2006 Liège–Bastogne–Liège

The 92nd edition of the Liège–Bastogne–Liège cycling classic was held on April 23, and stretched 262 km. The race was won by Spanish all-rounder Alejandro Valverde of the Illes Balears cycling team.

Results

External links

Alejandro Valverde

Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (born 25 April 1980) is a Spanish road racing cyclist for UCI ProTour team Movistar Team. Valverde's biggest wins have been the 2009 Vuelta a España, Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2006, 2008 and 2015, La Flèche Wallonne (2006, 2014 and 2015), the Clásica de San Sebastián (2008 and 2014), the 2006 and 2008 UCI ProTours, and the 2014 and 2015 UCI World Tours. He has twice collected the silver medal in the UCI Road World Championships, in 2003 and 2005, as well as the bronze four times in 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Valverde is rare in combining different specialities in road bicycle racing, being a strong climber, sprinter and time-trialist in his later years. After a lengthy court battle, he was suspended for two years as part of the Operación Puerto blood doping investigation, but he returned to competition in 2012 upon completion of the ban.

Biography

Born in Las Lumbreras, Murcia, Valverde came from a cycling family, his father Juan was an amateur bicycle racer and bought him a bike when he was six years old. His brother Juan Francisco was also an amateur road racing cyclist. Valverde's first race was in Jumilla, in his region of Murcia, and he finished second. On the following week he won his second race in Yecla. He allegedly took more than fifty consecutive victories between 11 and 13 years old, earning him the nickname El Imbatido (The Unbeaten).

Steffen Wesemann

Steffen Wesemann (born 12 March 1971 in Wolmirstedt, Saxony-Anhalt) is a retired professional road racing cyclist. Wesemann most recently rode for the professional continental team Cycle Collstrop after riding a year with the Team Wiesenhof-Felt squad. He had previously spent the other years of his career at Telekom who later became Team T-Mobile. In September 2005, Wesemann and his family, longtime residents of Küttigen, Switzerland, obtained Swiss citizenship. He is a specialist in the one-day Spring Classics—winner of the 2004 Tour of Flanders and 5-time champion of the Peace Race.

Results and Teams

External links

Amaury Sport Organisation

The Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) is part of the French media group, EPA (Éditions Philippe Amaury). It organises sporting events including the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Paris–Nice professional cycle road races, and the Dakar Rally. In 2008 it began the Central Europe Rally, a rally raid endurance race in Romania and Hungary.

The Tour de France was instituted by the newspaper L'Auto in 1903. The paper was closed after the 1939-45 War because of its links with the occupying Germans and a new paper, L'Équipe, took over. L'Équipe (now part of EPA) organised the Tour until the race was taken over by its parent company, ASO.

ASO organises the Paris Marathon, cycling events in Africa (Tour du Faso) and the Middle East (Tour of Qatar), golf (the Open de France, Lacoste Ladies Open de France and Grand Prix Schweppes) and sailing (Tour de France à la voile). ASO also organises cyclosportives events for amateur cyclists, including the L'Étape du Tour and La Etapa de la Vuelta.

Joaquim Rodríguez

Joaquim Rodríguez Oliver (born 12 May 1979) is a Spanish professional road racing cyclist. He has been competing since 2001, and currently rides for the UCI ProTeam Team Katusha. His notable results in Grand Tours include fourteen stage victories, second place overall in the 2012 Giro d'Italia, finishing 2nd overall in the 2015 Vuelta a España, third place in the general classification of the Vuelta a España in both 2010 and 2012 and third place in the 2013 Tour de France. He also finished first of the UCI world rankings in 2010, 2012 and 2013, and won classics such as the Flèche Wallonne and the Giro di Lombardia twice (2012 and 2013). He also won stage races including the Volta a Catalunya twice (2010 and 2014), the 2015 Tour of the Basque Country and the 2011 Vuelta a Burgos.

Personal life and early career

Rodríguez was born in Barcelona, the son of an amateur rider in the 1960s, and later lived in Parets del Vallès. Some years later he moved to the Basque country to ride for Iberdrola, an amateur team associated to the professional cycling team ONCE–Eroski.