Dietrich Thurau
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| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Dietrich Thurau | |||||||||||||||
| Born |
9 November 1954 Frankfurt, West Germany |
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| Team information | ||||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Road and Track | |||||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | |||||||||||||||
| Professional team(s) | ||||||||||||||||
| 1974–1977 | TI–Raleigh | |||||||||||||||
| 1978–1979 | IJsboerke | |||||||||||||||
| 1980 | Puch - Sem | |||||||||||||||
| 1981–1982 | Hoonved | |||||||||||||||
| 1982–1983 | Toshiba | |||||||||||||||
| 1983 | Del Tongo - Colnago | |||||||||||||||
| 1984 | Portas | |||||||||||||||
| 1985 | Hitachi - Splendor | |||||||||||||||
| 1986 | Supermercati Brianzoli | |||||||||||||||
| 1987 | Roland - Skala | |||||||||||||||
| 1987–1988 | Panasonic - Isostar | |||||||||||||||
| 1989 | Brügelmann | |||||||||||||||
| Major wins | ||||||||||||||||
| Liège–Bastogne–Liège 6 stages Tour de France |
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Medal record
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Dietrich ("Didi") Thurau (born 9 November 1954 in Frankfurt) is a retired German professional road bicycle racer. His biggest career achievements include winning the one-day classic, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, his home country's Deutschland Tour and surprising the field at the 1977 Tour de France by capturing four stages and holding the yellow jersey from the prologue for 15 days. Thurau did win the maillot blanc as best young rider although he lost the overall lead to eventual winner Bernard Thévenet.
Thurau was German pursuit champion three times and won 29 six-day races. He is the father of current Bora-Argon 18 professional cyclist Björn Thurau.
He won the German National Road Race in 1975 and 1976. After his victory in the points classification in the Vuelta a España and a fourth place in the general classification in the Vuelta a España in 1976, Thurau was seen as a talented rider, but not seen as a rider for the general classification. This changed when he won the prologue 1977 Tour de France, won time trials and mountain stages, keeping the lead until far in the race, finishing fifth in the overall classification and won the young rider classification.
Thurau signed a contract to ride the 1978 season as a team leader at Ijsboerke. Before his contract started, but after he signed it, he rode the 1977 UCI Road World Championships. Seven kilometers before the finish, he was away together with Francesco Moser, and Moser punctured. To the surprise of commentators, including the coach of the French team Jacques Anquetil and Thurau's team leader Peter Post, Thurau waited for Moser, and was beaten in the sprint by Moser. This caused rumours that Thurau had sold the championship to Moser; it later became clear that Thurau's new bosses at Ijsboerke did not want Thurau to ride in the rainbow jersey, but wanted him to keep his sponsored jersey.
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