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| Full name | Félicia Ballanger | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1971-06-12)12 June 1971 (age 54) La Roche-sur-Yon,Vendée, France | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Félicia Ballanger (born 12 June 1971) is a French retiredracing cyclist.
She won fiveworld championships in thesprint and500 m time trial. She was also a triple Olympic champion.[1] She is 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in) tall and weighs 70kilograms (150 lb).
Félicia Ballanger was born on 12 June 1971 inLa Roche-sur-Yon. She is one of two children. Her mother named her Félicia after the ItalianTour de France winnerFelice Gimondi and her brother, Frédéric, after the Spanish winner,Federico Bahamontes).
Ballanger was at first both a cyclist and ahandball player. For cycling she was a member of Vendée la Roche Cycliste.
She came fourth in her first world championship and again the following year, 1992, at theOlympic Games inBarcelona. She crashed the following year, breaking a collarbone and having her thigh pierced by a splinter from thevelodrome.[2]
Her first world championship medal came the following season. She took silver in the sprint. Trained byDaniel Morelon, the former world sprint champion, she won her first world championships in 1995, winning the 500 m time-trial and the sprint. She won both again in the four following years. She also won the Olympic sprint medal atAtlanta.
Her last international was the 2000 Olympic Games inSydney. She won the 500 metres. In the same year she was awarded theVélo d'Or français, and remained the only female awardee until 2022. In 2001, she became vice-president of theFédération Française de Cyclisme.
Ballanger is married, has two children and has lived inNouméa since 1998. She is involved in politics there. She was a television commentator during the Olympic Games inBeijing in 2008.
1996 1st sprint 2000 1st sprint, 1st 500m 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 1st sprint 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 1st 500m
1994 2nd sprintSource:[3]
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