Cédric Vasseur

Cédric Vasseur
	Vasseur in 2003.
Personal information
Full name	Cédric Vasseur
Born	18 August 1970 (age 54); Hazebrouck, France
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	70 kg (154 lb; 11 st 0 lb)
Team information
Current team	Cofidis
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider (retired); Team manager;
Professional teams
1993–1994	Novemail–Histor–Laser Computer
1995–1999	GAN
2000–2001	U.S. Postal Service
2002–2005	Cofidis
2006–2007	Quick-Step–Innergetic
Managerial team
2018–	Cofidis
Major wins
	Grand Tour Tour de France 2 individual stages (1997, 2007)

Cédric Vasseur (born 18 August 1970) is a French former professional road racing cyclist, and current general manager of UCI WorldTeam Cofidis.^[2] As a rider, Vasseur competed between 1993 and 2007 for the Novemail–Histor, Crédit Agricole, U.S. Postal Service, Cofidis and Quick-Step–Innergetic squads. Vasseur was considered an all-rounder who could do well in a variety of races. He raced in all of the spring classics such as Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix, and won a stage of the Dauphiné Libéré stage race as well as two at the Tour de France.

Career

Professional rider

Born in Hazebrouck, Nord, Vasseur turned professional with the team Novemail in 1993, and switched to the GAN team in 1995 which then became Crédit Agricole in 1998. His first professional victory is also his most famous: it was his solo 147-kilometre breakaway by which he won stage 5 of the 1997 Tour de France. He then wore the yellow jersey as the race leader for five days.

In the 2000 and 2001 seasons, he rode for the U.S. Postal Service team and participated in the 2000 Tour de France. However, his exclusion from the 2001 Tour de France team led to his switch to the Cofidis team. He cited personal differences with the USPS team star Lance Armstrong, which was widely quoted in French cycling publications. In the wake of the publication of the USADA memo that proves Lance Armstrong doping practices, he explained that he was excluded because of his refusal to participate in Armstrong's doping program. ("Inutile de rappeler que je n'ai rien à voir dans cette organisation à qui je dois fort probablement ma non-participation au Tour 2001 ainsi que mon éviction de l'équipe.")

In 2004, Vasseur was arrested in suspicion of doping offences along with several other Cofidis riders, notably including then individual time trial champion David Millar. A counter-analysis later proved negative and Vasseur's name was then cleared. Vasseur also claimed some of the evidence in his witness statement had been forged. However, Vasseur was barred from riding in the 2004 Tour de France since the investigation had not concluded by the time that the race had started. He retired at the end of 2007 after taking a second Tour de France stage win that year.^[3]

After retirement

Following his retirement from racing, Vasseur served as head of the CPA (the professional cyclists' association), and as a TV pundit. In October 2017 the Cofidis team announced that Vasseur would return to the team as their new manager.^[3]

Personal life

Vasseur came from a family of cyclists: his father Alain Vasseur competed in the 1970, 1971 and 1974 editions of the Tour de France. His father also won a stage of the Tour de France after a solo breakaway.