Gorazd Å tangelj
Slovenian Champion - Road Race 2000, 2010 Stage winner Vuelta a España 2008 ( MZF )
Gorazd Stangelj ( born January 27, 1973 in Novo Mesto ) is a former Slovenian cyclist who was professional from 1997 to 2011 and 2010, the Slovenian league titles won. Since the 2012 season, he is responsible for the Astana Pro Team Directeur Sportif.
Career as a driver
Stangelj began at the age of 12 years with the cycling. After he had become in his first outing Second, he enrolled as well as some of his classmates in a club and started using a trainer to exercise the sport in terms of performance. In 1990 he first participated in a Junior World Championship, which was held this year in England and in his Slovenian teammate Bogdan Fink won the bronze medal. A year later was Stangelj again at the World Championships - this time in Colorado Springs - at the start and won a few days after the World Cup, the Tour de l' Abitibi in Canada.
After moving up in the amateur class Stangelj appearances for the team - Krka Telekom Slovenije race, which was still not a professional team. In 1996 he moved to Italy's formation Fior - euro mobile. For the 1997 season, he received from the team Aki- Gipiemme an offer of a professional contract, returned due to a previously made agreement but the team Krka Telekom Slovenije - back, which had now become a professional team.
His victories won Gorazd Stangelj especially in the first half of his professional career, where he was able to pull top rankings in various races. Some achievements he celebrated in the 1998 season in the jersey of Krka - Telekom. When GP Kranj, one of the most important races in his native Slovenia, he won the second stage and also took the overall victory. He also won the Super Prestige Gars and crossed even at stages of Lower Saxony Tour, where he led the field distanced as a soloist on the fifth day section at nine seconds and the race Course de la Solidarité Olympique in Poland as first the finish line, where he in the overall standings in third place. A silver medal contrast, there were the Slovenian championships in road racing, and also at the Tour of Slovenia Stangelj had to be only beaten a competitor. Another podium jumped out at the Grand Prix Midtbank in Denmark, where the Slovene behind solo winner Bjarne Riis from a chase group out third. For the first time Stangelj 1999 also showed one of the biggest races of cycling, the Tour de Romandie, and finished a remarkable eleventh overall.
After his successful 1998 Stangelj joined one of the few Slovenes at this time in 1999 to a foreign team, namely Mobilvetta Design Northwave. For the Italian formation of the Slovene was victorious at the stage race Commonwealth Bank Classic in Australia, where he was stage second once and had to admit defeat to the Lithuanians Raimondas Rumsas in the individual time trial is next to last day, by which he secured the overall victory. At the Grand Prix Canton Aargau although he was represented in the three -man lead group, but finished only third.
In Mobilvetta the 1.82 meters tall drivers but remained only a year and went in 2000 to Liquigas- Pata. Here he celebrated again numerous successes and probably the most successful season of his career, he won at the Italian one-day race Trofeo Melinda as a soloist and won the same way a stage of GP Midi Libre in France, where he finished fifth in the overall standings. His qualities as a time trialist showed the all-rounder in the Tour of Austria, where he won the individual time trial of the second stage for himself and reached the fourth place in the standings after a day in the yellow jersey. Another podium finish he drove the mountain race Trofeo dello Scalatore a third. In four other one-day races, including the Giro del Lazio, he went into the top ten. Even at the highest level in the World Cup made from Slovenia with fifth place at Paris -Tours and ninth at the Tour of Lombardy attention. In addition, he was also the road race in the Slovenian championships forward, but this title was taken from him because of a positive doping sample. With the Slovenian national team, he took the end of the year, even at the world championships and was 13th in the road race this season Stangelj reached its best position ever in the UCI World Ranking as the 13th
In his second year at Liquigas- Pata he still won the Giro di Toscana, where he defeated Pascal Hervé in the sprint before he signed a contract with the top team Fassa Bortolo in September.
After this change Stangelj joined in the following years of his career is primarily a helper for his respective team captains and played a total of twelve Grand Tours. So he could have in his two years at Fassa best result only a fifth place in the Coppa Sabatini in September 2003.
In 2004 he went for a year to Saeco. His best result there was 13th in the Vuelta a Aragón in April. With the helper Stangelj on his side of the Saeco rider Damiano Cunego won this season as the youngest ever rider to the Giro d' Italia. Saeco from Slovenia also met the team manager Giuseppe Martinelli know to whom he developed a good relationship, and should a few years later to sign him for the team Astana.
From 2005 Stangelj drove for the Italian ProTour team Lampre, which had emerged from Saeco. He took 2005 for the first and only time in the Tour de France in part and finished it on the 87th place overall. At the Tour de Pologne he was 13, in October he reached then at the Tour of Lombardy seventh. In the following season, he missed his first victory in five years only just as he on the first stage in a bunch sprint only Borut Božič was inferior in his home at the Tour of Slovenia. Finally, in the overall standings he came a tenth. 2007 Stangelj won the mountain classification of the Critérium International price and came a month later in the mountain stage of the Tour de Romandie fourth. At the Tour de Pologne he was this year 16 end of 2007 he turned down a low doped offer to extend the contract with Lampre.
In May 2008 he received a new contract with Liquigas, whose team manager Roberto Amadio he already knew from his time at Liquigas- Pata 2000-2001.
In 2010 he then moved on despite an option to extend his contract at the Liquigas for now by his friend Giuseppe Martinelli led Pro Team Astana, where he extended his contract by a further year after one season. In 2011 he played for the first and only time in his career, the one-day classics Paris-Roubaix and reached the goal as the 44th
End of the 2011 season ended the now 38 -year-old Gorazd Stangelj after 15 years of his career as a professional cyclist. Overall, he had to retract eleven wins and had stood at numerous top teams in the sport under contract.
For the 2012 season was Stangelj athletic director of Astana Pro Team after Laurenzo Lapage with a Directeur Sportif had left the team in the direction of the newly formed GreenEDGE team and Dimitri Sedoun was changed in the direction of the new Continental Team Astana. As a new driver for the Astana Pro Team 2012 among others Štangeljs compatriots Borut Božič Janez Brajkovic and were obliged.
Trivia
By his own testimony were Štangeljs favorite race as a driver the road world championships and Liege -Bastogne- Liege.
Achievements
1998
- Winner overall and second stage GP Kranj
- Winner fifth stage Niedersachsen Tour
- Winner second stage Course de la Solidarité Olympique
- Winner Super Prestige Gars
1999
- Winner Appreciation Commonwealth Bank Classic
2000
- Slovenian Champion - Road Race
- Winner Trofeo Melinda
- Winner GP Midi Libre fifth stage
- Winners stage 2b Tour of Austria
2001
- Winner Giro di Toscana
2003
- Winner criterion of Medvod
2007
- First stage winner Tour de Pologne ( MZF )
2008
- Winners first stage Vuelta a España ( MZF )
2010
- Slovenian Champion - Road Race