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–SMM Uster Helvetia 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 following stages one to nine at the 1990 Tour de France, before ultimately finishing 27th. He had been part of a stage one breakaway alongside Claudio Chiappucci, Ronan Pensec and Frans Maassen which gained a 10-minute time advantage at the head of the general standings. In subsequent stages, Bauer, Pensec and Chiappucci all wore yellow with defending champion Greg LeMond only gaining the lead of the race after stage 20, the final time trial. At the 1991 Paris-Roubaix, Bauer placed fourth overall, finishing in a small group just over a minute behind lone winner Marc Madiot. 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 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 in 2008, in 2009 and in 2010, before it stepped up to UCI Professional Continental status for 2011 and 2012 under the name .

In 2021 he joined Israel–Premier Tech as a sporting director.

Career achievements Major results

1981

Coors Classic 1st Stages 9 & 11 1982

1983

5th Gran Premio della Liberazione 1984

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)

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 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

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

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

+ Legend — Did not compete DNF Did not finish