Christopher Horner

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Christopher Horner Road cycling
Christopher Horner (2013)
Christopher Horner (2013)
To person
Nickname Chris
Date of birth October 23, 1971
nation United StatesUnited States United States
discipline Street
End of career 2019
Team (s)
1996
1997–1999
2000–2001
2002
2003
2004
from 10th 2004–2005
2006–2007
2008–2009
2010–2011
2012–2013
2014
2015
2016
2018–2019
NutraFig-Colorado Cyclist
Française des Jeux
Mercury-Viatel
Prime Alliance Cycling Team
Saturn Cycling Team
Webcor Cycling Team
Saunier Duval-Prodir
Davitamon-Lotto
Astana
Team RadioShack
RadioShack Leopard
Lampre-Merida
Airgas-Safeway
Lupus Racing Team
Team Illuminate
Most important successes
Vuelta a España 2013
Last updated: February 27, 2020

Christopher Horner (born October 23, 1971 in Okinawa , Japan ) is a retired American cyclist .

Athletic career

Horner drove in 1995 for the small US team PAA Nutrafig and two years later drove for the French team FDJ . Since his only front result was a third place at the Grand Prix Ouest France , he went back to his home country and drove there one after the other for the teams Mercury , Prime Alliance , Saturn and Webcor . During this time he drove a few victories in cycling races on the UCI America Tour and other smaller races.

In 2000 Horner won stages at the Tour de Langkawi and 2003 at the Tour de Georgia , and also secured overall victory in both races. Due to his eighth place at the 2004 World Cup in Verona , Italy , he got a contract with the Saunier Duval Prodir team at the end of the season . There he achieved his greatest success to date in 2005, winning a mountain stage and finishing fifth in the Tour de Suisse . In his participation in the Tour de France in 2005 and 2007, he was 33rd and 15th in the overall standings, respectively. From 2006 to 2007 he drove for the Belgian Predictor Lotto team . In 2008 and 2009 he drove again for the Astana team and between 2010 and 2011 switched to the radio hack around the doping-confessed Lance Armstrong .

2010 Horner was able to record his most successful season. After overall victory at the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco and top ten placements at the Flèche Wallonne , Liège-Bastogne-Liège , the Amstel Gold Race and the Tour of California , Horner was able to finish the Tour de France in 9th place. He also won the overall classification of the California Tour in 2011. Until 2013 Horner drove in the Luxembourg team Radioshack-Nissan .

After missing almost the entire season in 2013 due to persistent injuries, Horner came to the Vuelta a España 2013 with just 14 days of racing , where he showed the best performance of his career to date. With two stage wins, he was able to take the overall lead twice, but only lost it to Vincenzo Nibali only one day later . At 41 years and 314 days, he was the oldest driver in history who was able to conquer a stage and the leadership jersey on one of the three major national tours (as of 2019). On the nineteenth stage he was able to turn a three-second gap on Nibali into an equally large lead and even extend it with a second place on the twentieth stage on the Alto de Angliru . On the following day, Horner finally made the overall victory, as expected, and became the oldest overall winner of one of the so-called Grand Tours at the age of 41 years and 327 days .

Horner's surprising victory in the Tour of Spain has been linked to doping by various commentators . Reference was made to allegedly missed training controls and irregularities in the biological passport .

In April 2014, Chris Horner suffered a serious lung injury, four broken ribs and a head wound in a collision with a car near Lake Como . As a result of this accident, he was unable to participate in the 2014 Giro d'Italia as planned . At the following Tour de France he finished 17th in the overall standings. For the subsequent Vuelta a España 2014 , Horner was deleted from his team Lampre due to low cortisol levels , which, according to the voluntary rules of the team association Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible , prevented a start, so that he could not swear his title.

Horner received no more contracts with UCI ProTeams and ended his international career after engagements with low-class teams after the end of the 2019 season.

Professional

In 2019 Chris Horner got a contract with NBC to comment on the upcoming bike races of the year. On the occasion of his engagement as a commentator, he said that although he still had an elite license, he no longer considered himself a professional cyclist.

successes

2000
2003
2005
2006
2010
2011
2013

Grand Tours placements

Grand Tour 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia - - - - DNF - - - - -
Yellow jersey Tour de France 33 64 15th - - 9 DNF 13 - 17th
Red jersey Vuelta a España - 20th 36 - DNF - - - 1 -
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Individual evidence

  1. 41-year-old before greatest career success orf.at, accessed on September 15, 2013
  2. Horner's double triumph at the Vuelta Neue Zürcher Zeitung, accessed on September 15, 2013
  3. Chris Horner's Bio Passport Problem. October 22, 2013, accessed April 28, 2020 .
  4. Tom Mustroph: Debate about Vuelta winner: The old man and the fog. In: taz.de . September 16, 2013, accessed April 28, 2020 .
  5. Cannot be found for control: Doping Zoff about Vuelta winner Horner (41). In: blick.ch. September 8, 2018, accessed April 28, 2020 .
  6. Phil Gaimon: Draft horses in bib shorts . Covadonga Verlag, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-95726-031-4 , pp. u. a. 264 .
  7. Horner is doing better - Giro start hardly possible. rad-net.de, April 13, 2014, accessed on April 13, 2014 .
  8. ^ Gregor Brown: Chris Horner out of Vuelta a Espana with low cortisol levels. In: cyclingweekly.com. August 22, 2014, accessed April 28, 2020 .
  9. Chris Horner joins NBC Sports Tour de France team. In: olympics.nbcsports.com. June 21, 2019, accessed September 14, 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Chris Horner  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files