Bjarne Riis

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Bjarne Lykkegård Riis (born April 3, 1964 in Herning) was a Danish professional road bicycle racer who won the 1996 Tour de France, and is now the team owner and manager of Danish UCI ProTour outfit Team CSC. He is often nicknamed Ørnen fra Herning (the Eagle from Herning).

Riis began cycling professionally in 1986, but his career ended prematurely due to a crash on June 18, 1999 while cycling to the starting line of a stage in the Tour de Suisse. He never fully recovered and officially retired in 2000.

Other career highlights include winning the Amstel Gold Race in 1997, multiple Danish National Championships, and stage wins in the Giro d'Italia. Riis' crowning achievement as a cyclist was unseating Miguel Induráin's five-year stranglehold on the Tour de France by winning it in 1996.

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Active Career

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In 1992 Bjarne Riis contacted Rolf Sørensen, who got him a job as a rider for Italian team Ariostea under sporting director Giancarlo Ferretti.

Bjarne Riis was first known to the Danish public, when he won the stage to Châlon-sur-Marne during the 1993 Tour de France. He also conquered the polka-dotted mountain jersey, though only for a day. He finished the Tour at the overall 5th place, which at that time was the best Danish result, surpassing Leif Mortensen's former record, a 6th place.

In 1994, Bjarne Riis was sick during the Tour. He lost much time on the mountain stages, but managed to win a magnificient stage win later on, by going on a break-away and ending up racing solo for the last 30 km of the stage. With the sprinter teams chasing him, he only just clinched the win by a few seconds.

In 1995 Bjarne Riis was the first Dane to reach the podium in Paris. He finished 3rd after five-times winner Miguel Indurain.

The greatest triumph of his career came as he won the 1996 Tour de France, the greatest single achievement in Danish cycling. The week before the Tour de France, he had won the Danish Road Racing Championship, enabling him to win the Tour in the national tricot.

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

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 at the age of 36, in spring 2000.

Riis was otherwise known as Mr. 60%, a suggestion that he has used performance enhancing drugs. The 60% is an allusion to a high hematocrit (red blood cell) level, an indication of EPO usage. It has been published 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 [1] .

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Major wins

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Team Manager

Following his retirement, a new life opened up. Bjarne Riis had from the start been one of the people behind Danish cycling team Home-Jack & Jones, which became the first Danish team competing in the Tour de France.

Following doping allegations and suspension of Home-Jack & Jones rider Marc Streel in 1999, Home withdrew its sponsorship, while Bjarne Riis became team manager through his company Riis Cycling A/S. In 2001 the team changed sponsor to CSC/Worldonline, then CSC/Tiscali, and as of the 2003 season the American IT company CSC has been the sole sponsor of Team CSC.

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Litterature

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External links

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