Roland Meier

Roland Meier (* 22. November 1967 in Dällikon ) is a former Swiss professional - cyclist .

Roland Meier has rarely been on the sunny side in his career. As an amateur, he was one of the most successful Swiss. The jump into professional business turned out to be extremely difficult. For the first few years he drove for a starvation wage and was dependent on the support of his partner. Only the year with the Swiss Post-Swiss team brought success and the turning point. Foreign sports groups showed interest in the Zurich. A lucky coincidence saved him from switching to Festina . Instead, he signed a contract with the French Cofidis team.

In 1998, at the age of 30, he competed in the Tour de France for the first time , helping out his captain, Francesco Casagrande . This tour, overshadowed by the Festina affair , became the greatest success of a turbulent career. On the 11th stage to the Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees, he drew attention to himself with a mammoth escape. Although he couldn't even be stopped by a spectacular fall over the guardrail and in the end was only beaten by the eventual Tour winner Marco Pantani . He finished the tour in seventh overall and won the team classification with Cofidis.

The Swiss began to establish himself in the top of the world and took on the role of team leader on the Tour the following year after Bobby Julich had to give up injuries after a fall.

His last year at Cofidis wasn't quite as successful. Nevertheless, he had the three best and most successful years of his sporting career with the French team.

But Meier went down in the annals of cycling history because of a doping case. In 2001 he was the first racing driver to be convicted in urine using EPO evidence and convicted by a court of law.

For the 2001 season he moved to the new German GS1 team Coast . Lack of shape, injuries and finally the positive doping tests from Fleche Wallone meant the end of Meier's active cycling career.

Palmarès (selection)

• 1995 1st place Swiss Time Trial Championship
• 1997 1st place Hegiberg-Rundfahrt
• 1997 2nd place in the Swiss road championships
• 1997 3rd place overall classification Regio-Tour
• 1997 5th place overall Tour de Suisse
• 1998 5th place overall Tour de Romandie
• 1998 7th place overall Tour de France
• 1999 5th Classique des Alpes
• 1999 15th place overall Tour de France

Teams

• 1993 TVM bison kit
• 1994 - TVM bison kit
• 1995 - TVM
• 1996 - PMU Romand-Bepsa
• 1997 - Post Swiss Team
• 1998 - Cofidis, le Credit par Téléphone
• 1999 - Cofidis, le Crédit par Téléphone
• 2000 - Cofidis, le Credit par Téléphone
• 2001 - Team Coast

Individual evidence

1. ^ NZZ : Roland Meier only Swiss on the list (accessed on August 11, 2013)
2. ↑ Ralf Meutgens : Doping im Radsport , Bielefeld 2007, p. 275. ISBN 978-3-7688-5245-6

Web links

• Roland Meier in the Tour de France database(French / English )
• Roland Meier in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Roland Meier in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )