Cyclists

Peter Sagan is a Slovak road bicycle racer. He is currently associated with Bora-Hansgrohe, a popular UCI WorldTeam. Widely regarded as one of cycling's greatest talents, Peter Sagan has won several prestigious championships over the course of his career. He has won UCI Road World Championships and European Championship among many other contests.

Eddy Merckx is a Belgian former road and track bicycle racer. Widely regarded as the most successful rider in competitive cycling history, Merckx achieved several important victories, such as 11 Grand Tours, three World Championships, and all five Monuments. He is also considered the greatest cyclist of all time. After retiring, he coached his national cycling team for 11 years.

Greg LeMond is an American former road racing cyclist and anti-doping advocate. Widely regarded as the greatest American cyclist ever, LeMond is a three-time Tour de France winner and a two-time Road Race World Championship winner. Greg LeMond is also regarded as an icon of the sport's globalization and is counted among the greatest all-round cyclists of the present era.

Lance Armstrong became one of the most inspirational stories after he survived cancer and went on to win seven consecutive Tour de France races from 1999 to 2005. He was considered one of the greatest road racing cyclists ever before he was stripped of all of his achievements starting from August 1998 due to his involvement in a doping scandal.

Bernard Hinault is a French former professional cyclist, often counted among the best cyclists of all time. He has 147 professional victories, including five in the Tour de France, to his name.  In 1986, he was given the Legion of Honour; he retired the same year. He turned to farming after his retirement. 

Chris Froome is an English professional road racing cyclist best known for winning two bronze medals in the Olympic Games so far; he won the medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. In 2017, Froome won a bronze medal at the UCI Road World Championships in Bergen, Norway. Froome has won many prestigious awards, such as the Vélo d'Or.

Welsh racing cyclist Geraint Thomas is a 2-time Olympic gold medal winner, apart from being a 3-time world champion and the 2018 Tour de France winner. Starting cycling at age 10, he is now an OBE and has also bagged numerous endorsement deals, such as the one with Continental Tyres.

Nicknamed Spartacus, Swiss retired cyclist and Olympic gold medalist Fabian Cancellara is a four-time world time trial champion. He also won both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix thrice. He had started cycling at 13, after finding an old family bike. He was also good at football and skiing.

Jacques Anquetil was a French professional road racing cyclist. He was the first person to win five Tour de France races. At the time of his retirement, Anquetil had won eight Grand Tours, which was a record at that time. He was also a controversial figure who spoke openly about his dependency on drugs to compete in races.

Tour de France-winning Australian cyclist Cadel Evans is also a four-time Olympian. His career took off when he earned a scholarship to the mountain biking program of the Australian Institute of Sport. An avid philanthropist, he has an adopted son from Ethiopia, along with a son from his second wife.

Laurent Fignon was a French professional road bicycle racer. He won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984. He became the FICP World No. 1 in 1989 and also won the Giro d'Italia the same year. One of the most successful cyclists of his era, he won many classic races. He retired in 1993. 

Of his 16-year-long stint as a professional cyclist, Sean Kelly has spent 5 years as the world’s number one racer. A specialist in classic races, he was the Paris–Nice winner for 7 consecutive times. Regarded as the second-best cyclist ever, he later had a successful career as a Eurosport commentator.

A 3-time Olympian, Belgian cyclist Philippe Gilbert is best known for winning the 2012 World Road Race Championships. He is also one of only 2 cyclists who have won 3 Ardennes classics. After representing teams such as the BMC Racing Team and Quick-Step Floors, he switched to Lotto–Soudal.

Nairo Quintana is a Colombian racing cyclist. A specialist climber, Quintana is renowned for his ability to launch attacks on ascents of steep gradient and his stamina to endure others' attacks. Considered the best Colombian road cyclist of all time, Nairo Quintana is also counted among the most successful and popular stage-racing riders of his generation.

British road and track cyclist Bradley Wiggins scripted history by becoming the first British racer to win the Tour de France, in 2012. Though born to Australian track cyclist Gary Wiggins, he was initially a fan of football but turned to cycling after watching the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.  

Primož Roglič is a Slovenian racing cyclist who in 2017 became the first cyclist from his country to win a stage at Tour de France. He then went on to win the Vuelta a España for three successive years. Primož Roglič achieved international recognition at the 2020 Olympic Games where he won the gold medal in the time trial event.

One of Italy’s best-known paracyclists and race car drivers, Alex Zanardi has four Paralympic gold medals in his kitty, apart from his 12 World Championship gold medals. Following a 2001 race car accident, he lost both his legs. The former Formula One racer has won CART Championships, too.

Belgian cyclist Greg Van Avermaet was born into a family of cyclists, with both his father and grandfather being cyclists. The Olympic gold medalist has represented Predictor–Lotto and the BMC Racing Team, before switching to the French cycling team AG2R Citroën Team. He specializes in classic cycle races.

Raymond Poulidor, or Pou-Pou, was an acclaimed French cyclist who had a life-long association with Mercier. His lack of wins at the Tour de France, in spite of 8 podium finishes, earned him the tag of The Eternal Second. Born to farmers, he took up racing at 16 after reading a sports magazine.

Legendary British cyclist Beryl Burton dominated the British women’s racing scene from the 1950s to the 1980s. Apart from being a 5-time world champion, she set a new women’s record for the 25-mile time trial, which surpassed the men’s record for 2 years. Her achievements inspired a radio play.

French cyclist Julian Alaphilippe is the brother of another prominent cyclist, Bryan Alaphilippe. The son of an orchestra conductor, he loved playing the drums as a child, but switched to cycling at age 13. Named France’s best sportsman more than once, he is the current UCI World Road Champion.

Tadej Pogačar is a Slovenian cyclist best known for his bronze medal-winning performance in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He also won the prestigious Tour de France in 2020 and 2021, achieving enormous fame among cycling enthusiasts around the world. Tadej Pogačar is the first Slovenian and the second-youngest winner of Tour de France.  

Eric Heiden is a former track cyclist, road cyclist, and long track speed skater. At the 1980 Winter Olympics, Heiden won five individual gold medals, setting one world record and four Olympic records in the process. The most successful athlete at the 1980 Winter Olympics, Heiden won more gold medals than all other nations except East Germany and Soviet Union.

Danny MacAskill is a Scottish professional mountain bike trial cyclist who works for Santa Cruz Bicycles. MacAskill, who achieved popularity after showcasing his skills on YouTube, went on to feature in several commercials and promotional videos for brands like Leica Camera. Danny MacAskill is also credited for performing the stunts in the 2012 American action thriller film Premium Rush.

Tom Simpson was a British professional cyclist who specialized in pursuit racing. One of most successful and popular cyclists of Britain, Simpson is best remembered for winning a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He then went on to win a gold medal at the 1965 UCI Road World Championships in San Sebastián, Spain.

Floyd Landis is an American former road racing cyclist who won the 2006 Tour de France before being stripped off of his title after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. In 2010, he revealed that many other top riders including Lance Armstrong had doped as well. His revelation helped accelerate the Lance Armstrong doping case.

English sports broadcaster Phil Liggett is known for his commentary of the Tour de France and other cycling events. Though he had fancied a career as a cyclist earlier, he later chose sports journalism instead. He is now a wildlife conservationist, who protects rhinos in a South African game reserve.

David Millar is a former racing cyclist who rode for the professional road bicycle racing team Cofidis from 1997 to 2004. Millar won two World Championship silver medals in 2001 and 2010. He also won a gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Since serving his two-year ban for using performance-enhancing drugs in 2006, Millar has been an anti-doping campaigner.

Malaysian track cyclist Azizulhasni Awang, also known as The Pocket Rocketman, has both an Olympic bronze and silver in his kitty. Adopted as a child, he took up cycling at age 10. While studying sports science in Australia, he became the first non-Australian to get a Blue Award from Victoria University.

Known for his boyish looks and his reputation as a mountain climber, Richard Virenque is a three-time Olympian who has also won the Tour de France King of the Mountains contest 7 times. He was involved in the Festina doping scandal, and though he wasn’t implicated, he later admitted to doping.

Known as Jaja, for his love for wine, Laurent Jalabert is a former world number one cyclist from France, who, unfortunately, never won a Tour de France title. With his Vuelta a España win in 1995, he became the second cyclist, after Eddy Merckx, to win three jerseys in a Grand Tour.

The son of retired Belgian cyclist Patrick Evenepoel, Remco Evenepoel too is a skilled cyclist in his own right and an Olympian. While he began his sports career as a footballer with Anderlecht, he later switched to cycling. He now represents the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team.

English cyclist Paul Sherwen was raised in Kenya, where his father worked. Initially devoted to swimming, he had even competed in swimming contests in Kenya and Britain but deviated toward cycling at 16. Part of the group of cyclists known as the Foreign Legion, he later turned into a successful broadcaster, too.

Son of cyclist Johny Schleck, Andy Schleck is a cyclist from Luxembourg who has been associated with teams such as Leopard Trek. The 2010 Tour de France winner has also been ranked second in the race twice. Following his retirement, he now owns a bike shop and a souvenir museum.

Graeme Obree is a Scottish racing cyclist best known for using a bicycle which he had built using parts from an old washing machine. Obree won two World Championship gold medals in 1993 and 1995. He was inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. His life was dramatized in the 2006 movie The Flying Scotsman.