lead from Schleck.

Some sections of the media saw Contador's behaviour as unsporting and felt he should have allowed Schleck to regain the lost time.

However, some sections of the media and members of the peloton did not have a problem with Contador's attack.

The incident also produced the iconic quote "If you draw your sword and you drop it, you die", from Ryder Hesjedal.

Schleck lost 39 seconds on that stage in the mountains, the same number of seconds by which he eventually lost the Tour de France.