Christian Knees

Christian Knees

Christian Knees at the Grand Depart 2017 in Düsseldorf
To person
Date of birth	March 5th 1981
nation	Germany
discipline	Street
Driver type	helper
To the team
Current team	Ineos
function	driver
Societies)
2000-2001 2002 2003	Junior-Team Telekom Team Vermarc RRG Porz KED-Team Berlin
Team (s)
2004–2005 2006–2010 2011–04 / 2019 05/2019 -	Wiesenhof Milram Sky ProCycling Team Ineos
Most important successes
Around Cologne 2006 Bavaria Tour 2008 German Road Champion 2010
Last updated: October 9, 2018

Christian Knees (born March 5, 1981 in Bonn ) is a German racing cyclist .

Career

Knees started cycling in 1990 at VfL Rheinbach. From 1998 to 2003 he drove for the national team and was third in the Junior World Championship in the individual time trial in 1999 . In 2000 he drove for two years for the Telekom junior team . After its dissolution, he moved to RRG Porz and the following year to the KED-Bianchi Team Berlin.

He received his first contract with an international cycling team in 2004 with the Professional Continental Team Wiesenhof . In 2006 he switched to the newly founded Team Milram and won in the spring of 2006 around Cologne . At the 9th stage of the Tour de France 2006 he was named the most combative driver. For Milram he won the overall ranking of the Bayern Rundfahrt 2008 and was German road champion in 2010 . In 2009 he finished 21st in the overall ranking of the Tour de France 2009 - 19th after the disqualification of two riders - making him the second best German behind Andreas Klöden .

For the 2011 season, Knees came under contract with Team Sky ProCycling after his original team for 2011, Team Pegasus , had not received a Professional Continental license due to financial difficulties . There he mainly took on helper tasks and was in particular the personal "bodyguard" for Bradley Wiggins in his 2012 Tour de France victory . He was also one of the helpers of Chris Froome in his victories at the Tour de France 2017 , the Vuelta a España 2017 and the Giro d'Italia 2018 .

Private

Christian Knees is married and has two daughters.

successes

1999

• Overall ranking Tour de Lorraine
• World Championships - Time Trial (Juniors)

2003

• one stage tour of Thuringia
• a stage Tour de Gironde
• Young talent competition Cinturón a Mallorca

2004

• Young talent peace drive

2006

• Around Cologne

2007

• German Championships - Road

2008

• Overall ranking Bayern Rundfahrt
• International German Championship

2010

• German champion - road race

2013

• Team time trial Giro del Trentino
• Giro d'Italia team time trial

2016

• Team time trial Vuelta a España

2019

• Mountain classification Herald Sun Tour

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Giro d'Italia	73	72	-	-	-	-	-	60	-	-	66	-	91	96
Tour de France	104	47	29	19th	91	64	82	-	-	-	-	144	-	-
Vuelta a España	-	-	-	43	-	-	-	79	DNF	91	124	124	-	-

Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Web links

Commons : Christian Knees  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Christian Knees in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Christian Knees in the ProCyclingStats.com database
• Christian Knees in the rad-net.de database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Knees switches to Sky on radsport-news.com
2. ↑ Knees is Wiggins´ bodyguard on the tour. radsport-news.com, June 25, 2012, accessed July 12, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Portrait on christianknees.de ( Memento from May 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )