Michael Barry (born 18 December 1975) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

author and former professional road racing cyclist. Barry raced for numerous world-class teams with the role of '

domestique In road bicycle racing, a domestique is a rider who works for the benefit of their team and leader, rather than trying to win the race. In French, ''domestique'' translates as "servant".However, in French, the term used is ''équipier''. In I ...

'. His greatest personal successes were placing eighth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics' road race, finishing second in the Canadian National Road Race Championships in 2001 and 2012, and winning a stage of the

Tour of Missouri The Tour of Missouri was a professional road bicycle racing stage race in Missouri that started on September 11, 2007 with six days of racing. The organizers, who also run the Tour de Georgia and the Amgen Tour of California, billed it as the thi ...

in 2008. He announced his retirement in September 2012, stating that the

2012 Tour of Beijing The 2012 Tour of Beijing was the second running of the Tour of Beijing stage race. It started on 9, October at Tiananmen Square and ended on 13, October in Beijing's Pinggu District after five stages. It was the 28th and final race of the 2012 UC ...

would be his last race. He is also an author who has written three books.

Career

He was born and raised in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

. His father, Michael (Mike) Barry Sr., was a racer himself in England in the 1950s, who until 2006 ran a specialty bike store and manufactured a line of hand-made bicycle frames under his own Mariposa brand. As a result, the younger Barry grew up in a cycling-intense environment, and started racing at a very young age. He has been a professional since 1998. He has spent many years on the Canadian National Team during the early years of his career. His wife is 2004 Olympic Silver Medalist Dede Demet Barry. They have 2 children. Previous to riding for

UCI ProTour The UCI ProTour was a series of road bicycle races in Europe, Australia and Canada organised by the UCI (International Cycling Union). Created by Hein Verbruggen, former president of the UCI, it comprises a number of 'ProTour' cycling teams, ...

team Barry spent several years with the team. He also raced with the

Saturn Cycling Team The Saturn Cycling Team was an American cycling team that existed from 1992 to 2003. It was managed by Tom Schuler and sponsored by the Saturn Corporation. Victories ;1995 : United States National Road Race Championships, Norman Alvis : United ...

for a number of years before going to US Postal Service/Discovery. Barry has raced in 5

Vuelta a España The Vuelta a España (; en, Tour of Spain) is an annual multi-stage bicycle race primarily held in Spain, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. Inspired by the success of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, the ...

s and 5 Giro d'Italias but in 2007 had to abandon the Giro due to health issues, which put him out most of the season. He also had to pull out of the

2002 Vuelta a España The 57th edition of the ''Vuelta a España'' (Tour of Spain), a long-distance bicycle stage race and one of the three grand tours, was held from 7 September to 29 September 2002. It consisted of 21 stages covering a total of , and was won by Ait ...

after colliding with a motorcycle on the eight stage.. In 2005 he wrote the book: ''Inside the Postal Bus'', about his experiences at and the 2004 season whilst riding in support of

Lance Armstrong Lance Edward Armstrong ('' né'' Gunderson; born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. Regarded as a sports icon for winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 after recovering fr ...

. The work contains texts authored by some of his team mates, including

George Hincapie George Anthony Hincapie (born June 29, 1973) is an American former racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 1994 and 2012. Hincapie was a key domestique of Lance Armstrong. Hincapie was also a domestique for Alberto Contador in 2007 a ...

. When the doping topic arises in the book, Barry vehemently denies having ever witnessed any drug intake in the team. He and his wife also wrote a training book. He also writes diary entries during his cycling season. His third book, ''Le Metier'', detailing the life of a cycling domestique, was published in 2010 by Rouleur. He is generally considered a support rider, or

, helping the team leaders win races, but he will often get the opportunity to go for personal results. He is usually the team leader for Canada for the World Championships. His strengths lie in the time-trial, and hilly road races. He can be counted on for grand tours, and other stage races as well. For 2010, he left , and signed with for 2 years. On 24 June 2010, Team Sky announced that Barry would be part of its

2010 Tour de France The 2010 Tour de France was the 97th edition of the Tour de France cycle race, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started on with an 8.9 km prologue time trial in Rotterdam, the first start in the Netherlands since 1996. The race visited th ...

team. This would be Barry's first Tour de France appearance after thirteen seasons as a professional. On 5 September 2012, Barry announced he would retire at the end of the season, after his last race, October's

Tour of Beijing The Tour of Beijing was an annual professional stage bicycle road race held in Beijing, China. History Its first edition took place in October 2011, as the penultimate event in the 2011 UCI World Tour. The tour was a partnership between the UCI a ...

Doping

On 10 October 2012 it was announced by USADA that he would be suspended for six months for admissions of doping during his time with the US Postal Cycling Team. Later that day a statement was released confirming his acceptance of a six-month ban from 1 September 2012 ending on 1 March 2013 along with a stripping of all race results between 13 May 2003 and 31 July 2006.http://d3epuodzu3wuis.cloudfront.net/2012-10-09+WB+to+Berke+re++Barry+Sanction.pdf, Michael Barry acceptance of Sanction He confessed that the US Postal team and he were using an extensive amount of

performance-enhancing drugs Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where bann ...

Highlights

Highlights include: * Stage win at the 2008

* Placed 9th in the men's road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics * Placing 4th overall in the 2003 Tour de Georgia * At the 2006 Tour of Flanders, Barry went down extremely hard in a crash, suffering severe facial cuts and lacerations and also fracturing some vertebrae.

Major results

;1997 : 1st MaillotCan

National Under-23 Road Race Championships ;1999 : 2nd First Union Invitational : 4th Overall Ringerike GP : 8th Overall GP de Beauce : 10th Overall Tour Trans-Canada ;2000 : 5th Overall Ringerike GP : 6th Overall Redlands Classic ;2001 : 2nd National Road Race Championships : 2nd BMC San Francisco GP : 4th Overall

Peace Race The Peace Race (german: Friedensfahrt, cs, Závod míru, sk, Preteky mieru, russian: Велогонка Мира (), pl, Wyścig Pokoju , french: Course de la Paix, it, Corsa della Pace, ro, Cursa Păcii) was an annual multiple stage bicycl ...

: 4th Overall GP de Beauce : 7th Samsung Classic : 7th First Union Invitational ;2002 : 1st Stage 1 TTT

Volta a Catalunya The Volta a Catalunya (; en, Tour of Catalonia, es, Vuelta a Cataluña, link=no) is a road bicycle race held annually in Catalonia, Spain. It is one of three World Tour stage races in Spain, together with the Vuelta a España and the Tour of ...

: 6th First Union Invitational : 9th Road Race

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

;2003 :4th Overall Tour de Georgia ;2003 : ~~7th World Championships Road Race~~ ;2004 : 1st Stage 1 TTT
Vuelta a España The Vuelta a España (; en, Tour of Spain) is an annual multi-stage bicycle race primarily held in Spain, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. Inspired by the success of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, the ...
;2005 : 6th Overall
Tour of Austria The Tour of Austria (german: Internationale Österreich Rundfahrt) is a stage cycling race held in Austria. From 1949 to 1995 it was a race for amateur cyclists, turning into a professional event in 1996. In 2005 and 2006 it was organised as a 2 ...
::~~1st Stage 1~~ ::~~1st Points Classification~~ ;2006 :2nd
Eindhoven Team Time Trial The UCI ProTour Eindhoven Team Time Trial was an annual road bicycle race held in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It was approximately . Each team had six riders. In 2006, team size expanded to eight. Conceived as part of the UCI ProTour in 2005, it was o ...
;2007 : 3rd Overall

Sachsen Tour The Sachsen Tour is a multi-stage road bicycle race held in the region of Saxony, Germany. It was first held in 1985 and since 2005 it has been organised as a 2.1 event on the UCI Europe Tour The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicy ...

;2008 : 5th Overall

Tour of Ireland The Tour of Ireland (Irish: Turas na hÉireann, known from 1985 to 1992 as the Nissan Classic) was a bicycle stage race held in August, which ran for 35 editions over a 56-year period. Irish rider Seán Kelly recorded the most wins, four. Th ...

: 8th Olympic Road Race : 10th Overall

::1st Stage 4 ::Most Aggressive Rider Award Jersey red

for Stage 4 ;2009 : 1st Stage 1 TTT Giro d'Italia : Jersey red

Most Aggressive Rider Award

;2012 : 2nd National Road Race Championships

References

External links