Cycling Sprinter - Famous Sprinters

Famous Sprinters

Successful sprinters of the past include Freddy Maertens, Mario Cipollini and Erik Zabel.

Cipollini holds the record for most stage wins in the Grand Tours as a sprinter; 57, of which 42 in the Giro d'Italia. Zabel won 41 stages, and 10 Points Classifications in both Giro, Tour (six times) and Vuelta (three times). Like Zabel, Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi won stages and the Points Classification of all three grand tours, including 20 stage wins in Spain. The record for stage wins in the Vuelta belongs to Delio Rodriguez with 39 wins. Mark Cavendish was named the Tour de France's best sprinter of all time by French paper L'Equipe on July 15th 2012.

A good sprint can also secure a lot of victories for other specialists, such as Classics riders and GC-contenders. Seán Kelly won 21 stages in the Tour and Vuelta, and the Points Classifications of both races four times each, in addition to his nine major Classics wins. Likewise, Belgian classics specialists Rik van Looy and Roger de Vlaeminck were very successful due to a good final sprint, as was - more recently - two times World Champion Paolo Bettini.

Conversely, many sprinters put to use their abilities to win more than just stages, and were successful in classics such as the Tour of Flanders (like Jan Raas) and the Tour of Lombardy (like André Darrigade).

The ultimate sprinter classic due to its relatively flat course is Milan – San Remo, won four times by Zabel and three times by three-time World Champion Oscar Freire. Other "flat" one day races considered important sprinters classics include Scheldeprijs, Vattenfall Cyclassics and Paris-Tours.

Other successful sprinters

• Guido Bontempi
• Jean-Paul van Poppel
• Djamolidine Abdoujaparov
• Patrick Sercu
• Urs Freuler
• Charles Pélissier
• Marino Basso
• Miguel Poblet
• Robbie McEwen
• Rudi Altig
• Mario Cipollini
• Mark Cavendish