Cédric Vasseur

Cédric Vasseur (born August 18, 1970 in Hazebrouck , Département Nord ) is a former French cyclist and later president of the professional cycling association Cyclistes Professionnels Associés .

His father Alain Vasseur and his uncle Sylvain Vasseur were also professional cyclists.

Career

As an amateur, he was able to draw attention to himself with stage wins in the Rhineland-Palatinate Tour (as well as overall victory in the Tour) and the Tour de l'Avenir . Cédric Vasseur began his professional career in 1995 with the Novemail team . The following year he moved to Gan , which was later called Crédit Agricole . For this team, Vasseur achieved his greatest success with victory on the fifth stage of the Tour de France in 1997 after a solo journey of 147 kilometers and took over the yellow jersey for five days as the leader in the overall classification . Only on the tenth stage did he lose it to the eventual overall winner Jan Ullrich .

In 2000 he switched to the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team as one of the helpers for Lance Armstrong in his Tour de France 2000 victory . After he was not nominated by his team for the 2001 Tour de France and allegedly there were personal differences over the distribution of prize money between him and Lance Armstrong, he moved to Team Cofidis in 2002 .

In January 2004, residues of cocaine were found in a hair sample from Vasseur in the course of the Cofidis affair . He was suspended from his team Cofidis. Although the B-sample was negative, Vasseur was not admitted to the 2004 Tour de France . An investigation by the French law enforcement authorities was closed in autumn 2004; In 2005 Vasseur was able to take part in the Tour de France for the seventh time. It turned out that the hair sample that was used to prove that the driver had used cocaine was not his, and fake signatures appeared under incriminating interrogation protocols. The public prosecutor's office investigated in police circles: In May 2006, a police officer was sentenced to ten months in prison for forging his signatures and had to pay Vasseur 10,000 euros .

At the 2007 Tour de France he won the 10th stage in the sprint of a five-man breakaway group for the Quick Step-Innergetic team in Marseille . At the end of the 2007 season, Vasseur ended his cycling career, during which he had started ten times on the Tour and finished 24th as the best place in 1998 .

After his career as a racing cyclist, in October 2007 he succeeded Francesco Moser as President of the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés and driver representative in the ProTour Council of the Union Cycliste Internationale . He resigned from these positions in November 2009.