Frank Vandenbroucke

Frank Vandenbroucke (6 November 1974 – 12 October 2009) was a Belgian professional road racing cyclist.

In 1978, when he was four and cycling in the village square, he was knocked over by the driver of a rally car.

His mother said her son didn't cry until doctors cut his cycling shorts.

The collision led to four operations on his right knee and repeated problems later in life.

Vandenbroucke first tried athletics, joining the Entente Athlétique Hainaut.

After showing promise in track and field in his adolescence, Vandenbroucke took to cycle racing in the late 1980s and developed into one of the great hopes for Belgian cycling in the 1990s, with a string of victories that included Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Grand Tour stages and Omloop Het Volk.

This early success dissipated however in a series of drug problems, rows with teams and suicide attempts.

In 1986 he became a regional schoolboy champion.

He took out a cycling licence with the club in 1989 and won a race at Brakel.

An unnamed acquaintance told the Belgian journalist Philippe van Holle:

"'It must have been when I was about 19 or 20 and went out training with a friend on the Belgian borders. As we spun along, out of nowhere this skinny blond kid was on our back wheel. He looked about 14. He was still there 15 minutes later, so we picked up speed. He just sat there, so we picked up the pace again. It was still no problem for him. I looked over my shoulder and he gave me a half-mocking, half-friendly grin. In the end, we went as hard as we could to try to get rid of him and teach the little brat a lesson, because by now he was getting a bit too cocky for our tastes. But whatever we did, he still hung on. After about an hour, we came into a village called Ploegsteert, at which point he came alongside with real arrogance and said 'OK, I'm back home now, so 'bye. By the way, I'm Frank Vandenbroucke.' Neither of us had ever met a kid like him.'"

In 1991, when he was 17, Vandenbroucke won the national beginners [débutant] road championship at Halanzy.

He came third in the world junior road championship in Athens in 1992.

Vandenbroucke turned professional in 1993 with the Belgian team,.

The directeur sportif was his uncle, Jean-Luc.

Vandenbroucke left Lotto in the middle of 1995 to join.

There he became a team-mate of Johan Museeuw.

The manager was Patrick Lefevere.

In 1997, the team picked him as part of their squad for the Tour de France.

In what would be his first of just two Tour de France entries, Vandenbroucke came close to winning a stage twice.

On stage 3, he led the peloton up a steep sprint finish, but was overtaken by Erik Zabel right before the line.

He was second again on stage 16, this time unable to match the sprint of Christophe Mengin.

In 1998 he won Gent–Wevelgem, two stages and the overall competition of Paris–Nice, and two stages of the Tour de Wallonie.

It would be his final season at.

He won 51 races in the next six years, including the 1999 Liège–Bastogne–Liège.

In 1999 he transferred to the French team where, at only 24, he had the best year of his career.

He won Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Omloop Het Volk, and stages in Paris–Nice and the Vuelta a España.

His win in Liège–Bastogne–Liège was all the more impressive because he had said in television interviews prior to the race where and when he would attack, stating he would make his first move on Cote de la Redoute, and even going as far as giving the number of the house in front of which he would launch his second attack on the climb of Saint-Nicolas.

It was, however, his last year of major victories.

The British magazine Procycling said:

Despite repeated attempts to continue his career with a string of different teams from 2000 to 2008, Vandenbroucke's drug use and unpredictability eventually led to his estrangement from the cycling world.

From 2000 he made the sports pages more for doping problems, failed comebacks, depression, marital problems and a suicide attempt.

"'Three years on a contract worth 30 million Belgian francs (£460,000) was a deal beyond VDB's wildest dreams. He never suspected that having all that money in his pocket would set off a terrible downward spiral. He won Het Volk and Liège–Bastogne–Liège before sinking into a doping controversy that was never satisfactorily explained (see below) – even though VDB was cleared by the courts. The team suspended him while the allegations were investigated and relations with their star rider never recovered. When he came back, he showed well in the '99 Vuelta before, remarkably, managing to finish in the front group of the world championship despite fracturing both hands en route. Contractually obliged to stay with Cofidis, VDB had a poor 2000 season. By this point, people in cycling were talking more about VDB's nights out than his riding.'"

At Cofidis he shared leadership with David Millar.

His "non-communication" with Millar was publicised and criticised.

It was with Cofidis, Vandenbroucke said in his autobiography, that he met the French rider, Philippe Gaumont.

It was Gaumont's confessions of drug-taking in the team that led to the so-called Cofidis scandal that included a raid by drugs police on Millar's house and the British rider's suspension for two years and his disqualification from the world time-trial championship he had won.

Gaumont, Vandenbroucke said in his life story, suggested he take a drug trip by mixing Stilnoct, a sleeping aid, with alcohol.

Although Vandenbroucke claimed in an interview in 2009 to have recovered his mental health, he died of a pulmonary embolism in October 2009 at the age of 34.

Frank Vandenbroucke was born in Mouscron and grew up in Ploegsteert, a village in the French-speaking region of Belgium (with facilities for Dutch speakers).