Greg Van Avermaet

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Greg van Avermaet Road cycling
Greg Van Avermaet during the Tour de France 2018
Greg Van Avermaet during the Tour de France 2018
To person
Date of birth May 17, 1985
nation BelgiumBelgium Belgium
discipline Street
Driver type Classic specialist
To the team
Current team CCC team
function driver
Team (s)
2006
2007
2008–2009
2010
2011–2018
2019– 		Bodysol-Win for Life-Jong Vlaanderen
Predictor-Lotto
Silence-Lotto
Omega Pharma-Lotto
BMC Racing Team
CCC Team
Most important successes
Olympic games
Olympic rings without rims.svg 2016 Olympic Games - Road Racing
UCI WorldTour
Paris – Roubaix 2017
Paris – Tours 2011
Gent-Wevelgem 2017
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2016 , 2017
two stages Tour de France 2015 , 2016
a stage and points assessment Vuelta a España 2008
Overall ranking Tirreno – Adriatico 2016
Last updated: September 28, 2018

Greg Van Avermaet (born May 17, 1985 in Lokeren ) is a Belgian racing cyclist . He was at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro Olympic champion in the road race and won the monument of cycling Paris-Roubaix in 2017 and other classic one-day race .

Athletic career

Van Avermaet played in goal for the Belgian football club KSK Beveren until he was 18 . When he was only playing in the second team, he decided to go cycling.

After Van Avermaet had won Hasselt-Spa-Hasselt and a section of the U23 stage race Triptyque des Barrages in 2005, he joined the Belgian Continental Team Bodysol-Win for Life-Jong Vlaanderen in 2006 . This season he won several small Belgian one-day races and celebrated his greatest success to date by winning the Belgian U23 championship in road racing.

In 2007 Van Avermaet received a contract with the Belgian ProTeam Predictor-Lotto and achieved his first international success on the fifth stage of the Tour of Qatar . His first stage success in one of the three big tours was achieved in September 2008 when he won the sprint of a breakaway group on the ninth stage of the Vuelta a España from Viella to Sabiñánigo. Van Avermaet also won the points classification on this tour.

In 2011 he switched to the Swiss-American BMC Racing Team and developed into a successful classic rider, especially in the two cobblestone races Flanders Tour and Paris – Roubaix , which are among the monuments of cycling and in which he was often among the top ten. The first classic win, which he achieved in 2011 as the sprint winner of a breakaway duo at Paris-Tours , was his greatest success to date. At the Tour of Flanders in 2014 he only just lost to Fabian Cancellara in a sprint of a four-man leading group .

In 2015 Van Avermaet was second in the Italian one-day race Strade Biance and third in each of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix . In the 13th stage of the 2015 Tour de France , he won his first stage in a two-man sprint against Peter Sagan . In August of the same year he was brought down by an escort motorcycle while in the lead at the Clásica San Sebastián . His team BMC then announced legal action against the organizer.

At the beginning of the 2016 season he won the Belgian semi-classic Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and won the overall classification of Tirreno-Adriatico . The victory in the fifth stage of the Tour de France as an outlier also earned him the yellow jersey of the overall leader, which he wore on three stages.

At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, he secured the gold medal in the road race in the sprint of a three-man breakaway group. Together with the Dane Jakob Fuglsang he drove up to Rafał Majka , who had covered the last 10 kilometers alone after his companions Vincenzo Nibali and Sergio Henao fell on the descent. Van Avermaet won the first gold medal for Belgium in the Olympic road race since André Noyelle in 1952. At the end of the season he also won the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal .

The following year he won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad for the second time in a row and was second behind Michał Kwiatkowski at Strade Bianche . At the end of March, Van Avermaet E3 Harelbeke won the sprint against Philippe Gilbert and Oliver Naesen . Two days later he was able to continue his winning streak and won the sprint against Jens Keukeleire the classic Gent-Wevelgem , becoming the second rider after Jan Raas in the same season in 1981, Flemish classics Omloop Het Nieuwsblad , E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem for could decide.

Van Avermaet, who has not yet won a monument, was favored for the Tour of Flanders , but fell in pursuit of Philippe Gilbert together with Peter Sagan on the last climb of the Oude Kwaremont and finally came in second. At the beginning of April he won a cycling monument at Paris-Roubaix for the first time after attacking around 30 kilometers from the finish, defeating Zdeněk Štybar and Sebastian Langeveld in the Velodrome of Roubaix and finishing the fastest race in the history of Paris-Roubaix. He finished the season as a leader in the UCI World Ranking and the UCI WorldTour .

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Greg Van Avermaet won the Lockdown edition of the Tour of Flanders; the real race had been canceled due to the pandemic.

Investigations into doping

From 2009 to 2012, Van Avermaet is said to have consumed cortisone preparations that were banned in competition, especially in the phase prior to the Tour of Flanders in 2012 , which Van Avermaet finished in fourth place. The allegations were mainly based on an incriminating email exchange between Van Avermaet and the sports doctor Chris Mertens . In April 2015, the anti-doping lawyer for the Belgian cycling association KBWB filed a criminal complaint against Van Avermaet for doping. He should pay a fine of € 260,000 and his 2012 season results should be canceled.

On May 7, 2015, Greg Van Avermaet was acquitted by the Belgian Cycling Federation of suspected drug abuse to improve performance.

family

Greg van Avermaet is the son of Ronald Van Avermaet , professional cyclist from 1982 to 1985, and grandson of Aimé Van Avermaet , professional cyclist from 1957 to 1963. His brother-in-law Glenn D'Hollander was his teammate at Silence-Lotto from 2008 to 2010 . Van Avermaet is also related by marriage to the former cyclist and later sporting director Rik Verbrugghe .

successes

2006
  • MaillotBélgica.svg Belgian Champion - Road Race (U23)
2007
2008
2011
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

Important placements

Monuments of cycling
Monument to cycling 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Milan – Sanremo - 52 13 47 9 69 36 25th 19th 5 21st 17th 42
Tour of Flanders DNF 8th 35 39 22nd 4th 7th 2 3 DNF 2 5 10
Paris – Roubaix 29 27 38 27 7th 73 4th 17th 3 - 1 4th 12
Liège – Bastogne – Liège - - - - 7th 73 63 - - - 11 - 52
Lombardy tour - - - 15th 12 17th 19th - - DNF - -
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.
Grand Tours
Grand Tour 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yellow jersey Tour de France - 86 - - - - 38 DNF 44 58 28 36
Red jersey Vuelta a España 66 - 47 87 - - - - - - - -
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Van Avermaet Q&A: In search of brilliance, and Flanders. velonews.com, February 27, 2014, accessed September 18, 2015 .
  2. ↑ radsport-news.com of October 9, 2011: Van Avermaet has the short end to itself
  3. ↑ Van Avermaet: "I still have a few years". radsport-news.com, April 7, 2014, accessed September 18, 2015 .
  4. ^ After an accident at Clasica San Sebastian: BMC announces legal action. In: rad-net.de. March 25, 2013, accessed August 5, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Greg van Avermaet takes stage win and yellow card in the Massif Central. Retrieved July 6, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Van Avermaet wins gold in Rio. radsport-news.com, August 6, 2016, accessed August 6, 2016 .
  7. ^ Greg Van Avermaet wins Gent-Wevelgem. In: cyclingnews.com. Retrieved September 28, 2018 .
  8. ^ Van Avermaet wins Paris-Roubaix. In: cyclingnews.com. April 9, 2017, accessed September 28, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Van Avermaet wins virtual tour of Flanders. In: classic.rad-net.de. April 5, 2020, accessed April 5, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Belgian Greg Van Avermaet faces a doping ban and a fine of 260,000 euros. In: Sportal. June 23, 2014, accessed May 8, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Greg Van Avermaet acquitted of suspicion of doping. In: rad-net.de. March 25, 2013, accessed May 8, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Bahrain-Merida wants to bring Van Avermaet on board. In: radsport-news.com. January 4, 2018, accessed March 29, 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Greg Van Avermaet  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Van Avermaet, Greg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH Lokeren