# Steve Bauer

Steven Todd Bauer, MSM (born June 12, 1959) is a retired professional road bicycle racer from Canada. He won the first Olympic medal in road cycling for Canada and until 2022 he was the only Canadian to win an individual stage of the Tour de France (Ryder Hesjedal, Svein Tuft and Alex Stieda had been part of winning team time trial squads).

## Cycling career

Bauer joined the Canadian national cycling team in 1977, competing in team pursuit. He would remain on the national team for seven years, winning the national road race championship in 1981, 1982, and 1983, competing in the Commonwealth Games (1978, 1982), the Pan American Games (1979).
He capped his amateur career with a silver medal in the men's cycling road race at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. This was the first medal in road cycling for Canada at the Olympics.
Bauer turned professional following the Olympics, and in his second professional race, won the bronze medal at the world cycling championship road race in Barcelona.
Between 1985 and 1995, he competed in 11 Tours de France. He began his professional career in 1985 on the La Vie Claire team of Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond, where he stayed until leaving for Weinmann / La Suisse in 1988. Bauer finished fourth in the 1988 Tour, winning the first stage and wearing the yellow jersey for five days, the second Canadian to wear the jersey. The first was Alex Stieda in 1986, who was also the first North American to wear the yellow jersey.
At the 1988 world championship, Bauer disputed the final sprint with Belgium's Claude Criquielion, world champion in 1984, and Italy's Maurizio Fondriest. As Criquielion tried to pass against the barriers, Bauer sent him crashing into the barriers. Meanwhile, Fondriest passed and won the race. Bauer was immediately disqualified, even if once Criquielion sued Bauer for assault and battery, the municipal court of Oudenaarde ruled in Bauer's favour. The ruling was upheld in both the Appeal Court and the Supreme court, at which stage Criquielion was fined for bringing the case a third time in a process that lasted for more than five years.
In 1989 Bauer won the Züri-Metzgete. In 1990, he took second place in Paris–Roubaix to Belgian Eddy Planckaert. The finish was so close that the officials had to study the photo-finish for more than ten minutes before Planckaert was finally declared the winner. After 266 kilometers of racing, Planckaert had just edged Bauer by less than a centimeter, making it the closest finish of the race's history.
Riding for 7-Eleven, Bauer wore the Yellow Jersey for nine stages during the 1990 Tour, finishing 27th. For his 1993 Paris–Roubaix campaign, he had a bike built by the Merckx factory with "an extreme rearward seat position" to test his theory that it would "engag[e] the quadriceps more efficiently" and with it "more power to the pedals". He failed to make the top ten (finishing over 4 minutes behind the winner in 23rd place) and never rode that bike again.
In 1994, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal (civil division) for having "paved the way for Canada's coming generations of cycling enthusiasts".
In 1996, with professionals allowed in the Olympics, Bauer became a member of the Canadian team for the 1996 Summer Olympics, finishing 41st in the road race. He announced his retirement later that year at 37. The following year, he co-founded Steve Bauer Bike Tours.
In 2005 Steve was inducted to the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sport Hall of Fame. Bauer also participated in the Red Bull Road Rage held on Tuna Canyon, Malibu, California.
In 2013, Bauer raced in the Canadian Cycling Championships in the Men's 50-59 road race and finished fourth.
In 2015, Bauer raced in the Canadian Track Championships in the Men's 50-59 and finished 1st in the Scratch race, 1st in the Individual Pursuit and 2nd in the Points Race.

### Team management

In September 2007, Bauer co-founded Cycle Sport Management which developed and owned a UCI Continental men road cycling team from 2008 to 2010 and a UCI Pro Continental men road cycling team in 2011 and 2012.
Bauer was the co-owner and head directeur sportif of the team, which raced under a UCI Continental licence as Team R.A.C.E. Pro in 2008, Planet Energy in 2009 and SpiderTech–Planet Energy in 2010, before it stepped up to UCI Professional Continental status for 2011 and 2012 under the name SpiderTech–C10.
In 2021 he joined Israel–Premier Tech as a sporting director.

## Career achievements
### Major results
#### 1981

    1st Road race, National Road Championships
    1st Points race, National Track Championships
    Coors Classic
       1st Stages 9 & 11

#### 1982

    1st Road race, National Road Championships
    1st Points race, National Track Championships
    2nd Road race, Commonwealth Games

#### 1983

    1st Road race, National Road Championships
    5th Gran Premio della Liberazione

#### 1984

    2nd Road race, Olympic Games
    3rd Road race, UCI Road World Championships
    3rd Gran Premio della Liberazione

#### 1985

    1st Grand Prix d'Aix-en-Provence
    Coors Classic
       1st Stages 2, 11 & 16
    1st Stage 2a Route du Sud
    3rd Overall Tour du Haut Var
    3rd Züri-Metzgete
    4th Tour Méditerranéen
    8th Rund um den Henninger Turm
    9th Milan–San Remo
    10th Overall Tour de France
       1st Stage 3 (TTT)
       Held after Prologue–Stage 16

#### 1986

    2nd Overall Nissan Classic
       1st Stage 2
    2nd Züri-Metzgete
    2nd Rund um den Henninger Turm
    4th Tour of Flanders
    5th Gent–Wevelgem

#### 1987

    1st Stage 1 Critérium International
    3rd Overall Tour de Picardie
    4th Tour of Flanders
    6th Overall Vuelta a Andalucía
    8th Overall Three Days of De Panne
    10th Overall Giro d'Italia
    10th Züri-Metzgete

#### 1988

    1st Overall Tour de Picardie
    1st Grand Prix des Amériques
    1st Trofeo Pantalica
    1st Stage 1b Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
    2nd Overall Tour de Suisse
       1st Stage 8
    3rd Giro del Lazio
    4th Overall Tour de France
       1st Stage 1
       Held after Stages 1 & 8–11
       Held after Stages 1–2
    4th Overall Étoile de Bessèges
       1st Stage 1
    6th Amstel Gold Race
    6th Gent–Wevelgem
    8th Paris–Roubaix

#### 1989

    1st Züri-Metzgete
    1st Prologue Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
    3rd Amstel Gold Race
    4th Overall Tour de Suisse
    5th UCI Road World Cup
    7th Omloop Het Volk
    10th Tour of Flanders

#### 1990

    2nd Paris–Roubaix
    5th Grand Prix des Amériques
    7th UCI Road World Cup
    8th Overall Nissan Classic
    9th Gent–Wevelgem
    Tour de France
       Held after Stages 1–9

#### 1991

    Tour DuPont
       Stage 7 & 10
    4th Paris–Roubaix

#### 1992

    1st Stage 2 Volta a Galicia

#### 1994

    1st Stage 3 Tour DuPont
    6th Paris–Tours
    8th E3 Prijs Vlaanderen

#### 1996

    Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt
       1st Stage 9 & 10
    Niedersachsen Rundfahrt
       1st Stages 1b & 6

### Grand Tour general classification results timeline

| Grand Tour | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 |
| Giro d'Italia | — | 45 | 10 | — | — | — | — | 92 | 89 | — | — |
| Tour de France | 10 | 23 | 74 | 4 | 15 | 27 | 97 | DNF | 101 | DNF | 101 |
| Vuelta a España | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Legend :
| — | Did not compete |
| DNF | Did not finish |