Milan Vader

Milan Vader
Personal information
Born	18 February 1996 (age 28); Middelburg, Netherlands
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	63 kg (139 lb)
Team information
Current team	Visma–Lease a Bike
Discipline	Cross-country; Road;
Role	Rider
Professional teams
2018	Habitat Mountain Bike Team
2019–2021	KMC–Ekoi–Orbea
2022–	Team Jumbo–Visma
Major wins
	Stage races Tour of Guangxi (2023)
Medal record
Representing Netherlands
Men's mountain bike racing
European Championships

Milan Vader (born 18 February 1996) is a Dutch cross-country mountain biker and road cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Visma–Lease a Bike.^[3]

Career

Vader originally competed in cross-country mountain biking, where he was a two time elite national champion and a bronze medalist at the 2019 European Championships. In 2020, he finished second overall at the Olympic Cross-country World Cup, before going on to place 10th in the cross-country race at the 2020 Summer Olympics.^[4]

In 2022, Vader joined Team Jumbo–Visma to focus on road racing.

On stage five of the 2022 Tour of the Basque Country, he suffered a terrible crash, having run into a guardrail during a descent, causing him to fall down a steep dropoff. He fractured his spine in 1 places, eight ribs as well as his shoulder, collarbone, eye socket, and cheekbone in addition to rupturing his carotid artery and perforating his lung. He was placed into an induced coma for 12 days.^[5] After five months, Vader returned to racing in September at the CRO Race.

Despite this setback, Vader returned to form, finishing third overall in the Okolo Slovenska in September 2023.^[5] A month later, he won the fourth stage of the Tour of Guangxi, his first professional road win, also taking the race lead in the process. He held onto the overall lead for the remainder of the race, winning the race by a margin of six seconds to Rémy Rochas.^[6]