Speakers Profile - Robbie McEwen










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Robbie McEwen is an Australian former professional road bicycle racer. He last rode for Orica-GreenEDGE on the UCI World Tour and is now a technical advisor for the team. Asa triple winner of the Tour de France's green jersey sprinters' classification at his peak he was considered one of the fastest sprinters in the world.

A former Australian BMX champion, McEwen switched to road racing in 1990 at 18. He raced as a professional from 1996 until 2012. McEwen lives in Australia with his Belgian wife Angelique Pattyn, his son Ewan, and his daughters Elena and Claudia. In 2011 he published an autobiography, One Way Road. McEwen has lived a long time in the Belgian town of Everbeek and is fluent in Dutch.

He retired from the World Tour after riding the 2012 Tour of California.

CAREER
After 4 years of moving through the regional, state & national levels of cycling McEwen started at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra under the A.I.S. road cycling coach Heiko Salzwedel. The first signs of his sprinting prowess on the international stage were at the "Peace Race", winning three stages for the Australian National team.

He competed in the road race at the 1996 Summer Olympics (23rd) and the 2000 Summer Olympics (19th). He was also included on the Australian team for the 1994 UCI Road Cycling World Championship in Italy, and the 2002 UCI Road Cycling World Championship in Belgium where he won a silver medal. McEwen was again selected for Australia at the 2004 Summer Olympics (11th) as part of the road race team.

McEwen was named 2002 Australian Cyclist of the Year, 2002 Male Road Cyclist of the Year and 1999 Australia Male Road Cyclist of the Year. After spending 16 seasons racing for foreign teams (Dutch - Rabobank & Farm Frites, Belgian - Lotto, Russian - Katusha, USA - RadioShack) in September 2011 he signed the new Australian team GreenEDGE, which obtained a ProTeam licence for the 2012 season.