 Riis at the2007 Tour of California. | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Bjarne Lykkegård Riis |
| Nickname | Ørnen fra Herning (The Eagle from Herning) |
| Born | (1964-04-03)3 April 1964 (age 61) Herning, Denmark |
| Height | 1.84 m (6 ft1⁄2 in)[1] |
| Weight | 71 kg (157 lb; 11 st 3 lb)[1] |
| Team information | |
| Current team | Team Waoo |
| Discipline | Road |
| Role | Rider (retired) Team manager |
| Rider type | All-rounder |
| Professional teams | |
| 1986 | Roland |
| 1987 | Lucas |
| 1988 | Toshiba–Look |
| 1989 | Super U–Raleigh–Fiat |
| 1990–1991 | Castorama |
| 1992–1993 | Ariostea |
| 1994–1995 | Gewiss–Ballan |
| 1996–1999 | Team Telekom |
| Managerial teams | |
| 1999–2015 | home–Jack & Jones |
| 2016 | Team Virtu Pro–Véloconcept |
| Major wins | |
Grand Tours
| |
Bjarne Lykkegård Riis (Danish pronunciation:[ˈpjɑːnəˈʁiˀs];[2] born 3 April 1964), nicknamedThe Eagle from Herning (Danish:Ørnen fra Herning), is aDanish former professionalroad bicycle racer who won the1996 Tour de France, then later admitted he illegally doped 1993 - 1998.[3]
For many years, he was the owner and later manager of theOleg Tinkov associated RussianUCI WorldTeamTinkoff–Saxo. Other career highlights include placing first in theAmstel Gold Race in 1997, multiple Danish National Championships, and stage wins in theGiro d'Italia
On 25 May 2007, he admitted that he doped with banned substances between 1993 and 1998 including when he placed first in theTour de France, and he was no longer considered the winner by the Tour's organizers.[4][5]
In July 2008, the Tour reconfirmed his 1996 victory but with an asterisk label to indicate his doping offences.[6] This was done after theUCI claimed there was a 10 year statute of limitations (even though whenLance Armstrong was later stripped of his Tour titles, some of them were more than 10 years prior).[7]
In 2025, Riis said in an interview he had no regrets that he had cheated by doping,[8] supposedly as with no penalty imposed and no stripping of his title, the records show he 'won' the Tour de France, admitted it and got away with it.
Born inHerning, Riis began cycling at local clubHerning CK. When he was not selected for the1984 Summer Olympics, former cyclistKim Andersen advised Riis to start his professional career not in Italy, but in Luxembourg.[9] His professional career started in 1986, his first result was a fifth-place finish in theGP 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 1988Tour of European Community race, while riding for theToshiba team, Riis and fellow Danish riderKim Eriksen were contacted by the former Tour de France winnerLaurent Fignon from theSystème U team. Fignon was leading the Tour of the 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,[10] Riis helped Fignon achieve the victory, and in December 1988, he moved to sports directorCyrille Guimard's Système U team as a support rider for Fignon.[9] For the next three years, Riis rode as Fignon's eternal helper in both flat and mountainous terrain, and they became close friends.[4] Riis helped Fignon win the1989 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 riderRolf Sørensen, who got him a job as a rider for the Italian teamAriostea under sporting directorGiancarlo Ferretti. Riis wonstage 7 of the1993 Tour de France and also wore the polka dot jersey as leader of themountains classification for a day.[7] He finished 5th place overall, which was the best Danish result in Tour history at the time, bettering former World ChampionLeif Mortensen's 6th-place finish in the1971 Tour de France. Riis was ill during the1994 Tour de France but went on a breakaway and then raced 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. Riis finished 3rd at the1995 Tour de France, the first Dane to reach the podium in Paris.
For the 1996 season, Riis was brought on to theTelekom team as team captain. 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 DanishRoad Racing Championship the week before the prologue. As a result of snow on both theCol de l'Iseran and theCol du Galibier, the scheduled 190 km stage 9 fromVal-d'Isère toSestriere in Italy was truncated and reduced to a 46 km sprint fromLe-Monetier-les-Bains[6] which was claimed by Riis, opening a 44-second gap over his teammateJan 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 greatMiguel 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.
In 1997, he placed first in the spring classicAmstel Gold Race, with a great effort, riding solo from a long way out, in pouring rain. Bjarne Riis was the favourite at the1997 Tour de France, but instead it was his young German teammateJan Ullrich, who won the overall competition, with Riis finishing 7th. On his way to the start at stage 2 of the 1999Tour 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.[9]
In the aftermath of theperformance-enhancing drugs crisis in cycling following the1998 Tour de France, Riis acquired the nickname of Mr. 60%, a suggestion that he has used doping.[8][11] The 60% is an allusion to a highhematocrit (red blood cell) level, an indication ofEPO usage. It has been published, but never proven, that Riis had a hematocrit level of 56% during one test in July 1995;[12] well above typical natural levels, as well as his published reading of 41% in the offseason earlier that year.[13] The earliest mention of the nickname can be traced to interviews with riders ofFestina in 1998–2000, who apparently suggested that if they had been doped above 50%, then Riis must have been doped to at least 60%,[14] since he was able to win the Tour de France in 1996 ahead of the Festina riderRichard Virenque: inWilly 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%.[15]Bjarne Riis never tested positive as a rider, though no EPO test existed at that time. 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 ProfessorFrancesco Conconi at theUniversity of Ferrara, which resulted in prosecutions against Conconi and also involvedMichele Ferrari.[16] Files used in the court case apparently showed fluctuations in Riis' hematocrit from 41% to 56.3%.[17]
Speculations about Bjarne Riis's doping use was further fuelled by his ambiguous denials. When asked whether he used doping, he repeatedly stated that "I have never tested positive," a statement that falls short of an outright denial.[18]
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At the end of April 2007, former Riis' soigneur Jeff d'Hont wrote a book about the doping practices of Riis and other riders during his time in the cycling business.[19]On 21 May 2007, Riis' former Telekom teammateBert Dietz admitted that he had used doping during his Telekom-time.[20] This prompted other former teammates,Christian Henn andUdo Bölts, and two former team doctors, to admit their involvement in doping.[21] On 24 May, three other teammatesRolf Aldag,Erik Zabel andBrian Holm confessed.[22]
Following this series of confessions, on 25 May 2007 Riis issued a press release that he also had made "mistakes" in the past,[23] and in the following press conference confessed to takingEPO,growth hormone andcortisone for 6 years, from 1993 to 1998, including during his victory in the1996 Tour de France.[24]Riis said that he bought and injected the EPO himself, and team coachWalter Godefroot turned a blind eye to the drug use on the team.[25][26] He denied a passage of Jeff d'Hont's book, where it is related that his hematocrit level was once tested by the team and registered 64%. He said if someone wanted to take his yellow jersey, they could do so; it meant nothing to him. Riis was removed from the official record books of the Tour de France,[27] but in July 2008, he was written back into the books, along with additional notes about his use of doping.[6]
The reactions on Riis's admission have been mixed. Some critics have called him a cheater, and that the results he achieved in his career were worthless. Others have labelled him as a victim of the doping culture that was rampant in professional road cycling, and have insisted that he should not be scapegoated for a wider problem.[28]
In November 2010, Riis published a book about his career as a rider, emphasising that doping throughout the time he had competed was not considered by the peloton as "cheating", but simply as a part of the "normal preparation" for a professional rider. He described that he had started to dope only with corticosteroids in the 80s, and then, as he previously had confessed, upgraded his doping with EPO in 1993–98.[29][30] Riis states the last time he doped as a rider was in July 1998. He states he quit during the1998 Tour de France when he was nearly caught by the police. As part of the probe into theFestina doping scandal, police were on their way to search the rooms of his Telekom teammates. Riis offered the following comment on the episode: “In my room I didn’t have a choice. My vials of doping products had to disappear quickly. In just a few minutes I gathered all my doses of EPO and threw them down the toilet”.[30][31]
.jpg)
Following his retirement, a new life opened up. Bjarne Riis had from the start been one of the people behind the Danish cycling teamhome–Jack & Jones, which became the first Danish team competing in the Tour de France. Following doping allegations and suspension of Home-Jack & Jones riderMarc Streel in 1999, Home withdrew its sponsorship. Bjarne Riis bought the majority of the team through its controlling companyProfessional Cycling Denmark (PCD), and he became the team manager. In 2001, the team changed sponsor to CSC/World Online, then CSC/Tiscali, and in the seasons 2003 to 2007, the AmericanIT companyCSC was the sole sponsor ofTeam CSC. In season 2008, CSC shared the sponsorship with the Danish bankSaxo Bank, which as of season 2009 has been the sole team sponsor. The team later got the name Team Saxo Bank Sungard and is now known as Team Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank. Riis renamed PCD toRiis Cycling A/S in 2003. Before the 2005 season, Team CSC had financial problems, and some of the riders were asked to take a wage cut. Riis used his own money to keep the team running throughout his first years as team manager, an expenditure he later vowed never to repeat[32] when a new sponsor deal was signed during the2005 Tour de France.
As a team manager, his team has been involved in some doping cases, with no rider being convicted for using doping while on his team. However, inTyler Hamilton's book, "The Secret Race," is described how Riis actively encouraged the use of doping on the CSC team.[33] Also,Ivan Basso, who was Team CSC's 2006 Tour de France general classification contender was removed from the team prior to the beginning of the Tour according to the UCI ProTour rules due to his possible involvement in theOperación Puerto doping case,[34] an involvement confirmed by Basso himself in April 2007.[35] Basso's contract with Team CSC has since ended.
The story of team CSC during the2004 Tour de France has been captured in a documentary titled "Overcoming".[36]
His best results as a manager inGrand Tours were winning the2006 Giro d'Italia withIvan Basso,[37] the2008 and2010 Tour de France withCarlos Sastre[38] andAndy Schleck[39] respectively, and the2012 Vuelta a España withAlberto Contador.[40]
In December 2013, it was confirmed that team sponsorOleg Tinkov had bought the team from Riis, for a reported sum of approximately €6 million, with Riis continuing as team manager on a three-year deal worth €1 million per year. Tinkov had previously criticised Riis and Contador for their performances during 2013 via social media.[41]
In March 2015, the team confirmed that Riis had been removed from active duty due to differences between Riis and Tinkov. Media reports had initially indicated that Riis had been suspended when he did not appear at the2015 Milan–San Remo as planned, and that this was due to a disappointing start to the season for the team.[42] On 29 March, it was announced that Riis had been released by the team. News reports cited the "tumultuous relationship" and "difference in character" between Riis and Tinkov as the reason for Riis's departure.[43][44]
In July 2016 Riis and formerSaxo Bank CEO Lars Seier announced that they had taken over the DanishUCI Continental teamTeam TreFor and renamed it Team Virtu Pro–Véloconcept, with the intention of it functioning as thedevelopment team for a plannedUCI WorldTeam.[45]
In January 2020 Riis was appointed as manager of theNTT Pro Cycling team.[46]
Road race, National Road ChampionshipsRoad race, National Road Championships
OverallDanmark RundtRoad raceTime trial
OverallTour de France| Grand Tour | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Giro d'Italia | — | DNF | 86 | 100 | 43 | 101 | DNF | 70 | — | — | — | — |
| Tour de France | — | — | 95 | DNF | 107 | — | 5 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 11 |
| Vuelta a España | DNF | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | DNF | — | — | — |
| — | Did not compete |
|---|---|
| DNF | Did not finish |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
