Eric Vanderaerden

Who is Eric Vanderaerden?

Eric Vanderaerden is a retired road cyclist from the town of Lummen, Belgium.

He was a considerable talent, winning the prologue time trial of the Vuelta and the Tour de France in his professional debut year 1983. As for classics, he won the Tour of Flanders in 1985 and Paris–Roubaix in 1987. In the Tour de France, his participation in the 1985 edition was a strong one, beating the later winner Bernard Hinault in a time trial stage. The next year, he won the green jersey.

After 1988, his career went in decline, though every observer had the impression he could have achieved much more. He certainly had considerable talent as a time trial racer, but as a climber in the mountains his talent was limited. Perhaps, he was partly a victim of the high expectations the Belgian public had to get a successor for Eddy Merckx, a cyclist who was very versatile in winning both classic races and big stage races.

After his active career, Vanderaerden has led a few semi-professional racing teams and was also assistant-manager of a professional Belgo-Italian team. He became a directeur sportif with the DFL-Cyclingnews-Litespeed team in August 2006.