Purely Taaramäe

Purely Taaramäe
	Purely Taaramäe in 2012
To person
Date of birth	April 24, 1987
nation	Estonia
discipline	Street
height	184 cm
Racing weight	66 kg
To the team
Current team	Total Direct Energy
Societies)
2007	RO Saint-Amandoise
Team (s)
2008–2014 ; 2015 ; 2016–2017 ; 2018–	Cofidis ; Astana Pro Team ; Team Katusha ; Direct Energy
Most important successes
	Giro d'Italia 2016 a stage Estonian champions - road races 2009, 2013; Estonian champion - individual time trial 2009, 2011, 2012;
	Last updated: March 16, 2019

Rein Taaramäe (born April 24, 1987 in Tartu , Estonian SSR ) is an Estonian racing cyclist . He was several times Estonian champion in road races and individual time trials .

Career

Rein Taaramäe was third in the overall ranking of the Junior Peace Ride in 2005 . In the 2006 season he won the Estonian time trial championship in the under 23-year-old class and won the Plouay Grand Prix in the same classification. He also started in both races of the 2007 road cycling world championship in Salzburg and finished 19th in the time trial. In the same year he was third at Paris – Troyes and shortly afterwards won a stage at the Circuit des Ardennes , which he finished fifth overall.

Taaramäe on the way to his stage and overall victory at the Tour de l'Ain 2009

On August 1, 2007 he was signed as a stagiaire with the French ProTeam Cofidis - Le Crédit par Téléphone and was in the team's professional squad from the 2008 season. In 2008 he won two stages at the Grand Prix du Portugal and was third in the overall standings. In the time trial of the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 he reached 16th place, in the road race he was 48. He won the time trial on the sixth stage of the Tour de l'Avenir .

In his second season as an elite driver, he won the mountain classification of the Tour of the Basque Country in 2009 . In the overall standings, he finished 66th. He then took part in the Tour de Romandie , where he finished second behind the Czech Roman Kreuziger and was third in the overall standings behind Kreuziger and Wladimir Karpez . At the Tour de Suisse he again managed to place in the top ten, Taaramäe finished eighth overall, about four minutes behind the winner Fabian Cancellara . At the national championships in 2009 , Rein Taaramäe was both winner in the road race and in the individual time trial and also won the respective U-23 ratings. Then he started at the Tour de l'Ain . With a victory on the fourth and final stage of this tour, he became overall leader and won his first tour ahead of Chris Horner and David Moncoutié . At the end of August he then took part in the Vuelta a España , his first Grand Tour , and was 74th overall.

The 2010 season began for Taaramäe with an eighth place in Paris-Nice . He then achieved a podium finish with third place in the Tour of Catalonia 2010 , just 43 seconds behind the winner Joaquim Rodríguez . During this tour he finished second twice. The Estonian finished his first Tour de France on stage 13.

In Paris – Nice 2011 Taaramäe finished fourth, 1:10 minutes behind the winner Tony Martin . Then he was again Estonian champion in the individual time trial and took part in the Tour de France again. After the 18th stage, he wore the white jersey of the best young rider for one day and in the end came in second behind Pierre Rolland . In the overall ranking of the Tour of France he reached eleventh place. At the Vuelta a España 2011 he won the 14th stage , but had to give up on the 17th stage.

In 2012 Taaramäe again won the Estonian championship in the individual time trial, but could not build on the good results of the previous year. He finished Paris – Nice as 87th, the Tour de France as 36th. During the tour, however, he wore the white jersey for two more days. The situation was similar in 2013: Taaramäe was Estonian road champion for the second time (second in the individual time trial), but otherwise only drove a few races and came 102nd in the Tour of France.

In the spring of 2014, Taaramäe had an operation on her larynx because of breathing problems . A little later he started the Tour of Turkey , won a stage and was overall leader. Ultimately, however, he had to admit defeat to Adam Yates by five seconds. At the Tour de France 2014 , the Cofidis team started with Taaramäe and Daniel Navarro as captains. While Navarro had to end the tour early, Taaramäe reached 88th place overall.

For the 2015 season, Taaramäe moved to the Kazakh Astana Pro Team for a year and won his first race for his new team, the Vuelta a Murcia , after a solo escape over 50 kilometers. In the course of the further season he won the overall ratings of the Burgos Tour and the Arctic Race of Norway . He had to give up the tour on the eleventh stage due to an illness. In 2016 he won a stage of the Giro d'Italia and the overall ranking of the Tour of Slovenia .