Bathing Cooke

Bathing Cooke
	Baden Cooke ahead of the Dunkirk Four Days time trial
To person
Date of birth	October 12, 1978
nation	Australia
discipline	Street
Driver type	sprinter
Team (s)
2000 ; 2001 ; 2002 ; 2003–2004 ; 2005 ; 2006–2007 ; 2008 ; 2009 ; 2010 ; 2011 ; 2012–2013	Mercury Cycling Team-Manheim Auctions ; Mercury-Viatel ; Française des Jeux ; FDJeux.com ; Française des Jeux ; Unibet.com ; Barloworld ; Vacansoleil ; Team Saxo Bank ; Saxo Bank-SunGard ; Orica GreenEdge
Most important successes
	Grands Tours Points classification Tour de France 2003
	Last updated: November 7, 2013

Baden Cooke (born October 12, 1978 in Benalla , Australia ) is a former Australian road cyclist .

Career

Cooke started cycling when he was 11. He won the Australian title in 1996 points race of the U19 after he had become an Australian last year runner-up of U17 on the road. At this time he was still equally oriented towards road and rail, and took part in the 1997 World Cup for his country .

After his transfer to the professional camp, stage wins at the Tour de l'Avenir (2) and the Australian Herald Sun Tour (5), whose overall ranking he won in 2002, were among his first successes. He was also able to win three stages in the Australian Tour Down Under stage, which is better known in Europe , plus stage victories in the Tour de Suisse , Midi Libre (1 each) and the Mediterranean Tour (3).

Baden Cooke's greatest successes were his stage win at the Tour de France and winning the green jersey, which he secured with a second place in the final stage in Paris - both in 2003.

In the following years he was unable to build on these successes. At the Tour de France 2004 he did not even make it into the top ten in the points classification , in 2005 he was far behind in ninth place. Cooke left the cycling team FDJEUX.com at the end of 2006 and switched to Unibet.com .

In November 2013, Baden Cooke announced his retirement from active cycling.