Félicia Ballanger
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| Full name | Félicia Ballanger | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 12 June 1971 La Roche-sur-Yon, Vendée, France | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Félicia Ballanger (born 12 June 1971 in La Roche-sur-Yon, Vendée) is a retired French racing cyclist.
She won five world championships in the sprint and 500 m time trial. She was also a triple Olympic champion.[1] She is 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in) tall and weighs 70 kilograms (150 lb).
Biography[edit]
Félicia Ballanger is one of two children. Her mother named her Félicia after the Italian Tour de France winner Felice Gimondi and her brother, Frédéric, after the Spanish winner, Federico Bahamontes).
Ballanger was at first both a cyclist and a handball player. For cycling she was a member of Vendée la Roche Cycliste.
She came fourth in her first world championship and again the following year, 1992, at the Olympic Games in Barcelona. She crashed the following year, breaking a collarbone and having her thigh pierced by a splinter from the velodrome.[2]
Her first world championship medal came the following season. She took silver in the sprint. Trained by Daniel Morelon, the former world sprint champion, she won her first world championships in 1995, winning the 500 m time-trial and the sprint. She won both again in the four following years. She also won the Olympic sprint medal at Atlanta.
Her last international was the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. She won the 500 metres. In the same year she was awarded the Vélo d'Or français, and remained the only female awardee until 2022. In 2001, she became vice-president of the Fédération Française de Cyclisme.
Personal life[edit]
Ballanger is married, has two children and has lived in Nouméa since 1998. She is involved in politics there. She was a television commentator during the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008.
Palmarès[edit]
Olympic Games[edit]
1996 1st sprint- 2000 1st sprint, 1st 500m
World championship[edit]
- 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 1st sprint
- 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 1st 500m
1994 2nd sprint- 1988 1st junior sprint
National championships[edit]
- Sprint: 1992, 1994...
- Youth sprint : 1986
World records[edit]
Source:[3]
- 500m 35"811 3 July 1993 Hyères
- 500m 35"190 28 July 1993 Bordeaux
- 500m 34"604 3 July 1994 Hyères
- 500m 34"474 22 July 1994 Colorado Springs
- 500m 34"017 29 September Bogota
- 500m 34"010 29 August 1998 Bordeaux
References[edit]
- ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Félicia Ballanger". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ "Félicia Ballanger, championne discrète". L'Humanité (in French). 19 August 2000. Archived from the original on 16 March 2008.
- ^ "World Records: Women". UCI.ch. Archived from the original on 16 March 2008.
External links[edit]
- Felicia Ballanger at Cycling Archives
- Felicia Ballanger at databaseOlympics.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 March 2007)
- Felicia Ballanger at Olympics.com
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| International | |
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| National | |
- 1971 births
- Living people
- People from La Roche-sur-Yon
- French female cyclists
- UCI Track Cycling World Champions (women)
- Olympic cyclists for France
- Cyclists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Cyclists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- Cyclists at the 2000 Summer Olympics
- Olympic gold medalists for France
- Olympic medalists in cycling
- Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite
- Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics
- Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- French track cyclists
- Sportspeople from Vendée
- Cyclists from Pays de la Loire