Evgeni Berzin

Evgeni Berzin (Russian: Евгений Берзин; born 6 June 1970 in Vyborg, Russia) is a Russian cyclist whose best year was 1994, when he won the Giro d'Italia and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Only 24 at the time, Berzin was then tipped as being a future megastar in cycling, but he was never quite able to live up to the results of 1994. In 1995, he was second at the Giro d'Italia. In the 1996 Tour de France he took the yellow jersey in the Alps, won the time trial to Val d'Isere the next day, but lost the lead on the following stage to Bjarne Riis, thereby being the person who in the history of the Tour de France to have the jersey for the shortest distance (46 km). On 19 October 1997 he attempted to break the hour record in Bordeaux, but he abandoned after 17 minutes, being already too far from Chris Boardman's record. Berzin never won a professional race again, and eventually retired in 2000. Before the Giro d'Italia of this year, he was banned for two weeks for elevated haematocrit levels.