Abraham Olano

Abraham Olano

Personal information
Full name	Abraham Olano Manzano
Born	(1970-01-22) January 22, 1970 Anoeta, Spain
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	70 kg (150 lb; 11 st)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Time-trialist
Amateur team(s)
-	Kaiku, AVSA
Professional team(s)
1992	CHCS
1992	Lotus
1993	CLAS Cajastur
1994–1997	Mapei
1997–1998	Banesto
1999–2001	ONCE
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France 1 individual stage (1997) 1 TTT stage (2002) Vuelta a España General Classification (1998) 5 individual stages (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000) Stage races Tour de Romandie (1996) Tirreno–Adriatico (2000) Critérium International (2000) One-day races and Classics World Road Race Championships (1995) World Time Trial Championships (1998) National Road Race Championships (1994) National Time Trial Championships (1994, 1998)
Medal record Representing  Spain Road bicycle racing Olympic Games 1996 Atlanta Individual Time Trial World Championships 1995 Duitama Elite Men's Road Race 1998 Valkenburg Elite Men's Time Trial 1995 Duitama Elite Men's Time Trial
Infobox last updated on 20 February 2009

Abraham Olano Manzano (born January 22, 1970 in Anoeta, Gipuzkoa) is a Spanish former professional road racing cyclist, who raced between 1992 and 2002. He won the World Road Championship in 1995, and the World Time Trial Championship in 1998, becoming the first and so far only male cyclist to win both.

He also played a great role in Grand Tours: he won Vuelta a España in 1998 and was second in 1995, made it twice to the final podium at Giro d'Italia (third in 1996 and second in 2001), and placed three times in the top-ten at Tour de France, with the fourth place in 1997 as his personal best. In total he won six stages in the Vuelta and one in the Tour, all of them time trials.

Olano was also double Spanish Champion in both road (1994) and time trial (1994 and 1998), olympic silver medalist in time trial in Atlanta 1996 and winner of several shorter stage races, like Tour of Romandie in 1996 and Criterium International and Tirreno-Adriatico in 2000.

Amateur career

Olano started racing 11 years old at the Oria Cycling school, and already at junior level he won several races.^[1] Later, Olano went to track racing. He became Spanish Champion in pursuit (together with Etxegoyen, Pérez and Juárez), in the 1 km with standing start and in sprint.^[1] In road racing, he started as an amateur for Kaiku and AVSA. He was specialized in sprinting.

Professional career

In 1992, Olano started his professional career at CHCS. This team shortly after disbanded, and he moved to Lotus. With Lotus, Olano won his first professional race, the Gran Premio de Villafranca de Ordizia in Gipuzkoa.^[1]

In 1993, Olano switched to CLAS Cajastur, which was later merged with Mapei. Here, he started to win important races, such as the Vuelta a Asturias and the Spanish National Road Race Championships, both in road race and time trial.

In 1995, Olano won three stages in the Vuelta a España, finishing second in overall classification to Laurent Jalabert.^[1] Later in the year Olano was a vital part of a hugely successful Spanish team at the World Cycling Championship in Colombia. In the time trial, Olano took silver, finishing second to Miguel Indurain. In the Road race, the top two positions was reversed, with Olano taking the Championship and Indurain silver. The route for the road race was one of the hardest courses ever for a World Championship, and Olano showed his stamina by riding the last kilometer solo with a flat tyre.

Olano established his abilities in stage races in 1996; he won the Tour de Romandie, finished third in the Giro d'Italia (leading the race at the second to last day), and finished ninth in the Tour de France. He also won the silver medal in the time trial at the 1996 Olympic Games, losing out to Miguel Indurain by a margin of only 12 seconds.^[1]

Olano finished fourth in the 1997 Tour de France, taking 1 stage win - a long time trial in Disneyland, ahead of the eventual Tour winner Jan Ullrich.

In 1998, Olano won his only grand tour, the Vuelta a España,^[1] fighting off furious challenges from mountain specialistsFernando Escartin and Roberto Heras as well as fellow all-rounders Laurent Jalabert and Alex Zülle, all at the height of their careers. Despite the victory, Olano was reportedly not happy with the support from the Banesto team and management. Banestos own mountain specialist José Maria Jimenez took 4 stage wins, on several occasions leaving Olano alone on the climbs, and even taking the Yellow Jersey from his team captain. Olano won back the jersey on the second time trial, but the events and subsequent media speculation soured his relationship with Banesto, and he decided for a switch to the ONCE team for the following season.

Olano finished 1998 in style, winning the World Championship Time Trial i Valkenburg, ahead of compatriot Melcior Mauri. Olano is the only male rider of the modern era to win the world Championship in both the Road race (1995) and the time trial (1998).

In 1999, Olano was back to defend the Vuelta title. In the prologue, severe rains put the late starters (including most of the GC contenders) at a big disadvantage, but Olano nevertheless managed to take 2nd place. In the stage 7 time trial, Olano won with a clear margin to main challenger Jan Ullrich, taking the top spot on the GC and the Yellow Jersey. Olano defended his lead through several mountain stages, but a crash on the stage to Alto de Angliru cost him a broken rib, and he was eventually forced to abandon the race.

In 2000, Olano made a shift in focusing on shorter stage races, and won Tirreno-Adriatico and Criterium International, among others. He would make his last mark at the grand Tours with a 2nd place in the 2001 Giro d'Italia. He retired from racing in 2002.^[1]

On account of results early in his career, a Basque background and some physical similarities, Olano was seen by many supporters as the successor to five-times Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain. The comparison would haunt Olano for all of his career, as he went on to have a career that was very successful by almost any other standard. Olano was one of the very best time trialists of his generation, and a rider with enormous stamina. However, he was a reluctant climber, and a tendency to loose valuable time to the specialists on the steepest and highest climbs, would keep his number of Grand Tour Wins to 1.

Doping revelations

Olano is one of the people responsible for designing stages for the Vuelta a España.^[1] He was fired from this position after a report from the French senate revealed that he had delivered a suspicious sample during the 1998 Tour de France, indicating use of EPO.^[2]

Later life

In November 2006 Olano ran the San Sebastian marathon in a time of 2:39:19. In October 2015, he took over as new national coach for Gabon, with the task of building the national team "from scratch"^[3]

Career achievements

Major results

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

Grand Tour	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Giro	-	-	-	3	-	-	-	-	2	-
Tour	WD	30	-	9	4	WD	6	34	-	78
Vuelta	-	20	2	-	WD	1	WD	19	64	-

WD = Withdrew

References

External links

• Tour de France results
• Abraham Olano profile at Cycling Archives

UCI Road World Champions – Men's road race
1927: Binda 1928–29: Ronsse 1930: Binda 1931: Guerra 1932: Binda 1933: Speicher 1934: Kaers 1935: Aerts 1936: Magne 1937: Meulenberg 1938: Kint 1946: Knecht 1947: Middelkamp 1948: Schotte 1949: Van Steenbergen 1950: Schotte 1951: Kübler 1952: Müller 1953: Coppi 1954: Bobet 1955: Ockers 1956–57: Van Steenbergen 1958: Baldini 1959: Darrigade 1960–61: Van Looy 1962: Stablinski 1963: Beheyt 1964: Janssen 1965: Simpson 1966: Altig 1967: Merckx 1968: Adorni 1969: Ottenbros 1970: Monseré 1971: Merckx 1972: Basso 1973: Gimondi 1974: Merckx 1975: Kuiper 1976: Maertens 1977: Moser 1978: Knetemann 1979: Raas 1980: Hinault 1981: Maertens 1982: Saronni 1983: LeMond 1984: Criquielion 1985: Zoetemelk 1986: Argentin 1987: Roche 1988: Fondriest 1989: LeMond 1990: Dhaenens 1991–92: Bugno 1993: Armstrong 1994: Leblanc 1995: Olano 1996: Museeuw 1997: Brochard 1998: Camenzind 1999: Freire 2000: Vainšteins 2001: Freire 2002: Cipollini 2003: Astarloa 2004: Freire 2005: Boonen 2006–07: Bettini 2008: Ballan 2009: Evans 2010: Hushovd 2011: Cavendish 2012: Gilbert 2013: Costa 2014: Kwiatkowski 2015–16: Sagan

UCI Road World Champions – Men's time trial
1994: Chris Boardman 1995: Miguel Indurain 1996: Alex Zülle 1997: Laurent Jalabert 1998: Abraham Olano 1999: Jan Ullrich 2000: Serhiy Honchar 2001: Jan Ullrich 2002: Santiago Botero 2003, 2004, 2005: Michael Rogers 2006, 2007: Fabian Cancellara 2008: Bert Grabsch 2009, 2010: Fabian Cancellara 2011, 2012, 2013: Tony Martin 2014: Bradley Wiggins 2015: Vasil Kiryienka 2016: Tony Martin