Ryder Hesjedal

Eric Ryder Hesjedal (/ˈraɪdər ˈhɛʃədɑːl/; born December 9, 1980) is a Canadian retired professional racing cyclist who competed in mountain biking and road racing between 1998 and 2016. Hesjedal won a silver medal at the 1998 Junior, 2001 Under-23, and Elite world championship in mountain biking. He turned professional with U.S. Postal Service in 2004 after several years with the Rabobank continental team. Having previously finished in fifth place at the 2010 Tour de France, Hesjedal won his first and only Grand Tour at the 2012 Giro d'Italia, the first Grand Tour win by a Canadian. Other major wins include two stages at the Vuelta a España, the first such stage wins by a Canadian.

Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen asserted in his autobiography that he taught Hesjedal how to take erythropoietin (EPO). Hesjedal later admitted that this doping allegation was "the truth" and that he "chose the wrong path". Hesjedal has not served a ban as a result of his confession to USADA, and has publicly expressed a desire to be honest and transparent. VeloNews reported in 2014 that "The 33-year-old Canadian, however, stopped short of explaining what drugs he took, and when".

Hesjedal began his career competing as a mountain bike cyclist, with initial success as a two-time world champion in the mountain bike relay event in both 2001 and 2002. He won silver as an individual at the 2003 world mountain biking championships and competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics for Canada in the mountain bike category. At those games, Hesjedal was on his way to an Olympic medal and likely a gold medal before a sharp rock cut and flattened his tire, ending that Olympic dream.

As a result of both the early success and disappointments in his career, this allowed him to make the full-time switch to road cycling. A climber and time trialist, he was selected by Discovery Channel for the 2005 Giro d'Italia and helped Paolo Savoldelli win, although failing to complete the course himself. After 2005 he joined the Swiss team, Phonak, where he began to build some of his best results, finishing fourth in the 2006 Volta a Catalunya and second in the 2006 Canadian National Time Trial Championships. Later that season he rode the Vuelta a España, although he dropped out near the end to concentrate on the UCI Road World Championships in Salzburg. He achieved only modest results; the end of the Phonak team led him to Health Net–Maxxis for 2007.

For 2008 he joined Slipstream–Chipotle and helped Christian Vande Velde to fourth in the Tour de France.

In 2009 Hesjedal competed in the Vuelta a España. He finished second of the mountainous tenth stage behind Simon Gerrans (Cervélo TestTeam), registering the same time as the victor. He did not miss his chance days later on stage 12 however, when he detached himself from the favourites' group on the final climb to the Alto de Velefique. He joined the lone escapee David García Dapena (Xacobeo–Galicia) and tried to shake him off, but García resisted. Hesjedal outsprinted his rival near the line to take the victory. With that feat, he became the first Canadian to win a Vuelta stage and the first Canadian individual winner of a Grand Tour stage since Steve Bauer in the 1988 Tour de France. However, he abandoned later and did not take the start of the eighteenth stage. Hesjedal was the only Canadian to compete in the Tour de France in both 2008 and 2009 – the first Canadian to ride in the race in more than 10 years.

At the end of the 2009 season, Hesjedal was selected as Canadian cyclist of the decade and male Canadian cyclist of the year. The honour was given to him from Canadian Cyclist and the results came from an online poll. He was also named male international cyclist of the year of 2009 from Cycling BC.

In March, Hesjedal grabbed a good result at the Montepaschi Strade Bianche, an Italian race run partly on dirt roads. He finished fifth, 19 seconds behind the victor, Maxim Iglinsky of Astana, and said that he was happy with his performance. In April, Hesjedal earned a place on the podium in one of the Ardennes classics, the Amstel Gold Race, which ran through the Dutch hills for 257 kilometres (160 mi). In the final kilometre, he attempted to follow the acceleration produced by Philippe Gilbert on the steep Cauberg, but had to settle for second place, two seconds behind Gilbert. Hesjedal rode the Tour of California and finished fifth overall, grabbing a victory on the eighth stage in the process, as he out-sprinted his breakaway companions Chris Horner (Team RadioShack), George Hincapie (BMC Racing Team) and Carlos Barredo (Quick-Step). With that operation he helped secure the overall win of Michael Rogers since Hesjedal appropriated the 10 seconds bonus awarded to stage winners, making sure none of Rogers' rivals could claim it since Rogers had a very narrow lead in the general classification.