Matt Rendell – författare

By winning the 2019 Tour de France, Egan Bernal became the race''s youngest champion in 110 years, and the first from the South American nation of Colombia. His victory brought decades of national yearning to fruition. Colombia has long been the only developing nation contending at cycling''s highest level. Yet its cycling sons are not the products of a rigorous sports system that spots them in childhood and nurtures them through the ranks to the pinnacle of globalised sport. They come from harder backgrounds, that surprise, shock - even, at times, enchant.Colombia Es Pasión! explores the lives and dreams of each of the nation''s leading cyclists. Theirs are inspiring stories of overcoming poverty and violence, sickness and corruption, and achieving global sporting glory.''Takes you into the heart of both a sport and a country. The journey is well worth the effort'' Sunday Times''Wonderful'' Observer''Remarkable, a masterpiece'' Never Strays Far podcast

*Shortlisted for Cycling Book of the Year at the Sports Book Awards 2024*From award-winning author Matt Rendell, an examination of the phenomenal success of Alejandro Valverde and the moral decay at the heart of Spanish cycling.''A study of a dominant force, a true gentleman racer despite his shadowy past'' Dan MartinAlejandro Valverde - the ''Green Bullet'' - was an international symbol of Spanish cycling for a quarter of a century before his retirement in 2022. Hard-working and supremely talented, he won the Vuelta a España and stood on the podium of the Giro d''Italia and the Tour de France. World champion in 2018, he was also the world''s number-one-ranked rider four times. A man of indisputable charisma, he was also a convicted doping cheat.When the Spanish police investigation, Operación Puerto, uncovered a vast international blood doping ring, Valverde denied all involvement. The revelations unearthed by Operación Puerto threatened to force cycling off the road.Valverde''s long career was a high wire walk between the venal interests that surround elite sport in Spain. In a nation beset by corruption, political incompetence and social division, Valverde''s talent aided the public image of unscrupulous political and economic institutions.Even today, Valverde maintains his reticence. The Green Bullet breaks the silence.

The intimate biography of the charismatic Tour de France winner Marco Pantani, now updated to include the 2014 and 2015 investigation into Pantani''s death.National Sporting Club Book of the YearShortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award ''An exhaustively detailed and beautiful book . . . a fitting, ambivalent tribute - to the man, and to the dark heart of the sport he loved'' IndependentOn Valentine''s day 2004, Marco Pantani was found dead in a cheap hotel. It defied belief: Pantani, having won the rare double of the Giro d''Italia and the Tour de France in 1998, was regarded as the only cyclist capable of challenging Lance Armstrong''s dominance. Only later did it emerge that Pantani had been addicted to cocaine since 1999.Drawing on his personal encounters with Pantani, as well as exclusive access to his psychoanalysts, and interviews with his family and friends, Matt Rendell has produced the definitive account of an iconic sporting figure.

An inside view into cycling''s most prestigious event and the people who have helped Lance Armstrong win an unprecedented six timesLance Armstrong''s place in the cycling history books is assured. Winner of the Tour de France a record-breaking six times, he is regarded as one of the greatest individual talents the sport has ever seen. Perhaps his most compelling victory was in 2003 when he won the coveted Centenary race. However, without the team of brilliant athletes assembled to support him - the domestiques - victory in the Tour would have been impossible.Not only do these superbly trained athletes ride alongside the team leader, supplying water and equipment, but they also create a moving stream of energy that is vital for competitive success. In 2003, Lance Armstrong''s domestique, Victor Hugo Peña, actually took over the yellow jersey and stepped into history. A Significant Other is the story of that race but also of these unsung heros of the sport.