Andreas Klöden

Andreas Klöden
	Andreas Klöden at the start of the Rothaus Regio Tour in Heitersheim.
To person
Nickname	Klödi, Hilde
Date of birth	22nd June 1975 (age 45)
nation	Germany
discipline	Street
height	1.83 meters
Racing weight	63 kilograms
End of career	2013
Team (s)
1998–2006 ; 2007–2009 ; 2010–2011 ; 2012–2013	Telekom ; Astana ; RadioShack ; RadioShack-Nissan
Most important successes
	Overall ranking Paris – Nice 2000 ; Overall ranking Basque Country Tour 2000 and 2011 ; Overall ranking Tirreno – Adriatico 2007 ; Overall ranking Tour de Romandie 2008 German champion - road race 2004 Olympic road race 2000 ; ;
	Last updated: October 24, 2013

Andreas Klöden (born June 22, 1975 in Mittweida ) is a former German racing cyclist .

Beginnings

Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Groß Schacksdorf near Forst (Lausitz) , where he grew up. Klöden began his cycling career at SG Dynamo Forst and was delegated from there in 1989 to the children's and youth sports school in Berlin, where he - like Jan Ullrich - trained at SC Dynamo Berlin .

Professional in the Telekom team

He started his professional career in May 1998 with Team Telekom , the later T-Mobile team. There he was primarily active as a sporting helper ( water carrier ) for Jan Ullrich, with whom he has a close personal friendship.

His first major international successes came in the spring of 2000 when he was able to win the important stage races Paris – Nice and the Tour of the Basque Country in succession . He confirmed these successes in September of the same year when he won the bronze medal in road racing at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney behind his teammates Jan Ullrich and Alexander Vinokurow .

At first, Klöden was unable to build on these successes. It was not until 2004 that he first won the title of German road racing champion in Freiburg im Breisgau . A few weeks later he finished second in the 2004 Tour de France ahead of team captain Ullrich, who came fourth.

In the following year, again as a helper for Ullrich, he was unable to repeat this success: while in eleventh position in the overall classification of the Tour de France 2005 , he had to race during the 17th stage because of a scaphoid fracture that he had suffered the day before had suffered a fall, give up.

After Jan Ullrich was banned from the Tour de France 2006 because of the doping scandal Fuentes , Klöden contested the race as captain of the team. He finished the tour in third and was subsequently classified in second after the doping disqualification of Floyd Landis, who was originally honored as the winner .

After the Telekom team

Andreas Klöden at the 8th stage of the 2007 Tour de France

For the 2007 season, Klöden moved to the Astana team . He missed victory in the prologue held at the Tour de France in London by 13 seconds behind the winner Fabian Cancellara. Because of the early withdrawal of the Astana team after the positive doping test of the captain Alexander Vinokurow , Klöden could not finish the tour.

In 2008, the team was initially invited neither for the Giro d'Italia 2008 nor for the Tour de France 2008 . After being invited to the Giro at a later date, Klöden started there with ambitions to win. In the end, however, he was a helper to the late Alberto Contador and got out on rank 13 because of a severe cold on the penultimate day.

After Andreas Klöden was not nominated by the Association of German Cyclists for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Klöden was disappointed with the decision, which he did not understand, and announced that he would no longer be available for the Association of German Cyclists in the future.

In the spring of 2009 Klöden achieved strong results in tours. At the Tour de France 2009 , too , Klöden was able to impress as a noble helper this time. In places he was even stronger than Armstrong and could even have made it onto the podium on the 17th stage to Le Grand-Bornand if he hadn't gone hungry on the last climb and thus left a lot of time in the end. In the overall standings, it finally came in 6th.

Together with team manager Johan Bruyneel , Klöden moved to the newly founded US team RadioShack in 2010 and joined the RadioShack Nissan team in 2012 after its merger with the Luxembourg team Leopard Trek .

In the spring of 2011, Klöden started the season with strong form and, in addition to second place, was able to record a stage win at Paris – Nice . He also won the Critérium International time trial and won the Tour of the Basque Country .

At the end of the 2013 season, Klöden ended his career as a professional cyclist in August 2013 with the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. He said there was no agreement on a new contract for the 2014 season.

Doping allegations

Andreas Klöden, 20th stage of the Tour de France 2009, Mont Ventoux

In spring 2008, Klöden was accused of doping in an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to the article, the newspaper claimed it had the testimony of the confessed doping sinner Patrik Sinkewitz , who incriminated his former teammates. Andreas Klöden and Matthias Kessler were there when Sinkewitz went to the University Hospital Freiburg for blood doping at the 2006 Tour de France . However, the responsible public prosecutor's office has not confirmed the information alleged in the press reports. It is not known how the press should have come to such detailed information.

The final report of the expert commission on the investigation of doping allegations against doctors of the sports medicine department of the Freiburg University Hospital, which was presented to the public on May 13, 2009, established with certainty that Andreas Klöden, along with his teammates at the time, Kessler and Sinkewitz, was doped with autologous blood for the 2006 Tour de France. Andreas Klöden and his lawyers have issued a press release in which they consider the allegations to be vague and incomprehensible. As a result of the allegations, Andreas Klöden mostly refused interview requests from the German media. The investigation by the public prosecutor's office was closed in exchange for a payment made to a social institution.