Armand de las Cuevas

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Armand de las Cuevas Road cycling
Armand de Las Cuevas near Paris-Nice (1993)
Armand de Las Cuevas near Paris-Nice (1993)
To person
Nickname DLC
Date of birth June 26, 1968
date of death 2nd August 2018
nation FranceFrance France
discipline Road / rail (endurance)
Driver type Time trial
End of career 1999
Most important successes
a stage Paris – Nice (1993)
a half stage Giro d'Italia (1994)
UCI track world championships
1990 bronze - Individual pursuit
Last updated: August 19, 2018

Armand de Las Cuevas (born June 26, 1968 in Troyes , † August 2, 2018 in La Réunion ) was a French cyclist .

Athletic career

Armand de Las Cuevas came from a family of Spanish emigrants; in his youth he was a “street boy” in Bordeaux, where his family had moved. In order to discipline him, his father forced him to start cycling, even though he would have preferred to be a boxer himself. Soon he was the most successful youth driver in Aquitaine .

In 1989 de Las Cuevas received his first contract with Reynolds-Banesto . The rather skinny athlete was considered one of the best time trialists, but in the course of his sporting career also as a difficult character who repeatedly had problems with his sports director and his teammates and whose performance fluctuated.

In 1991, at the age of 23, de Las Cuevas became French road champion and won the Grand Prix de Plouay . The following year he finished second in the individual time trial of the Tour de France 1992 in Luxembourg behind his team-mate and eventual overall winner Miguel Indurain . It was expected that de Las Cuevas would serve as the Gregario of Indurain at Banesto , but he was not ready to subordinate himself and give up his own ambitions, which is why he left the team in 1994 after ongoing conflicts with Indurain.

At the Giro d'Italia 1994 de Las Cuevas won the individual time trial over seven kilometers in Bologna , in which Indurain finished third. Then he wore the pink jersey for a day . A few days later he left Indurain behind again in the individual time trial on the eighth stage; he himself came in second and Indurain in fourth. In the following years he successfully placed himself in numerous races, but his performances were always fluctuating: in 1987 he won the Tour de Bretagne , 1990 the Grand Prix Ouest France , 1992 the Étoile de Bessèges , 1993 the Grand Prix des Nations and Paris– Camembert , 1994 the Tour of Burgos and the Trophée des Grimpeurs , 1995 the Coupe de France , 1998 the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Route du Sud . In 1990 he was also third in the single pursuit at the UCI Track World Championships in Maebashi . In 1994 he won the Clásica San Sebastián two minutes ahead of Lance Armstrong . De Las Cuevas took part three times each in the tour (1992, 1994 and 1995), the Giro (1992, 1993 and 1994) and the Vuelta (1993, 1997 and 1998).

In 1995 Armand de las Cuevas was caught during a customs inspection with illegal drugs, and the investigators discovered instructions on EPO doping . Thereupon Castorama team boss Cyrille Guimard announced that he had not fulfilled the captain role and the expectations placed in him anyway. After Indurain's resignation in 1996, he was brought back to Banesto in 1997. Despite several top-class successes - among other things, he distanced Jan Ullrich in a difficult mountain stage of the Route du Sud by 1:20 minutes - his team did not nominate him for the 1997 Tour de France because his performance was considered too "unstable". One team-mate said of de Las Cuevas that he was a "fragile man but an artist".

Annoyed by this decision, de Las Cuevas left the team and retired from active cycling in 1999. He never implemented his plan to beat Eddy Merckx's world hour record from 1972. An attempted comeback failed in 2006 due to a positive doping test. He had already been noticed as a customer of Michele Ferrari, who is known as a doping doctor .

Most recently Armand de las Cuevas was the sports director of a team on La Réunion and was also involved in boxing , for which he had a preference since he was a child. He committed suicide in 2018 on August 2 suicide .

successes

Street

1986
  • Tour de Lorraine (Juniors)
1988
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1997
1998

train

1990

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia 38 43 9 - - - -
Yellow jersey Tour de France DNF - DNF 62 - - -
Golden jersey Vuelta a España - DNF - - - DNF DNF
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Teams

Web links

Commons : Armand de Las Cuevas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ L'ancien coureur cycliste Armand de las Cuevas est mort. In: Paris Match. August 3, 2018, accessed August 3, 2018 (French).
  2. ↑ Armand de las Cuevas dies, Miguel Indurain exgre: Armand de las Cuevas dies, Miguel Indurain exgregario - sports. In: 247newsbeat.com. April 12, 2018, accessed August 19, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Sven: In Memoriam: de las Cuevas, Armand. In: Cycling4Fans. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Goodbye Armand de las Cuevas. In: PezCycling News. August 12, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Doping: 2006 cycling doping cases. In: Cycling4Fans. Retrieved August 19, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Armand De Las Cuevas est décédé. In: L'Équipe. August 3, 2018, accessed August 3, 2018 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Las Cuevas, Armand de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Troyes
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 2018
Place of death Reunion Island