Steve Cummings

Steve Cummings

Cummings wearing the race leader's jersey of the 2016 Tour of Britain
Personal information
Full name	Stephen Philip Cummings
Nickname	Steve-o
Born	(1981-03-19) 19 March 1981 (age 40) Clatterbridge, Merseyside, England, United Kingdom
Height	1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)[1]
Weight	75 kg (165 lb)[1]
Team information
Current team	Retired
Disciplines	Road Track
Role	Rider
Rider type	Rouleur Breakaway specialist
Amateur team
–	Birkenhead North End CC
Professional teams
2005–2006	Landbouwkrediet–Colnago
2007	Discovery Channel
2008–2009	Barloworld
2010–2011	Team Sky
2012–2014	BMC Racing Team[2]
2015–2019	MTN–Qhubeka[3]
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France 2 individual stages (2015, 2016) Vuelta a España 1 individual stage (2012) Stage races Tour of Britain (2016) One-day races and Classics National Road Race Championships (2017) National Time Trial Championships (2017)
Medal record Men's track cycling Representing  Great Britain Olympic Games 2004 Athens Team pursuit World Championships 2005 Los Angeles Team pursuit 2006 Bordeaux Team pursuit Representing  England Commonwealth Games 2006 Melbourne Team pursuit 2006 Melbourne Individual pursuit

Stephen Philip Cummings (born 19 March 1981^[4]) is an English former racing cyclist,^[5] who rode professionally between 2005 and 2019 for the Landbouwkrediet–Colnago, Discovery Channel, Barloworld, Team Sky, BMC Racing Team and Team Dimension Data squads.

Biography[]

Cummings won the team pursuit at the 2005 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles and at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. He also took bronze in the individual pursuit at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens Cummings and the Great Britain team won the silver medal in the team pursuit and achieved a time of 3:59.866 in the heats.

In 1999, riding for Birkenhead North End CC as a junior, aged 17, Cummings won the Memorial Road Race, a handicap race open to all categories. It remains the only time in 46 years that a junior has won. He went on to take the junior British National Road Race Championships that year.

In 2006 he rode for Landbouwkrediet–Colnago and came second in the Trofeo Laigueglia to Alessandro Ballan of Lampre–Fondital. In 2007 he switched to Discovery Channel before moving to Barloworld in 2008.

His first professional win was in 2008, stage 2 of the Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria.

In February 2021 Cummings announced that he was returning to Team Sky in its current incarnation as Ineos Grenadiers, joining the team's management as a development directeur sportif and coach.^[6]

Team Sky (2010–11)[]

Cummings at the 2010 Giro d'Italia

Cummings joined new British-based Team Sky for the 2010 season.

In 2011, racing with Sky, he had arguably his most successful professional race to date at the Volta ao Algarve. He won stage three in a mountain-top finish ahead of Alberto Contador, taking the overall lead of the race which he held until the final time-trial; he finished the tour in seventh place.

In September, Cummings finished second overall in the Tour of Britain. Later that month he announced he would join BMC Racing Team for the 2012 season.^[2]

Cummings was part of the Great Britain team that helped Mark Cavendish win the men's road race at the 2011 UCI Road World Championships. He then finished 4th overall in the first Tour of Beijing.

BMC Racing Team (2012–15)[]

In February 2012, Cummings broke his pelvis in an accident while competing in the Volta ao Algarve.^[7] In April, bad luck struck again when he fractured his left wrist in the Tour of the Basque Country.^[8] He recuperated from those injuries and competed in the Tour de France, where he was a domestique to his leader Cadel Evans and finished 95th overall.^[9] In the 2012 Vuelta a España, he gained his first Grand Tour victory. On Stage 13, he broke away with six other riders after the first hour of racing. The break made it through on the mainly flat course and he attacked with about 4 km (2.5 mi) to race, creating a gap. He held on to his lead and won by four seconds over the two chasers, Cameron Meyer of Orica–GreenEDGE and Team Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha.^[10]

MTN–Qhubeka/Dimension Data (2015–19)[]

In October 2014, Cummings announced that he would be joining MTN–Qhubeka for the 2015 season.^[11]

Cummings at the 2015 Tour de France

On 18 July 2015, Cummings won stage 14 of the Tour de France, beating French riders Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet in Mende, 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) after the category 2 climb. It was the first Tour de France stage win for both Cummings and his African team MTN–Qhubeka, fittingly coming on Mandela Day.^[12] On 8 July 2016, Cummings took another breakaway win in the Tour de France, this time on Stage 7, with a winning margin of 65 seconds over Daryl Impey and Daniel Navarro.^[13]

In July 2016 he was added to Great Britain's Olympic cycling team for the Summer Olympics, replacing Peter Kennaugh.^[14] Cummings took what British journalist William Fotheringham considered to be the most important stage race victory of his career to date at the Tour of Britain in September 2016. He finished 2nd on stage 2 in Kendal, Cumbria, gaining a minute over most of his rivals. He subsequently moved into the lead on stage 6 and held this position for the remaining two days.^[15]

During the 2017 Tour of the Basque Country Cummings crashed heavily and required surgery. After a long period of recovery he won both the British National Time Trial Championships and the British National Road Race Championships on the Isle of Man, becoming only the second rider to win both titles in the same year after David Millar achieved the same feat in 2007.^[16]

In November 2019, Cummings announced his retirement from professional cycling.^[17]

Major results[]

Grand Tour general classification results timeline[]

Grand Tour	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Giro d'Italia	110	96	—	55	—	—	149	—	—	—	—	—	—
Tour de France	—	—	—	151	—	95	—	—	86	140	141	—	129
Vuelta a España	—	—	—	—	—	156	—	—	102	—	—	124	—

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Steve Cummings.

• Steve Cummings at Cycling Archives
• Steve Cummings at ProCyclingStats