Ryder Hesjedal
Allez, allez, allez!
High on the mist-shrouded slopes of the Pyrenees, Ryder Hesjedal was poised to make his mark on Canadian professional road cycling. Stage 17 of the 2010 Tour de France had him pushing hard up the western side of the Col de Tourmalet, one of the race’s most torturous ascents. As the newly minted front man for Garmin-Transitions—team leaders Christian Vande Velde and Tyler Farrar withdrew due to injuries suffered in stage two—Hesjedal steeled his resolve and met the punishing 18.6 kilometres climb head on.
Canadian cycling fans a continent away held their breath as they watched him battle cold, rain and fog to reach the summit in fourth place, just behind frontrunners Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador. His finish vaulted him from tenth to eighth spot in the overall standings. Three days later, he would sprint down the Champs-Élysées to complete the Tour in seventh spot, the highest finish by a Canadian since Steve Bauer’s fourth place in 1988.
Headlines touting Hesjedal’s monumental Tour de France showing were splashed across the front pages of Canadian newspapers last summer, easily the most media attention that any homegrown professional cyclist has received in over two decades. “A lot of people thought I came out of nowhere,” he says. “It was only my third consecutive Tour. I’d finished 49th, 47th—and then all of a sudden, seventh.” Yet despite the recent accolades, his much-feted Tour de France finish was but the latest in a long list of accomplishments over the course of his 15-year cycling career.
Born and raised in Victoria, B.C., Hesjedal cut his teeth on the Vancouver Island mountain bike racing circuit at the tender age of 12. His first foray into elite-level international competition was in 1996, followed swiftly by a silver medal in the 1998 Junior Mountain Bike (MTB) World Championships. Hesjedal turned pro in 1999 and notched win after win, amassing a total of seven MTB World Championship medals over the next six years. And a 2002 World Cup final victory in Les Gets, France, set him up for the Under-23 World Cup Overall that year. Clearly, he was at the top of his game.