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Sylvain Chavanel

Sylvain Chavanel
Hazebrouck - Quatre jours de Dunkerque, étape 2, 8 mai 2014, départ (A128).JPG
Chavanel in 2014
Personal information
Full name Sylvain Chavanel Albira
Nickname Chava, Mimosa, La Machine
Born (1979-06-30) 30 June 1979 (age 37)
Châtellerault, France
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight 70 kg (150 lb; 11 st)
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)
World Team Time Trial Championships (2012, 2013)
GP Ouest-France (2014)
Brabantse Pijl (2008)
Dwars door Vlaanderen (2008)

Grand Tours

Stage races

One-day races and Classics

Sylvain Chavanel Albira (born 30 June 1979) is a French professional road bicycle racer. His brother Sébastien Chavanel is also a cyclist. Chavanel started his professional career in 2000 with Jean-René Bernaudeau's team Bonjour, which became Brioches La Boulangère in 2003. He is currently riding for UCI Professional Continental team Direct Énergie. He is left-handed. Chavanel is a strong all-rounder who has won both sprints and time-trials, and is a good northern classics rider.

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. It is the Spanish link that gives Chavanel the double name of Chavanel-Albeira, although he uses it only on official forms. 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".

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

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

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.


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Wikipedia

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