Albert Van Vlierberghe

Who was Albert Van Vlierberghe?

Albert Van Vlierberghe was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer. Van Vlierberghe won three stages in the Tour de France, and three stages in the Giro d'Italia. He also competed in the team time trial and the team pursuit events at the 1964 Summer Olympics.

In his 1999 book, Breaking the Chain: Drugs and Cycling, the True Story, Belgian sports physiotherapist Willy Voet described an incident involving Van Vlierberghe that occurred during the 1979 Deutschland Tour. Voet, then the soigneur with Van Vlierberghe's team, Flandria, claims that Van Vlierberghe, "a decent Belgian racer but with no taste for the hills," asked Voet to drive him ahead of his fellow racers to avoid a six-mile stretch of hill in the course. Voet claims that Van Vlierberghe slipped back into the race without being detected and went on to place sixth on the stage. Voet used the incident to defend his assertion that for many professional riders at the time, cheating was "a way of life."