# Michael Boogerd

Michael Boogerd (born 28 May 1972) is a Dutch former professional road bicycle racer. He was one of the leaders of a generation of Dutch cyclists in the late 1990s and early 2000s, together with teammate Erik Dekker and female cyclist Leontien van Moorsel.

## Career

Boogerd was born in The Hague, and began his professional career in 1994, joining WordPerfect. In 1995 the team changed name to Novell, before Rabobank in 1996 became main sponsor and name for the team. Boogerd stayed with the team his entire career.
His speciality were hilly classics like Liège–Bastogne–Liège, La Flèche Wallonne and the Amstel Gold Race in the Ardennes week and the Lombardian races in the Fall, as well as mountain-stages. He has won two stages in Tour de France (1996, 2002) as well as the Amstel Gold Race and Paris–Nice. He has been Dutch Champion three times, in 1997, 1998 and in 2006. In addition to these major victories, Boogerd scored a large number of podium finishes in his favorite spring classics, which gave him a reputation in the Netherlands of being 2nd or 3rd more often than winning - a notion he dismissed in a 2007 interview looking back at his career.
In the 1998 Tour de France, Boogerd finished 5th overall in the General classification, his highest finish ever in the Tour de France. Boogerd was also fined 1250 Swiss Francs for not wearing his national champion jersey in the prologue of that year. His main result in the 2005 Tour de France was on stage 15, where he finished 4th, 57 seconds behind stage winner, George Hincapie. Also in the Tour de France 2005, he was punished with twenty seconds at Stage 9 of the race. In the 2006 Tour de France, Boogerd's role was to support Rabobank team leader Denis Menchov in the Alps and Pyrenees. He rode exceptionally well helping his team captain to 6th overall and Michael Rasmussen to the Polka Dot jersey.
In the 2007 Tour de France Boogerd rode, again, very well. This time his teammate Michael Rasmussen was the leader of the race until the latter was fired after the last stage in the Pyrenees. On the Thursday before the start of this Tour, Boogerd infused himself with water in the early morning, before the UCI agents could arrive. His hematocrit level namely was 50, "on the edge of the edge". During the Tour, Boogerd and Thomas Dekker used cortisone (Diprofos) under a fake attest every day, and administered eight times 2000 entities of Dynepo.
Boogerd ended his career in 2007, with a 12th place in the World Championship road race in Stuttgart. His planned last race was the 2007 Giro di Lombardia, but a fall in the weeks before made him unable to participate.
After his active career, Boogerd has done freelance promotional activities for Rabobank, and is frequently seen or heard on TV during live coverage of major races, both on Dutch and Belgian television.
Boogerd was appointed team manager of Team Roompot, a UCI Professional Continental cycling team launching in 2015.

## Doping

Allegations that Boogerd used performance-enhancing drugs were made since at least 2008, when Bernhard Kohl, who had finished third in the 2008 Tour de France but was stripped of that honor after testing positive for CERA, a variant of EPO accused his manager Stefan Matschiner. Matschiner, in turn, named a number of athletes whom he had supplied with drugs and blood transfusions, including Boogerd (whose name appeared in Matschiner's files). Until early 2013, Boogerd continued to deny. He finally admitted, in a television interview on 6 March 2013 (seen by nearly a million viewers), to having used EPO, blood transfusions and cortisone from 1997 to 2007. In October 2014, he was approached by the Belgian federation, allegedly to offer him to shorten his proposed ban in exchange for naming other dopers and he answered this: "The Belgian federation had the same proposal as the Dutch Doping Authority had. I will be suspended for a long period, or I will have to talk about other people. I refuse to do that. I rather be suspended for life". In January 2016 he received a two-year suspension and his results from 2005 to 2007 were annulled.

## Major results
### 1993

    8th Omloop van het Houtland

### 1996

    1st Stage 6 Tour de France
    3rd Seraing–Aachen–Seraing
    10th Brabantse Pijl

### 1997

    1st Road race, National Road Championships
    1st Profronde van Heerlen
    3rd Brabantse Pijl
    4th Overall Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
    7th Nokere Koerse
    8th Overall Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme

### 1998

    1st Road race, National Road Championships
    1st Overall Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme
       1st Stage 3
    2nd Overall Route du Sud
    2nd Giro di Lombardia
    3rd Brabantse Pijl
    4th Overall Tour of the Basque Country
    4th Amstel Gold Race
    4th Rund um den Henninger Turm
    4th Flèche Ardennaise
    5th Overall Tour de France
    5th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    5th Tour du Haut Var
    6th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
    10th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

### 1999

    1st Overall Paris–Nice
    1st Amstel Gold Race
    1st Giro dell'Emilia
    1st Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli
    1st Stage 5a Tour of the Basque Country
    2nd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
    2nd Overall Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme
    2nd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    2nd Brabantse Pijl
    3rd Breitling Grand Prix (with Erik Dekker)
    4th Overall Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria
    4th Classic Haribo
    5th La Flèche Wallonne
    6th Züri-Metzgete
    8th Coppa Sabatini
    9th Clásica de San Sebastián
    10th Overall Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
       1st Stage 5
    10th Overall Tour de Luxembourg

### 2000

    1st Stage 7 Tirreno–Adriatico
    2nd Amstel Gold Race
    5th Gran Premio Industria e Commercio di Prato
    6th Coppa Sabatini
    8th Overall Tour de Suisse
    8th Brabantse Pijl
    9th Overall Tour of the Basque Country

### 2001

    1st Overall Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme
    1st Brabantse Pijl
    1st Trofeo Alcúdia
    2nd Overall Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
       1st Points classification
       1st Stages 1 & 4
    2nd Overall International Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt
       1st Stage 1
    3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
       1st Stage 7
    3rd Giro di Lombardia
    4th Road race, National Road Championships
    5th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    6th Overall Volta ao Algarve
    7th Overall Tour of the Basque Country
       1st Points classification
    9th Amstel Gold Race
    9th La Flèche Wallonne
    10th Overall Tour de France

### 2002

    1st Peperbus Profspektakel
    1st Stage 16 Tour de France
    1st Stage 6 Ronde van Nederland
    3rd Overall Tour Méditerranéen
    3rd Overall Ster Elekrotoer
    3rd Amstel Gold Race
    4th Overall Tour of the Basque Country
    4th Coppa Sabatini
    6th Giro di Lombardia
    9th La Flèche Wallonne
    9th Brabantse Pijl

### 2003

    1st Brabantse Pijl
    2nd Amstel Gold Race
    3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    4th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
    4th Züri-Metzgete
    6th Road race, UCI Road World Championships
    6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
    7th Overall Ronde van Nederland
    8th Clásica de San Sebastián
    9th Overall Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
    9th Tour of Flanders
    10th Giro di Lombardia

### 2004

    2nd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    2nd Giro di Lombardia
    2nd Amstel Gold Race
    2nd Brabantse Pijl
    3rd Coppa Sabatini
    4th Overall Tour Méditerranéen
    5th Overall Ster Elekrotoer
    6th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
    7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships

### 2005

    2nd Amstel Gold Race
    3rd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    6th Overall Tour de Pologne
    7th Overall Tour of the Basque Country

### 2006

    1st Road race, National Road Championships
    1st Peperbus Profspektakel
    3rd Amstel Gold Race
    4th Züri–Metzgete
    5th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
    5th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    8th Giro di Lombardia

### 2007

    1st Peperbus Profspektakel
    3rd Overall 3-Länder-Tour
    4th Road race, National Road Championships
    5th Amstel Gold Race
    6th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
    6th Brabantse Pijl
    9th Tour of Flanders
    10th Overall Tirreno–Adriatico

### Grand Tour general classification results timeline

| Grand Tour | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| Giro d'Italia | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 17 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tour de France | — | 31 | 16 | 5 | 56 | DNF | 10 | 12 | 32 | 74 | 24 | 12 | 12 |
| Vuelta a España | 42 | — | — | 49 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | DNF | — |
Legend :
| — | Did not compete |
| DNF | Did not finish |