Christophe Brandt

Christophe Brandt

Christophe Brandt (2015)
To person
Date of birth	May 6, 1977
nation	Belgium
discipline	Street
Driver type	Mountain riders
doping
2004	Methadone (acquittal)
Team (s)
1999-2000 2001-2010	Saeco Omega Pharma Lotto
Most important successes
Druivenkoers 2002
Last updated: June 4, 2011

Christophe Brandt (born May 6, 1977 in Liège ) is a former Belgian cyclist .

Career

Brandt became a professional with the Italian cycling team Saeco in 1999 , after winning a stage of the Limburg Tour as an amateur. He showed good climbing skills and took part in his first major tour of the country, the Giro d'Italia , in 2001, which he completed in 42nd place. He achieved his first podium as a professional at the Japan Cup in the same year.

After two years at Saeco, Brandt received a contract with the Belgian racing team Predictor-Lotto . In 2002 he achieved his first and only victory as a professional cyclist at the Druivenkoers von Overijse . In his first Tour de France that same year he was 35th in the overall classification and third in the junior ranking behind Ivan Basso and Nicolas Vogondy .

Also in the 2003 season Brandt showed a strong performance at the Druivenkoers, where he was third this time. Again he was at the start of the Tour de France , which he finished 52nd.

At the 2004 Giro d'Italia , he surprisingly finished 14th and was also nominated for the Tour de France . There he was excluded for the sixth stage because he tested positive for doping (excessive methadone content in the urine). A little later, however, he was acquitted by the Belgian association.

Brandt was thus able to contest races in 2005 as well. Again he took part in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour of France . At the Giro he was able to achieve his first top ten place on the seventh stage when he was eighth in the sprint of a larger group of pursuers. On the 16th segment of the day he was represented in a breakaway group and just missed a stage win in second nine seconds behind the solo winner Christophe Le Mével . He finally finished the race in 33rd place, while he reached the finish in Paris in 56th place on the Tour .

A year later, Brandt had to leave the Giro d'Italia after only three stages, but in the Tour de France he reached an overall-40. the goal. In a fall during the one-day race Schaal Sels on August 29, 2006, he was seriously injured. Among other things, Brandt suffered a ruptured spleen and injured an artery. The doctors at Brasschaat Hospital saved his spleen, but had to remove a kidney. He also suffered four broken ribs, one of which affected the lungs, and a broken arm.

For the 2007 season, however, Brandt returned to racing. In the team time trial during the Settimana Internazionale , he and his team took first place. This year he did not take part in the Giro or the Tour and instead contested the Vuelta a España for the first time , which he only finished as 132. The serious injury from 2006 was still noticeable in the following season. Brandt could not continue the Tour de France after the 18th stage.

In 2009, Brandt was the leading professional cyclist in these statistics with over 16,000 kilometers of racing. A 9th stage place in the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey , he had a participation in Rund um die Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt in Germany , which he finished 17th. Shortly afterwards he competed in the Giro d'Italia for the first time since 2006 . This time he was able to finish the race again. A few months later, he participated in the Vuelta a España , where he reached Madrid as 125th . This was also his last participation in a three-week country tour.

At the end of the 2010 season, Christophe Brandt completed his last race at the Tour of Lombardy and then ended his career as a professional cyclist.

After retiring from his career, Brandt is now working for the Walloon Cycling Federation.

successes

2002

• Winner Druivenkoers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ velonation.com [1] Report on velonation.com

Web links

• Christophe Brandt in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Christophe Brandt in the Tour de France database(French / English )