Sylvain Chavanel

Sylvain Chavanel

Chavanel in 2014
Personal information
Full name	Sylvain Chavanel
Nickname	Chava,[1] Mimosa, La Machine
Born	(1979-06-30) 30 June 1979 Châtellerault, France
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)[2]
Weight	70 kg (154 lb; 11 st 0 lb)[2]
Team information
Current team	Direct Énergie
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder
Amateur team(s)
1999	Vendée U
Professional team(s)
2000–2004	Bonjour
2005–2008	Cofidis
2009–2013	Quick-Step
2014–2015	IAM Cycling
2016–	Direct Énergie
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France Combativity award (2008, 2010) 3 individual stages (2008, 2010) Stage races Four Days of Dunkirk (2002, 2004) Tour of Belgium (2004) Three Days of De Panne (2012, 2013) One-day races and Classics National Road Race Championships (2011) National Time Trial Championships (2005, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014) GP Ouest–France (2014) Brabantse Pijl (2008) Dwars door Vlaanderen (2008)
Medal record Men's road bicycle racing Representing Omega Pharma–Quick-Step World Championships 2012 Valkenburg Team time trial 2013 Tuscany Team time trial Men's track cycling Representing  France European Championships 2016 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Team pursuit

Sylvain Chavanel^[3] (born 30 June 1979) is a French professional road bicycle racer, currently riding for UCI Professional Continental team Direct Énergie.^[4] His brother Sébastien Chavanel was also a cyclist.

Chavanel started his professional career in 2000 with Jean-René Bernaudeau's team Bonjour, which became Brioches La Boulangère in 2003. Chavanel is a strong all-rounder who has won both sprints and time-trials, and is a good northern classics rider.

Background

Chavanel was born in Châtellerault, France, although his family roots are in Spain. His great-grandparents were from Huesca, in the Aragon region. His grandfather was born in Barcelona and moved to Châtellerault during the Spanish Civil War. Other members of the family still live in Aragon.^[3] He said: "Last year [2007], when the Vuelta was in Zaragoza, I got to know the cousin of mine using a journalist as the translator and she gave me a picture of my grandfather when he was young. Despite my origins, I hardly know a word of Spanish – just swear words".^[3]

As a child he played in the garden with models of racing cyclists. He said:

We've got quite a big family and we're all into cycling. I remember playing out in the garden with my three brothers and sister with little figures that we gave names to. I was usually Greg LeMond, then later I went on to be Miguel Indurain then eventually Laurent Jalabert. I remember LeMond's accent. I liked the way he spoke French. I just thought he was a nice guy and I liked his style of riding.^[5]

Chavanel began cycling at Châtellerault school when he was eight. He gave up to try football, then went back.

I started cycling again at 12 and from then on I improved every year. I was a fragile little thing, immature physically. I used to finish races halfway down the girls' field and at the back of the boys'. Everything changed the day that I beat my elder brother, Frédéric, in the cadet category, although he was better than me at the time.^[5]

Racing career

He began racing when he was 13. He won 29 races on the road as a schoolboy and a junior. He won the national junior individual pursuit championship in 1997. His uncle, Philippe Raby, a former rider in the Vendée region, recommended him to Jean-René Bernaudeau who was building a professional team based there. Bernardeau saw Chavanel race for the first time at Montreveau, in Maine-et-Loire, when he was racing against riders from Bernardeau's Vendée U junior team.

Bernardeau and Chavanel agreed that Chavanel would spend another year with his club, AC Châtellerault, which had spent time and money on his training. Bernardeau's assistant, Thierry Bricau, was given the job of providing Chavanel with a training programme. Chavanel rode the Tour de l'Avenir in 1999 and then in 2000, aged 21, he turned professional for Bernardeau's Bonjour team, sponsored by a chain of local newspapers. He won the first stage of the Circuit Franco-Belge and lost his leader's jersey only on the last day. He also won the climbers' jersey in the Tour de l'Avenir by breaking clear in the Pyrenees and rode 217 km alone at the front of Paris–Tours.

Bernardeau said:

Sylvain has some of the faults I had as a young rider. He's always working at the front of the race – you have to rein him in for his own good. At his age, life is beautiful and risks are there to be taken. But he's acquiring self-knowledge and his days of gratuitous long-range sorties and suicide attacks are coming to an end.^[6]

Chavanel rode his first Tour de France at 22, finishing 65th, later coming third in the Tour de l'Avenir behind Denis Menchov and Florent Brard. In 2002 he won the Four Days of Dunkirk and finished third in the Tour of Belgium. He later won both of those races in 2005.

On 25 July 2008 Chavanel won the 19th stage of the 2008 Tour de France by outsprinting Jérémy Roy at Montluçon. That and other performances brought him election as the most combative rider of the race.

On 3 September 2008, he came second in the individual time trial stage of the 2008 Vuelta a España at Ciudad Real. His ride brought him to second place overall, two seconds slower than the American, Levi Leipheimer. His team worked for him next day from Ciudad Real to Toledo to make sure he won time bonuses offered along the route. The six seconds he collected were enough to give him the leader's jersey on 4 September.

Quick Step (2009–2013)

Chavanel said in 2007 that he had had offers from foreign teams but was discouraged from joining them because he was unsure of his pension payments outside France. In July 2008 he said he had agreed with Patrick Lefevere the directeur sportif to join the Quick Step team in Belgium for 2009. Chavanel said he made his decision to move after riding well in classic races in Belgium at the start of the year.^[7] He won Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Brabantse Pijl. He said:

I had other options as well. Professionally, it's an experience that can only do me good. I had the chance to sign for three years with AG2R-La Mondiale but I had the feeling that I wasn't going to develop enough. I have always raced in France and, in my heart, some experience abroad has excited me for some time. I therefore decided to take the step and Patrick Lefévère's advances completely persuaded me.^[7]

Chavanel competing in the 2012 Olympics time trial in London

During the 2010 Tour de France, Chavanel took over the yellow jersey after attacking at the 10 km mark on stage 2. Following a series of crashes affecting the General Classification contenders on the descent into Spa, the race was neutralized for every rider except Chavanel, who was the lone escapee at that time. He capitalized on that, opening up enough of a gap to win the stage and capture the yellow jersey from Fabian Cancellara (Team Saxo Bank).^[8] The following stage was not so good for Chavanel as two punctures on the cobbled roads meant Fabian Cancellara re-took the yellow jersey, however on the Tour's first mountain stage from Tournus to Station des Rousses Chavanel bridged the gap to an early breakaway and rode away to take a famous win and inherit the yellow jersey for the second time.

In the 2011 Vuelta a España Chavanel held the red leader's jersey for four stages. On stage three, as part of a breakaway, he finished second behind Pablo Lastras which left him second in general classification, 20 seconds behind Lastras.^[9] However, on the next stage Chavanel finished just 57 seconds behind the stage winner while Lastras lost over 18 minutes, thereby making Chavanel the overall leader of the Vuelta.^[10] He held this jersey until stage 8 where it was taken by Joaquim Rodríguez.^[11]

In 2012, Chavanel won the Three Days of De Panne and won the French National Time Trial Championships for the fourth time.

In 2013, after strong appearances in the Tour de San Luis and the Volta ao Algarve, Chavanel won stage six of Paris–Nice,^[12] taking the points classification at the race. Chavanel also won the overall classification at the Three Days of De Panne for the second year in a row, winning the final time trial stage.^[13]

After five years with the team, Chavanel left the squad at the end of the 2013 season,^[14] and joined IAM Cycling for the 2014 season.^[15]

Nickname

Chavanel is known as Chava,^[1] Mimosa or Mimo, after a French film character he imitates.^[5] In the Dutch-speaking Belgian media, he is often nicknamed 'La Machine' for his outstanding stamina and determination.^[22][23]

Career achievements

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

Grand Tour	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Giro d'Italia	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	36	—	—	—
Tour de France	65	36	37	30	58	45	DNF	61	19	31	61	DNF	31	34	54	43	25	39
Vuelta a España	—	—	—	—	—	—	16	DNF	—	—	27	—	—	—	47	—	—	—

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sylvain Chavanel.

• Sylvain Chavanel at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com
• Sylvain Chavanel at the International Olympic Committee
• Sylvain Chavanel at Cycling Archives
• Sylvain Chavanel at Cycling Quotient
• Sylvain Chavanel at ProCyclingStats
• Tour de France results
• Palmares at Cycling Base
• Chavanel pakt eindzege Driedaagse na winst in tijdrit