Racing career Sylvain Chavanel

1 racing career

1.1 quick step (2009–2013)
1.2 iam (2014–2015)
1.3 direct Énergie (2016–)

racing career

he began racing when 13. won 29 races on road schoolboy , junior. won national junior individual pursuit championship in 1997. uncle, philippe raby, former rider in vendée region, recommended him jean-rené bernaudeau building professional team based there. bernardeau saw chavanel race first time @ montreveau, in maine-et-loire, when racing against riders bernardeau s vendée u junior team.

bernardeau , chavanel agreed chavanel spend year club, ac châtellerault, had spent time , money on training. bernardeau s assistant, thierry bricau, given job of providing chavanel training programme. chavanel rode tour de l avenir in 1999 , in 2000, aged 21, turned professional bernardeau s bonjour team, sponsored chain of local newspapers. won first stage of circuit franco-belge , lost leader s jersey on last day. won climbers jersey in tour de l avenir breaking clear in pyrenees , rode 217 km alone @ front of paris–tours.

bernardeau said:

sylvain has of faults had young rider. s working @ front of race – have rein him in own good. @ age, life beautiful , risks there taken. s acquiring self-knowledge , days of gratuitous long-range sorties , suicide attacks coming end.

chavanel rode first tour de france @ 22, finishing 65th, later coming third in tour de l avenir behind denis menchov , florent brard. in 2002 won 4 days of dunkirk , finished third in tour of belgium. later won both of races in 2005.

on 25 july 2008 chavanel won 19th stage of 2008 tour de france outsprinting jérémy roy @ montluçon. , other performances brought him election combative rider of race.

on 3 september 2008, came second in individual time trial stage of 2008 vuelta españa @ ciudad real. ride brought him second place overall, 2 seconds slower american, levi leipheimer. team worked him next day ciudad real toledo make sure won time bonuses offered along route. 6 seconds collected enough give him leader s jersey on 4 september.

quick step (2009–2013)

chavanel said in 2007 had had offers foreign teams discouraged joining them because unsure of pension payments outside france. in july 2008 said had agreed patrick lefevere directeur sportif join quick step team in belgium 2009. chavanel said made decision move after riding in classic races in belgium @ start of year. won dwars door vlaanderen , brabantse pijl. said:

i had other options well. professionally, s experience can me good. had chance sign 3 years ag2r-la mondiale had feeling wasn t going develop enough. have raced in france and, in heart, experience abroad has excited me time. therefore decided take step , patrick lefévère s advances persuaded me.


chavanel competing in 2012 olympics time trial in london

during 2010 tour de france, chavanel took on yellow jersey after attacking @ 10 km mark on stage 2. following series of crashes affecting general classification contenders on descent spa, race neutralized every rider except chavanel, lone escapee @ time. capitalized on that, opening enough of gap win stage , capture yellow jersey fabian cancellara (team saxo bank). following stage not chavanel 2 punctures on cobbled roads meant fabian cancellara re-took yellow jersey, on tour s first mountain stage tournus station des rousses chavanel bridged gap breakaway , rode away take famous win , inherit yellow jersey second time.

in 2011 vuelta españa chavanel held red leader s jersey 4 stages. on stage three, part of breakaway, finished second behind pablo lastras left him second in general classification, 20 seconds behind lastras. however, on next stage chavanel finished 57 seconds behind stage winner while lastras lost on 18 minutes, thereby making chavanel overall leader of vuelta. held jersey until stage 8 taken joaquim rodríguez.

in 2012, chavanel won 3 days of de panne , won french national time trial championships fourth time.

in 2013, after strong appearances in tour de san luis , volta ao algarve, chavanel won stage 6 of paris–nice, taking points classification @ race. chavanel won overall classification @ 3 days of de panne second year in row, winning final time trial stage.

after 5 years team, chavanel left squad @ end of 2013 season, , joined iam cycling 2014 season.

iam (2014–2015)

after winning national time trial title, chavanel went on win tour du poitou-charentes great performance in stage s 4 time trial. couple of days later, chavanel topped successful week prevailed in world tour race gp ouest-france winning sprint out of small group ahead of arthur vichot.

direct Énergie (2016–)

in september 2015 direct Énergie announced chavanel join them 2016 season. in 2017, chavanel contested tour de france record-equalling 17th time.