Joan Llaneras

Who is Joan Llaneras?

Joan Llaneras Roselló is a Spanish World and Olympic points race champion track cyclist. He specialises in the madison and points race events.

Llaneras began his cycling career on the road with the ONCE professional cycling team but switched to concentrate on track cycling. Llaneras is a four-time world champion in the points race and three time champion in the Madison. He is a double Olympic champion, winning the event at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and in Beijing in 2008.

Llaneras teamed up with Isaac Gálvez to compete on the lucrative Six Days of Ghent racing circuit on November 2006. It resulted with the death of Gálvez after colliding with Dimitri De Fauw and hitting the railings. Llaneras had decided to quit cycling, but a few months later in an interview with Spanish daily newspaper Marca, he said:

"Clearly I thought about leaving it all. It was the first reaction. Logical... Natural... Normal after what had happened, but life goes on, and giving it all up, unfortunately, will not solve anything. In addition, the track is my life, is my dream, my family, it is almost everything to me."

He returned to competition in 2007, and although he had no intention of returning to Madison racing, Llaneras teamed up with Antonio Tauler to take the silver medal in the Madison at the 2008 Summer Olympics, adding to the gold he won in the points race three days earlier. In doing so, he became the Spaniard with the most Olympic medals ever, with 2 gold and 2 silver to his name. After the Beijing Olympics, Llaneras finally retired with a great palmarès and a great last tournament, a gold and a silver.