Magnus Bäckstedt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Magnus Bäckstedt

Personal information
Full name	Magnus Bäckstedt
Nickname	Magnus Maximus
Date of birth	January 30, 1975 (1975-01-30) (age 34)
Country	Sweden
Height	1.93 m (6 ft 4 in)
Weight	94 kg (210 lb; 14.8 st)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Classics specialist
Professional team(s)1
1996–1997 1998–2001 2002–2003 2004 2005–2007 2008	Collstrop-Palmans Crédit Agricole Team Fakta Alessio-Bianchi Liquigas Garmin-Chipotle
Major wins
Paris-Roubaix (2004) Tour de France, 1 stage
Infobox last updated on:
November 14, 2007 1 Team names given are those prevailing at time of rider beginning association with that team.

Magnus Bäckstedt (born Linköping, Östergötland, Sweden, 30 January 1975)^[1] is a retired Swedish professional road bicycle racer.

He began as a skier, selected for the national team when he was 14.^[2] His greatest achievement in cycling is winning Paris-Roubaix in 2004. Bäckstedt is 1m93 (6ft 4in) tall and weighs 94kg (207lb)^[3]. He is one of the biggest riders in professional cycling.

Bäckstedt began as a professional career in 1996^[4], riding for Collstrop before moving to Palmans in 1997. In 1998, having switched to GAN, Bäckstedt came seventh in Paris-Roubaix and won the 19th stage of the 1998 Tour de France between Chaux-de-Fonds and Autun.

In 2002 and 2003 he rode for Team Fakta where he was the strongest rider in 2003. When Fakta closed he went to Alessio-Bianchi, where he won the 2004 Paris-Roubaix. The two favourites, Peter van Petegem and Johan Museeuw dropped out after crashes, leaving Bäckstedt to sprint on the track at Roubaix against two others.^[5] The manager of Crédit Agricole, Roger Legeay, had predicted that Bäckstedt would one day win the race. He said: "He's not a flahute^[6]. He's not especially the fastest, but after 260km on the cobbles, it's often the rider who feels freshest who wins."^[7]

In 2005 Bäckstedt moved to Liquigas-Bianchi, and came second on the 7th stage of the 2005 Tour de France. He rode for Garmin-Chipotle in 2008.^[8] He was eliminated in that year's Tour de France for being too slow. He said:

I had been going OK, and on that stage we decided to make it hard from the start because we were close enough to yellow to get the jersey. The first 60km were up and down, but I was going fine. Then there was this fourth-category climb and about halfway up I was suddenly short of breath. It was like I shut down from the waist down. I went straight out of the back. I calmed down and got back on top of it. There was 100km to go, but I went OK. I could see the numbers on the power meter and they were normal for the kind of effort you need to get to the finish on your own inside the time limit. I think I would have made it too, but there was a real steep hill just before the finish and my breathing and legs went again. I ended up four minutes outside the cut-off.^[9]

Bäckstedt announced his retirement from professional cycling on 6 February 2009, citing a desire to focus on managing his developmental cycling team, Cyclesport.se-MagnusMaximusCoffee.com. Bäckstedt said he will also continue as a consultant with his former Garmin-Slipstream team. The Swede had struggled with a number of health issues during his career, including a serious knee injury, melanoma, and a separated shoulder and broken collarbone.^[10]

Contents 1 Private life 2 Palmarès 3 External links 4 References

[edit] Private life

He is married to a British former international, Megan Hughes. They live in Wales^[11], moving there from Zulte, near Waregem, in Belgium.^[12] They have two daughters.^[13] Backstedt said: "We used to come back here [to Wales] every time I had a break. I prefer it to Belgium. You can ride 30 miles between villages here, whereas in Belgium you were stopping for traffic lights."^[14]

His sister, Cecilia, is also a racing cyclist.^[15]

Bäckstedt runs a coffee business with franchises in the US and Sweden. Proceeds supporting Swedish cycling.^[16]

[edit] Palmarès

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Danish Cycle Union profile
• VELOBIOS profile

Sporting positions
Preceded by Peter van Petegem	Winner of Paris-Roubaix 2004	Succeeded by Tom Boonen

[edit] References

v • d • e Riders on Garmin-Transitions Blake Caldwell | Steven Cozza | Tom Danielson | Julian Dean | Hans Dekkers | Jason Donald | Timmy Duggan | Huub Duyn | Lucas Euser | Tyler Farrar | Mike Friedman | Will Frischkorn | Ryder Hesjedal | Trent Lowe | Martijn Maaskant | Daniel Martin | Christian Meier | Cameron Meyer | David Millar | Danny Pate | Kilian Patour | Tom Peterson | Chris Sutton | Svein Tuft | Ricardo van der Velde | Christian Vande Velde | Bradley Wiggins | David Zabriskie | Manager: Jonathan Vaughters

Persondata
NAME	Bäckstedt, Magnus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Road bicycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH	1975-01-30
PLACE OF BIRTH	Linköping, Sweden
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH