Michael Rogers

Rogers at the 2012 Tour de France.
Personal information
Full name	Michael Rogers
Nickname	Dodger, Mick
Born	(1979-12-20) 20 December 1979 (age 44) Barham, New South Wales, Australia
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)[1]
Weight	74 kg (163 lb; 11.7 st)[1]
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder
Amateur team
2000	Mapei–Quick-Step (stagiaire)
Professional teams
2001–2002	Mapei–Quick-Step
2003–2005	Quick-Step–Davitamon
2006–2010	T-Mobile Team
2011–2012	Team Sky
2013–2016	Saxo–Tinkoff[2]
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France 1 individual stage (2014) Giro d'Italia 2 individual stages (2014) 1 TTT stage (2009) Stage races Tour Down Under (2002) Tour of Belgium (2003) Deutschland Tour (2003) Tour of California (2010) Bayern Rundfahrt (2012) One-day races and Classics World Time Trial Championships (2003, 2004, 2005) National Time Trial Championships (2009)
Medal record Representing  Australia Men's track cycling Olympic Games 2004 Athens Road time trial Commonwealth Games 1998 Kuala Lumpur Team pursuit 1998 Kuala Lumpur Scratch race Men's road bicycle racing World Championships 2003 Hamilton Time trial 2004 Verona Time trial 2005 Madrid Time trial 1997 San Sebastián Junior time trial 1999 Verona Under-23 time trial 2000 Plouay Under-23 time trial Commonwealth Games 2002 Manchester Individual time trial

Michael Rogers (born 20 December 1979) is an Australian retired professional road bicycle racer who competed professionally between 1999 and 2016, for the Mapei–Quick-Step, Quick-Step–Innergetic, Team HTC–Columbia, Team Sky and Tinkoff teams. He is a three-time World Time Trial Champion, winning consecutively in 2003 (after David Millar was stripped for doping), 2004 and 2005, and won Grand Tour stages at the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia.

In April 2016, Rogers announced via Twitter, that he was being forced to retire from professional cycling due to a congenital heart defect condition which had been worsening.^[3]

Career

Early career

Rogers was part of the Australian Institute of Sport, which led him to move to Europe at age 16 as an amateur. He started as a track racer under coach Charlie Walsh.

At the 2002 Tour Down Under, Rogers' team-prepared bicycle was damaged in a collision with a motorcycle (which was not captured on TV cameras) forcing Rogers to come to a halt by the roadside.^[4] There were no team cars nearby, and Rogers appeared visibly frustrated with the turn of events. Fortunately an amateur cyclist, Adam Pyke, who was spectating offered his own Colnago bicycle as a replacement and Rogers was able to continue needing only a minor saddle height adjustment on route from a mechanic alongside in a car. He went on to finish second on the stage, took the race lead, and ultimately went on to win the race overall. The entire episode including swapping bicycles was captured by the television cameras while Rogers, Pyke and the borrowed bicycle were reunited at the end of the stage by the Australian broadcaster Seven in a televised interview.^[5]

Rogers won the world time-trial championship in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He came second in 2003 but became champion after the winner, David Millar, was disqualified for doping. Rogers received his rainbow jersey and gold medal on the day of the 2004 championship, thereby receiving two gold medals on the same day.

In the 2003 Tour de France, Rogers helped Richard Virenque win his sixth mountains classification. He was the last rider left to help in Virenque's day-long escape and stage win.

Rogers finished fourth in the road time trial at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. In May 2011 US cyclist Tyler Hamilton returned his gold medal for this event after admitting to doping during his cycling career, and in August 2012 the International Olympic Committee formally stripped Hamilton of his victory, resulting in Rogers being awarded the bronze medal.^[6] In September 2015, he received the Olympic medal in a ceremony at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.^[7]

T Mobile (2006–2010)

Rogers joined T-Mobile Team for the 2006 season, and finished 9th overall in the Tour de France. In an interview during the 2006 season, Rogers disclosed that he had received training advice by Italian doctor Michele Ferrari for several months during 2006.^[8]

On 15 July 2007, Rogers withdrew on the 8th stage of the 2007 Tour de France after breaking a collarbone in a crash descending the Cormet de Roselend. He continued until the doctor arrived from attending fellow Australian Stuart O'Grady, who ended up stretchered to hospital. It was after this that Rogers contracted infectious mononucleosis (glandular fever), which caused a dip in his racing form for some time. By late 2009 he had returned to form and began to have significant racing success, with Team Columbia–High Road, the successor to T-Mobile.

In 2010, as leader of his team, he won the Vuelta a Andalucía, and then the Tour of California (the first non-American to do so). After a disappointing Tour de France (37th overall), Rogers announced he would concentrate in future on shorter races (e.g. one week in length) as he was no longer suited to the longer tours.

Team Sky (2011–2012)

In October 2010 it was announced that he would leave Team HTC–Columbia and join British based Team Sky for the 2011 racing season. However he suffered a relapse of his mononucleosis early in the season and was unable to defend his 2010 Tour of California title. Rogers returned to fitness towards the end of the season.

Rogers began the 2012 season with third place in the Australian National Time Trial Championships,^[9] and led Team Sky at the Tour Down Under, where he finished 4th in the general classification. In March, Rogers finished third at the Critérium International; he placed second to BMC Racing Team's Cadel Evans in the individual time trial around Porto-Vecchio,^[10] and finished eighth on the final stage, the summit finish of the Col de L'Ospedale [fr].^[11] After finishing fifth in April's Tour de Romandie, Rogers won May's Bayern Rundfahrt stage race in Germany, winning Stage 2 and the time trial Stage 4 in the process, his first victories whilst riding for Team Sky.^[12] Rogers then rode the Critérium du Dauphiné, helping leader Bradley Wiggins win the race, whilst finishing second overall himself after a strong ride in the time trial. Rogers was selected in the Team Sky squad for the Tour de France, as one of Wiggins' key domestiques. He suffered a crash towards the end of Stage 1, but was able to make it back to the peloton. Rogers played a key team role in the rest of the race, setting the tempo on mountains and notably bringing back a long range attack by Cadel Evans on Stage 11, as Sky ultimately achieved a 1–2 finish in the GC with Wiggins and Chris Froome.

Team Saxo–Tinkoff (2013–2016)

Rogers left Sky to join Saxo–Tinkoff in 2012^[2] following a new Sky policy requiring all riders to sign to confirm they have no history of doping^[13] although he denied leaving for that reason.

In May, Rogers was the runner-up to Tejay van Garderen in the Tour of California.^[14] In July Rogers rode the Tour de France in support of Alberto Contador and finished in 16th place. In October he won the Japan Cup one-day race. In December it was announced that he had tested positive for clenbuterol at the latter race, and was suspended from cycling pending further investigation.^[15] On 23 April 2014 the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announced he would be cleared of any wrongdoing, no further action would be taken and that Rogers would be free to race again. The UCI accepted that there was a significant probability that the clenbuterol came from contaminated meat consumed while Rogers was competing in China, where the drug is often consumed by animals in slaughterhouses to exhibit better performance in farm sporting events.^[16]

He returned to racing just in time to ride the 2014 Giro d'Italia. Throughout much of the race, he rode in support of Rafał Majka. He won his first Grand Tour individual stage on the eleventh stage and also won the penultimate stage summit finish at the Monte Zoncolan. On 22 July 2014, Rogers won his first Tour de France stage, winning stage 16 of the race. The longest stage of the race, a 237.5-kilometre (147.6-mile) route from Carcassonne to Bagnères-de-Luchon, Rogers attacked Cyril Gautier at the bottom of the descent of the Port de Balès with 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) remaining to win in solo fashion.^[17]

Post-cycling career

After his active cycling career Rogers had been working as NTT Pro Cycling's technical partner manager, and, prior to that, he had been the founder and CEO of virtual-world training platform VirtuGO, which closed down in November 2019. Since November 2020 Rogers is employed by the UCI as its "innovation manager".^[18]

Major results

Road

General classification results timeline

Grand Tour general classification results
Grand Tour	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Giro d'Italia	—	—	—	DNF	—	—	6	—	—	—	—	18	33
Tour de France	42	22	41	9	DNF	—	101	36	—	23	16	26	36
/ Vuelta a España	Did not contest during his career
Major stage race general classification results
Race	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Paris–Nice	—	8	DNF	—	—	—	—	—	12	—	—	—	—
/ Tirreno–Adriatico	71	—	—	—	—	—	—	6	—	—	DNF	—	—
Volta a Catalunya	—	—	4	—	2	90	—	—	—	—	—	—	DNF
Tour of the Basque Country	—	80	8	—	DNF	—	8	73	111	21	DNF	—	—
Tour de Romandie	—	—	—	—	DNF	—	—	3	—	5	—	—	—
Critérium du Dauphiné	—	41	—	—	—	11	—	—	—	2	6	—	—
Tour de Suisse	—	—	2	64	DNF	—	—	DNF	—	—	—	—	—

Track