Manuel Saiz
Manuel "Manolo" Saiz Balbás (born 16 October 1959 in Torrelavega, Cantabria) is the former team manager of one of the most successful Spanish professional road bicycle racing teams, first called Team ONCE, then Liberty Seguros-Würth, Astana-Würth, and lastly Astana Team. Saiz was a hands-on manager and directeur sportif. He consolidated his riders' training and hired staff to manage their coaching and racing. Despite not having a racing background, he nurtured ONCE to become one of the biggest teams. His riders included Frenchman Laurent Jalabert and Swiss Alex Zülle; both dominated the Vuelta a España, each winning the general and other classifications. In 1995 Jalabert achieved the trifecta by winning the general classification along with the points and King of the Mountains. Saiz's next riders included Spaniard Abraham Olano, Igor González de Galdeano and Joseba Beloki. ONCE dominated team time trials in the Tour de France. At the end of the 2003 ONCE discontinu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Team ONCE
ONCE cycling team, () also known as Liberty Seguros, Liberty Seguros–Würth and in succession in its final year, Astana–Würth and Astana was a Spanish cycling team. It competed in the UCI ProTour circuit. On 25 May 2006, Liberty Mutual ("seguros" means "insurance" in Spanish) pulled out of primary sponsorship due to a doping scandal involving the directeur sportif, Manolo Saiz. On 2 June 2006, the team acquired a primary sponsor named Astana, after the capital of Kazakhstan. Würth was co-sponsor until 3 July 2006, withdrawing at the end of the 2006 Tour de France, in which didn't compet At the end of the season, Astana also withdrew due to the non-participation in the Tour. On 16 December 2006, the UCI withdrew the ProTour licence of Saiz's company, Active Ba [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abraham Olano
Abraham Olano Manzano (born 22 January 1970 in Anoeta, Gipuzkoa) is a Spanish retired professional road racing cyclist, who raced between 1992 and 2002. He won the UCI Road World Championships – Men's road race, World Road Championship in 1995 UCI Road World Championships, 1995, and the UCI Road World Championships – Men's time trial, World Time Trial Championship in 1998 UCI Road World Championships – Men's time trial, 1998, becoming the first and so far only male cyclist to win both. He also achieved distinction in Grand Tours: he won Vuelta a España in 1998 Vuelta a España, 1998 and was second in 1995 Vuelta a España, 1995, made it twice to the final podium at Giro d'Italia (third in 1996 Giro d'Italia, 1996 and second in 2001 Giro d'Italia, 2001), and placed three times in the top-ten at Tour de France, with the fourth place in 1997 Tour de France, 1997 as his personal best. In total he won six stages in the Vuelta and one in the Tour, all of them Individual time t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1959 Births
Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of Earth's Moon, and was also the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric orbit. * January 3 ** The three southernmost atolls of the Maldive archipelago ( Addu Atoll, Huvadhu Atoll and Fuvahmulah island) declare independence. ** Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state. * January 4 ** In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana. ** Léopoldville riots: At least 49 people are killed during clashes between the police and participants of a meeting of the ABAKO Party in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo. * January 6 ** Fidel Castro arrives in Havana. ** The International Maritime Organization is inaugurated. * January 7 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operación Puerto Doping Case
Operación Puerto (''Operation Mountain Pass'') is the code name of a still unfinished Spanish Police operation against the pro sports doping network of Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. It started in May 2006, which resulted in a scandal that involved several of the world's most famous cyclists and teams at the time. Media attention has focused on the small number of professional road cyclists named; however, sportspeople from other disciplines including football and tennis have also been connected with the scandal, though not officially indicted.Fuentes: "Me indigna la filtración selectiva" '' El País'', 5 July 2006 And among total number of athletes, fifteen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Virenque
Richard VirenqueRichard Virenque's name is pronounced Ree-shah Vee-rahnk. Virenque considers himself a man of the South but pronounces his name in standard French. Confusion is caused by the southern habit of pronouncing "en" as "ang" or "eng", making it Vee-rank. But Virenque says Vee-rahnk or Vee-ronk, a sound difficult to write in English. (born 19 November 1969) is a retired France, French professional road racing cyclist. He was one of the most popular French riders with fans for his boyish personality and his long, lone attacks.Virenque's fan club in 2000, two years after the Festina scandal had 5,000 members, of whom 2,000 were described as active. In 2000, Virenque received 589 letters in three weeks during the Tour de France, more than any other rider. He was a climber, best remembered for winning the King of the Mountains competition of the Tour de France a record seven times, but he is best known from the general French public as one of the central figures in a widespr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1999 Tour De France
The 1999 Tour de France was a multiple stage bicycle race held from 3 to 25 July, and the 86th edition of the Tour de France. It has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong originally won the event, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced in August of 2012 that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his seven consecutive Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005 (which were, originally, the most wins in the event's history); the Union Cycliste Internationale confirmed the result. There were no French stage winners for the first time since the 1926 Tour de France. Additionally, Mario Cipollini won four stages in a row, setting the post-World War II record for consecutive stage wins (breaking the record of three, set by Gino Bartali in 1948.) Teams After the doping controversies in the 1998 Tour de France, the Tour organisation banned some riders from the race, including Richard Virenque, Laurent Roux and Philippe Ga ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1998 Tour De France
The 1998 Tour de France was the 85th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race was composed of 21 stages and a prologue. It started on 11 July in Ireland before taking an anti-clockwise route through France to finish in Paris on 2 August. Marco Pantani of won the overall general classification, with 's Jan Ullrich, the defending champion, and rider Bobby Julich finishing on the podium in second and third respectively. The general classification leader's yellow jersey was first awarded to Chris Boardman of the team, who won the prologue in Dublin. Following a crash by Boardman on stage 2 that caused his withdrawal, Ullrich's sprinter teammate Erik Zabel took the race lead. He lost it the next stage to 's Bo Hamburger, who took it after being in a breakaway. The day after, the yellow jersey switched to another rider from the same breakaway, Boardman's teammate Stuart O'Grady, who took vital seconds from time bonuses gained in intermediate sprints. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Festina Affair
The Festina affair was a series of doping scandals within the sport of professional cycling that occurred during and after the 1998 Tour de France. The affair began when a large haul of doping products was found in a support car belonging to the Festina cycling team just before the start of the race. A resulting investigation revealed systematic doping involving many teams in the Tour de France. Hotels where teams were staying were raided and searched by police, confessions were made by several retired and current riders, and team personnel were arrested or detained. Several teams withdrew completely from the race. By December 2000, all nine Festina riders had confessed to using erythropoietin (EPO) and other substances during the 1998 Tour de France, and suspended sentences ranging from 5–12 months were handed out to Festina soigneur Willy Voet, Festina manager Bruno Roussel, La Française des Jeux soigneur Jef d'Hont, former Festina soigneur Jean Dalibot, and Festina co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Würth
The Würth Group (german: Würth-Gruppe, ) is a worldwide wholesaler of fasteners, screws and screw accessories, dowels, chemicals, electronic and electromechanical components, furniture and construction fittings, tools, machines, installation material, automotive hardware, inventory management, storage and retrieval systems. Würth was founded in 1945 by Adolf Würth in Künzelsau, Germany. The company has been run by his son Reinhold Würth since 1954. History Würth was founded by Adolf Würth (1909–1954), established for the purpose of selling screws in 1945 in Künzelsau (hence the company logo, which consists of the family name and a W of two screw heads with cylindrical and round heads). After the death of Adolf Würth, his son Reinhold Würth took over in 1954 at the age of 19 with his mother Alma Würth, making it a two-person company. Since then, the company has become the world's leading retail group with the main business share in the distribution of fasteners and t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Liberty Mutual
Liberty Mutual Group is an American diversified global insurer and the sixth-largest property and casualty insurer in the United States. It ranks 71st on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the United States based on 2020 revenue. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, and featuring the Statue of Liberty (formally ''Liberty Enlightening the World'') on its logo, it employs over 45,000 people in more than 900 locations throughout the world. As of December 31, 2021, Liberty Mutual Insurance had $156.043 billion in consolidated assets, $128.195 billion in consolidated liabilities and $48.2 billion in annual consolidated revenue. The company, founded in 1912, offers a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, workers' compensation, commercial multiple peril, commercial automobile, general liability, global specialty, group disability, fire insurance and surety. Liberty Mutual Group owns, wholly or in part, local insurance comp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Liberty Seguros
Liberty Seguros is an international subsidiary of Liberty Mutual Group, a Boston-based insurance company. Sponsorships Liberty Seguros sponsored the UCI ProTour cycling team, Liberty Seguros – Würth, but dropped the sponsorship on 25 May 2006 due to the Operación Puerto doping case, involving the team manager Manolo Saiz. They also sponsored a smaller continental cycling team based in Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ..., but dropped the sponsorship for this also in September 2009, when three members of the team failed drugs tests simultaneously. Liberty Seguros in Brazil was a sponsor of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. References External links * * * Financial services companies established in 2001 Insurance companies of Spain Insurance compa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tour De France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists of 21 stages, each a day long, over the course of 23 days, coinciding with the Bastille Day holiday. It is the oldest of the Grand Tours and generally considered the most prestigious. The race was first organized in 1903 to increase sales for the newspaper '' L'Auto'' and is currently run by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1903 except when it was stopped for the two World Wars. As the Tour gained prominence and popularity, the race was lengthened and its reach began to extend around the globe. Participation expanded from a primarily French field as more riders from all over the world began to participate in the race each year. The Tour is a UCI World Tour event, which means that th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |