Fränk Schleck

**Fränk Schleck**
Personal information
Full name	Fränk René Schleck
Date of birth	April 15, 1980 (age 29)
Country	Luxembourg
Height	1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	61 kg (130 lb; 9.6 st)
Team information
Current team	Team Saxo Bank
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climber/Classics Rider
Amateur team(s)1
; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2002	ACC Contern; De Nardi; Festina (stagiaire); Chateauroux; CSC-Tiscali (stagiaire)
Professional team(s)1
2003–	Team Saxo Bank
Major wins
	Amstel Gold Race (2006); Tour de Luxembourg (2009); Tour de France, 2 stages; Tour de Suisse, 1 stage; Luxembourg National Road Race Champion (2005, 2008)
	Infobox last updated on:
	June 29, 2008 1 Team names given are those prevailing; at time of rider beginning association with that team.

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Fränk Schleck (born 15 April 1980 in Luxembourg) is a Luxembourgish professional road bicycle racer riding for Team Saxo Bank. At the start of 2005, Schleck was joined by his younger brother Andy on Team CSC, as Saxo Bank was then known, and they split the 2005 national championships between them, with Fränk winning the road race and Andy winning the time trial. Their father, Johny Schleck, was also a professional road bicycle racer between 1965 and 1974.

Fränk's greatest achievements include winning a blue riband mountain stage in the 2006 Tour de France which finished on the Alpe d'Huez, the 2006 edition of the Amstel Gold Race classic, and an alpine stage of the 2009 Tour de France, finishing in the sole company of his brother Andy and Alberto Contador.

He is known for riding knock-kneed and riding a high cadence when climbing.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cycling career

After riding for the Luxembourg military sports programme, he moved to Italy to ride for De Nardi-Pasta Montegrappa. In 2001, he tried out as a stagiaire for Festina, but when the team folded after the season, Schleck was left with no contract. He contacted Team CSC manager Bjarne Riis through their common youth coach Marcel Gilles of the ACC Contern amateur team.^[1] Schleck rode 2002 as a stagiaire on Team CSC. He signed a pro contract in 2003, as Riis had a vacancy following a failed attempt to sign the former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich as well as Ullrich's helping riders.^[2]

[edit] 2005

Schleck's breakthrough came in 2005, with three podium places in the last month of the season. He finished all three races behind Paolo Bettini (2004 Olympic Road Race winner) and Gilberto Simoni (two times Giro d'Italia winner), losing Züri-Metzgete to Bettini, the Giro dell'Emilia to Simoni, and finishing third behind both in the Giro di Lombardia. Schleck ended 2005 ranked 13th on the 2005 ProTour riders list. He extended his contract with Riis and Team CSC until 2008, one of three riders in the team with a three-year contract.

[edit] 2006

The 2006 season started with a fifth-place finish in Paris-Nice. After a crash in the Vuelta al País Vasco, he suffered a concussion.^[3] He made his comeback in the Amstel Gold Race that month. Sitting with the favorites with ten kilometers to go, Schleck broke away alone up the Cauberg in Valkenburg for a solo finish while team mate Karsten Kroon disrupted the chase. Three days later he finished 4th in La Flèche Wallonne after a vigorous ride up the Muur de Huy where Spanish rider Alejandro Valverde proved unbeatable. Schleck's form continued days later with the Liège-Bastogne-Liège race, where he rode at the front for much of the latter half and finished 7th. In the Tour de France, he won stage 15 from Gap to Alpe D'Huez, where he broke away from Damiano Cunego 1.5 km from the finish.

[edit] 2007

The 2007 season started with a 9th place finish in Paris-Nice. In the Amstel Gold race, he crashed with 47 km to go, eventually finishing 10th. His recovery continued at the Flèche Wallone where he finished 7th, but the day before Liège-Bastogne-Liège, it was announced that he had a fractured vertebra. He rode despite the injury and launched the decisive attack a few kilometers from the finish with Danilo di Luca. Di Luca attacked with one kilometer to go and Schleck faded to 3rd. Schleck won the fourth stage of the Tour de Suisse, taking the yellow jersey; he eventually finished 7th. He could only manage 17th at the Tour de France but was part of the successful attack in the world championship, finishing fourth.

[edit] 2008

In the Amstel Gold Race 2008 Schleck finished 2nd, behind Damiano Cunego of Italy. In Liege-Bastogne-Liege Fränk and his talented younger brother Andy Schleck put on a show. Only two riders were able to follow the two brothers when they attacked on the final hills of the day : Alejandro Valverde and Davide Rebellin. Andy had to let the other three riders go and finished 4th. In the final sprint Fränk came 3rd. In the Tour de Suisse Schleck crashed during a dangerous descent and fell into a ravine. Miraculously, he was mostly uninjured. A week later, Schleck became national champion of Luxembourg for the second time in his career. In the Tour de France 2008 he came 3rd in the first mountain stage. This took him to 2nd place in the overall classification, only one second behind the yellow jersey. Eight days later Schleck took the Malliot Jaune and the lead in the Tour after claiming the single second he needed to pass Cadel Evans. At the end of the Tour he finished in 6th position overall.

[edit] 2009

The 2009 cycling season started with the Tour of California, where Schleck managed to win stage eight. In March, Schleck placed second overall in Paris - Nice. On the 19th of April, while attempting to repeat his winning 2006 Amstel Gold Race effort, Schleck crashed badly together with Matthew Lloyd. He was taken to hospital with a concussion, but was released the same evening.^[4] Schleck made a rapid recovery, winning his home race, the Tour de Luxembourg, in June. No Luxembourger rider had won the competition since 1983.
On the 22nd of July he won the 17th stage of the Tour de France, reaching the finish line in the company of overall leader Alberto Contador and his own brother, Andy Schleck.

[edit] Doping allegations

On July 25, 2008, one day prior to a decisive penultimate stage of the Tour de France 2008, the German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung first revealed an alleged contact between Schleck and the infamous Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes in December 2005, although authorities confirmed that none of the available evidence would support such claims.^[5] The allegations in connection with Schleck followed a series of strong performances of the rider who wore the yellow jersey over several days and whose father's car had been the subject of a detailed search by French customs authorities during the Tour.

Prior to the 2008 UCI Road World Championships in Varese, Italy, on September 26, 2008, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published a further article on the connections between Schleck and Fuentes after claiming to have seen evidence on a bank transfer of €7000 from Schleck to a Swiss bank account linked to Fuentes. The existence of the evidence was revealed by German police and subsequently confirmed by Luxembourg prosecutors.^[6]

Following Schleck's public admittance of such payment on October 3, 2008, Bjarne Riis and Team CSC Saxo Bank decided to temporarily suspend Schleck from any further races until the outcome of the doping allegations towards Schleck would be fully clarified.^[7] Schleck was cleared from all allegations by the doping authorities of Luxembourg at the beginning of December.