Richard Virenque

Richard Virenque (born 19 November 1969) is a retired French professional road racing cyclist.

He was one of the most popular French riders with fans for his boyish personality and his long, lone attacks.

The family moved to La Londe-les-Maures, near the Côte d'Azur, in 1979 when he was nine.

There his father failed to find the same sort of job and relations between his parents suffered.

Jacques and Bérangère Virenque divorced soon afterwards and Virenque said he was devastated.

"That [my parents divorce] was a difficult moment. I had only my bike, and I took to it in depth."

He couldn't stand being in school any longer than he had to, he said, and he left to work as a plumber.

"I studied for my qualifications but they were only an excuse [to leave school]. I used to go cycling rather than attend my classes."

Cycle-racing did not immediately inspire Virenque.

His brother, Lionel, cycled, read specialist magazines and watched the Tour de France on television.

"But [racing and the Tour de France] didn't interest me at all, until the day he [my brother] took me to see a race and I signed up with a cycling school [école de cyclisme]."

He rode for the Vélo Club Hyèrois from the age of 13 where, encouraged by his grandfather, he took out his first licence with the Fédération Française de Cyclisme He said he knew he could climb well from the start.

"My shorts used to flap round me in those days and my bike was too big for me. On the flat, I clung to the wheels in front as best I could, but the moment there was a hill, I left the others. I've always had that pleasure."

His first win was in a race round the town at La Valette-du-Var, when he and another rider, Pascale Ranucci, lapped the field.

He then did his national service in the army battalion at Joinville in Paris to which talented sportsmen were often sent.

He spent his last period as an amateur with the ASPTT in Paris.

In 1990 he came eighth in the world championship road race at Utsunomiya, Tochigi in Japan, riding une course d'enfer to impress Marc Braillon, the head of the professional team, RMO, said Pascal Lino.

"I was riding like a kamikaze. I rode out of my skin," Virenque said.

It worked: Braillon offered him a contract.

He turned professional for RMO in January 1991.

Virenque rode his first Tour de France in 1992 as a replacement for another team member, Jean-Philippe Dojwa.

He was earning 15,000 francs a month.

He said he dreamed only of "being able to follow the best in the mountains, riders like Claudio Chiappucci, Indurain, LeMond, Thierry Claveyrolat."

On the third day he took the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification after a long breakaway with two other riders on the col de Marie-Blanque in the Pyrenees.

He held it for a day, losing it next day to his team-mate Pascal Lino, who led for the next two weeks.

Virenque finished second in the climbers' competition.

Virenque was sought by several teams after his first Tour and Cyrille Guimard said at the world championship at Benidorm that he had arranged for him to join his Castorama team, where he would replace Laurent Fignon.

But the announcement was premature and Virenque joined another French team, Festina.

He was a climber, best remembered for winning the King of the Mountains competition of the Tour de France a record seven times, but he is best known from the general French public as one of the central figures in a widespread doping scandal in 1998, the Festina Affair, and for repeatedly denying his involvement despite damning evidence.

Virenque, his parents, his brother Lionel and sister Nathalie lived in the Iseba district of Casablanca.

The family was affluent, employing both a gardener and a nurse.

His mother described Richard as a gentle, kind boy, full of life, who enjoyed helping her in the garden.

His idol was Michael Jackson.

His father, Jacques, ran a tire company.

As a child, Virenque began cycling by riding round the garden of the family's house.

"It wasn't much of a bike," he said.

"It had no mudguards, no brakes, and I had to scrape my foot along the ground to stop."

Virenque often skipped school to fish on the beach.

He told a court during the Festina doping inquiry (see below): "I soon realised that I didn't have the brain to be anything but a racing cyclist."

He stayed there until the team dissolved in the wake of a doping scandal in 1998 (see below).