Juan Antonio Flecha
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Flecha in 2012.
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni |
| Nickname | The Spanish Flandrian Van der Flecha Jan Anton Pijl |
| Born |
17 September 1977 Junín, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Height | 1.81 m (5 ft 11 in) |
| Weight | 72 kg (159 lb; 11.3 st) |
| Team information | |
| Current team | Retired |
| Discipline | Road |
| Role | Rider |
| Rider type | Classics specialist |
| Professional team(s) | |
| 2000–2001 | Relax-Fuenlabrada |
| 2002–2003 | iBanesto.com |
| 2004–2005 | Fassa Bortolo |
| 2006–2009 | Rabobank |
| 2010–2012 | Team Sky |
| 2013 | Vacansoleil–DCM |
| Major wins | |
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Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (born 17 September 1977) is an Argentine-born Spanish former professional road bicycle racer, who competed as a professional between 2000 and 2013. Flecha had a reputation of being a Classics specialist and to ride with an aggressive style as he was keen on participating in breakaways. His major victories include winning a stage of the 2003 Tour de France, successes at the two defunct classics Züri-Metzgete and Giro del Lazio in 2004, and the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2010. He was also known for his numerous high placings in important one-day races, most notably Paris–Roubaix, where he finished in the top ten eight times without registering the victory. In the Grand Tours, he was often assigned to a role of domestique.
Flecha spent his early years in Argentina. At four years of age, he lost his father who died in a car accident. He moved to Spain with his mother when he was eleven, where they lived in Sitges, near Barcelona.
He gained fame in 2003 when he became the first rider born in Argentina to win a Tour de France stage while riding for iBanesto.com. As he rode across the finish line he performed a unique victory salute: he pantomimed releasing an arrow from a bow in homage to his family name ("Flecha" is the Spanish word for "arrow"). He said after the race: "My win here is special, and it belongs to me and nobody else!"
The 2004 season saw him as a co-leader in the Italian Fassa Bortolo team for the Classics and one-day races, with notable finishes in various races from the Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and victories in Züri-Metzgete and the Giro del Lazio. He often shared team leadership with Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara, with whom he said he was working very well. In Zuri-Metzgete, he won a 30 rider bunch gallop in front of Italian Paolo Bettini. This victory helped him achieve the fifth position of the 2004 UCI Road World Cup, a classification that was calculated over ten major one-day races.
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