Michael Boogerd (born 28 May 1972) is a Dutch former professional

road bicycle racer Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common ...

. He was one of the leaders of a generation of Dutch cyclists in the late 1990s and early 2000s, together with teammate Erik Dekker and female cyclist Leontien van Moorsel.

Career

Boogerd was born in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...

, and began his professional career in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

, joining ''WordPerfect''. In

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

the team changed name to ''Novell'', before

Rabobank Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Raboban ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

became main sponsor and name for the team. Boogerd stayed with the team his entire career. His speciality were hilly classics like

Liège–Bastogne–Liège Liège–Bastogne–Liège, also known as ''La Doyenne'' ("The Old Lady"), is a one-day classic cycling race in Belgium.Cycling Weekly, UK, 13 March 1993 First run in 1892, it is the oldest of the five ''Monuments'' of the European professional ...

La Flèche Wallonne La Flèche Wallonne (, French for "The Walloon Arrow") is a men's professional cycle road race held in April each year in Wallonia, Belgium. The first of two Belgian Ardennes classics, La Flèche Wallonne is today normally held mid-week betw ...

and the

Amstel Gold Race The Amstel Gold Race is an annual one-day classic cycle races, classic road bicycle race, road cycling race held in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg, Netherlands. It traditionally marks the turning point of the Classic cycle races#S ...

in the Ardennes week and the Lombardian races in the Fall, as well as mountain-stages. He has won two stages in

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 consist ...

(

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

) as well as the

and

Paris–Nice Paris–Nice is a professional cycling stage race in France, held annually since 1933. Raced over eight days, the race usually starts with a prologue in the Paris region and ends with a final stage either in Nice or on the Col d'Èze overlook ...

. He has been Dutch Champion three times, in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

and in 2006. In addition to these major victories, Boogerd scored a large number of podium finishes in his favorite spring classics, which gave him a reputation in the Netherlands of being 2nd or 3rd more often than winning - a notion he dismissed in a 2007 interview looking back at his career. In the 1998 Tour de France, Boogerd finished 5th overall in the

General classification The general classification (or the GC) in road bicycle racing is the category that tracks overall times for riders in multi- stage races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest cumula ...

, his highest finish ever in the

. Boogerd was also fined 1250 Swiss Francs for not wearing his national champion jersey in the prologue of that year. His main result in the 2005 Tour de France was on stage 15, where he finished 4th, 57 seconds behind stage winner, George Hincapie. Also in the Tour de France 2005, he was punished with twenty seconds at Stage 9 of the race. In the

2006 Tour de France The 2006 Tour de France was the 93rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between the 1st and the 23rd of July. It was won by Óscar Pereiro following the disqualification of Floyd Landis. Due to the Unite ...

, Boogerd's role was to support Rabobank team leader

Denis Menchov Denis Nikolayevich Menchov (russian: Денис Николаевич Меньшов; born 25 January 1978) is a former professional Russian road bicycle racer, who rode as a professional between 2000 and 2013. He was best known as a general clas ...

in the Alps and Pyrenees. He rode exceptionally well helping his team captain to 6th overall and Michael Rasmussen to the Polka Dot jersey. In the 2007 Tour de France Boogerd rode, again, very well. This time his teammate Michael Rasmussen was the leader of the race until the latter was fired after the last stage in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...

. On the Thursday before the start of this Tour, Boogerd infused himself with water in the early morning, before the UCI agents could arrive. His

hematocrit The hematocrit () (Ht or HCT), also known by several other names, is the volume percentage (vol%) of red blood cells (RBCs) in blood, measured as part of a blood test. The measurement depends on the number and size of red blood cells. It is nor ...

level namely was 50, "on the edge of the edge". During the Tour, Boogerd and Thomas Dekker used cortisone (Diprofos) under a fake attest every day, and administered eight times 2000 entities of Dynepo. Boogerd ended his career in 2007, with a 12th place in the World Championship road race in Stuttgart. His planned last race was the

2007 Giro di Lombardia The 2007 Giro di Lombardia is the 101st edition of this single day road bicycle racing monument race. The 242 km event took place on 20 October 2007 and was won by Damiano Cunego, the Italian rider for Lampre–Fondital in 5 hours, 52 minut ...

, but a fall in the weeks before made him unable to participate. After his active career, Boogerd has done freelance promotional activities for Rabobank, and is frequently seen or heard on TV during live coverage of major races, both on Dutch and Belgian television. Boogerd was appointed team manager of Team Roompot, a

UCI Professional Continental The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicycle racing competitions which were introduced in 2005 by the Union Cycliste Internationale The ''Union Cycliste Internationale'' (UCI; ; en, International Cycling Union) is the world gove ...

cycling team launching in 2015.

Doping

Allegations that Boogerd used performance-enhancing drugs were made since at least 2008, when

Bernhard Kohl Bernhard Kohl (born 4 January 1982, in Vienna) is an Austrian former professional road bicycle racer and recognized climbing specialist. After the Gerolsteiner team announced they would not be in existence for the 2009 season, Kohl signed with UC ...

, who had finished third in the

2008 Tour de France The 2008 Tour de France was the 95th running of the race. The event took place from 5 to 27 July. Starting in the French city of Brest, the tour entered Italy on the 15th stage and returned to France during the 16th, heading for Paris, its reg ...

but was stripped of that honor after testing positive for CERA, a variant of EPO accused his manager

Stefan Matschiner Stefan Matschiner is a former Austrian track athlete and sports agent, and a convicted enabler of blood doping. After a brief career as a middle-distance runner (competing in the 800 and 1500 metres for the University of Memphis, and in the 1500 me ...

. Matschiner, in turn, named a number of athletes whom he had supplied with drugs and blood transfusions, including Boogerd (whose name appeared in Matschiner's files). Until early 2013, Boogerd continued to deny. He finally admitted, in a television interview on 6 March 2013 (seen by nearly a million viewers), to having used EPO, blood transfusions and cortisone from 1997 to 2007. In October 2014, he was approached by the Belgian federation, allegedly to offer him to shorten his proposed ban in exchange for naming other dopers and he answered this: "The Belgian federation had the same proposal as the Dutch Doping Authority had. I will be suspended for a long period, or I will have to talk about other people. I refuse to do that. I rather be suspended for life". In January 2016 he received a two-year suspension and his results from 2005 to 2007 were annulled.

Career achievements

Major results

;1996 : 1st Stage 6

;1997 : 1st MaillotHolanda

Road race Road racing, road race of road racer may refer to: * Road racing in motorsport * Road running on foot * Road bicycle racing * ''Road Race'', initial name of 1976 arcade game ''Fonz'' (video game) * Roadracers (1994 film) * Roadracers (1959 fi ...

, National Road Championships : 1st

Profronde van Heerlen RaboRonde Heerlen or Profronde van Heerlen ( en, Proftour Heerlen) is an elite men's and women's professional road bicycle racing event held annually in Heerlen, Netherlands. It's one of the largest post-Tour de France criteriums with about 50,000 ...

;1998 : 1st MaillotHolanda

, National Road Championships : 4th

: 5th Overall

;1999 : 1st Jersey white

Overall

::1st Stage 5 : 1st

: 1st

Giro dell'Emilia The Giro dell'Emilia is a late season road bicycle race held annually in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Since 2005, the race has been organised as a 1.HC event on the UCI Europe Tour, and since 2020 it's part of the UCI ProSeries calendar. The ...

: 1st

Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli The Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli (also known as GP Beghelli) is a late season men's road bicycle race held annually in Monteveglio, near the city of Bologna, Italy. From 2005 to 2013, the race has been organised as a 1.1 event on the UCI Europe Tou ...

;2001 : 1st Brabantse Pijl : 1st Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme : 9th

: 10th Overall

;2002 : 1st Stage 16

: 1st Stage 6 Ronde van Nederland : 1st Peperbus Profspektakel : 3rd

;2003 : 1st Brabantse Pijl : 2nd

;2004 : 2nd

;2005 : 2nd

: 3rd

: 6th Overall Tour de Pologne : 7th Overall

Tour of the Basque Country The Tour of the Basque Country (Officially: ''Itzulia Basque Country'', es, Vuelta al País Vasco, links=no, eu, Euskal Herriko Itzulia) is an annual road cycling stage race held in the Spanish Basque Country in April. It is one of the races th ...

;2006 : 1st MaillotHolanda

, National Road Championships : 1st Peperbus Profspektakel : 3rd

: 4th Züri–Metzgete : 5th Overall

Tirreno–Adriatico Tirreno–Adriatico, nicknamed the "Race of the Two Seas", is an elite road cycling stage race in Italy, run between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic coasts. Traditionally held in the early part of the season, it is considered to be an important pre ...

: 5th

: 8th

Giro di Lombardia The Giro di Lombardia ( en, Tour of Lombardy), officially ''Il Lombardia'', is a cycling race in Lombardy, Italy. It is traditionally the last of the five 'Monuments' of the season, considered to be one of the most prestigious one-day events in ...

;2007 : 1st Peperbus Profspektakel

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boogerd, Michael 1972 births Cyclists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Doping cases in cycling Dutch male cyclists Dutch sportspeople in doping cases Dutch Tour de France stage winners Olympic cyclists of the Netherlands Living people Cyclists from The Hague UCI Road World Championships cyclists for the Netherlands