Michael Barry (cyclist)

Michael Barry (born 18 December 1975) is a Canadian author and former professional road racing cyclist. Barry raced for numerous world-class teams with the role of 'domestique'. His greatest personal successes were placing eighth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics' road race, finishing second in the Canadian National Road Race Championships in 2001 and 2012, and winning a stage of the Tour of Missouri in 2008. He announced his retirement in September 2012, stating that the 2012 Tour of Beijing would be his last race.^[1] He is also an author who has written three books.

Michael Barry

Barry at the 2011 Tour de Romandie.
Personal information
Full name	Michael Barry
Born	(1975-12-18) 18 December 1975 (age 49) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Weight	69 kg (152 lb)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-Rounder/Domestique
Professional teams
1999–2001	Saturn
2002–2006	U.S. Postal Service
2007–2009	T-Mobile Team
2010–2012	Team Sky
Major wins
Grand Tours Giro d'Italia 1 TTT stage (2009)

Career

He was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. His father, Michael (Mike) Barry Sr., was a racer himself in England in the 1950s, who until 2006 ran a specialty bike store and manufactured a line of hand-made bicycle frames under his own Mariposa^[2] brand. As a result, the younger Barry grew up in a cycling-intense environment, and started racing at a very young age. He has been a professional since 1998. He has spent many years on the Canadian National Team during the early years of his career. His wife is 2004 Olympic Silver Medalist Dede Demet Barry. They have 2 children.

Previous to riding for UCI ProTour team Team Sky Barry spent several years with the Discovery Channel team. He also raced with the Saturn Cycling Team for a number of years before going to US Postal Service/Discovery.

Barry has raced in 5 Vuelta a Españas and 5 Giro d'Italias but in 2007 had to abandon the Giro due to health issues, which put him out most of the season. He also had to pull out of the 2002 Vuelta a España after colliding with a motorcycle on the eight stage.^[3]

In 2005 he wrote the book: Inside the Postal Bus, about his experiences at U.S. Postal Service and the 2004 season whilst riding in support of Lance Armstrong.^[3] The work contains texts authored by some of his team mates, including George Hincapie. When the doping topic arises in the book, Barry vehemently denies having ever witnessed any drug intake in the team. He and his wife also wrote a training book. He also writes diary entries during his cycling season. His third book, Le Metier, detailing the life of a cycling domestique, was published in 2010 by Rouleur.

He is generally considered a support rider, or domestique, helping the team leaders win races, but he will often get the opportunity to go for personal results. He is usually the team leader for Canada for the World Championships. His strengths lie in the time-trial, and hilly road races. He can be counted on for grand tours, and other stage races as well.

For 2010, he left HTC–Highroad, and signed with Team Sky for 2 years. On 24 June 2010, Team Sky announced that Barry would be part of its 2010 Tour de France team. This would be Barry's first Tour de France appearance after thirteen seasons as a professional.

On 5 September 2012, Barry announced he would retire at the end of the season, after his last race, October's Tour of Beijing.^[1]

Doping

On 10 October 2012 it was announced by USADA that he would be suspended for six months for admissions of doping during his time with the US Postal Cycling Team.^[4] Later that day a statement was released confirming his acceptance of a six-month ban from 1 September 2012 ending on 1 March 2013 along with a stripping of all race results between 13 May 2003 and 31 July 2006.^[5] He confessed that the US Postal team were using performance-enhancing drugs.^[3]

Highlights

Highlights include:

• Stage win at the 2008 Tour of Missouri
• Placed 9th in the men's road race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics
• Placing 4th overall in the 2003 Tour de Georgia
• At the 2006 Tour of Flanders, Barry went down extremely hard in a crash, suffering severe facial cuts and lacerations and also fracturing some vertebrae.

Major results

1997

1st Road race, National Under-23 Road Championships

1999

2nd First Union Invitational

4th Overall Ringerike GP

8th Overall GP de Beauce

10th Overall Tour Trans-Canada

2000

5th Overall Ringerike GP

6th Overall Redlands Classic

2001

2nd Road race, National Road Championships

2nd BMC San Francisco GP

4th Overall Peace Race

4th Overall GP de Beauce

7th Samsung Classic

7th First Union Invitational

2002

1st Stage 1 (TTT) Volta a Catalunya

6th First Union Invitational

9th Road race, Commonwealth Games

2003

4th Overall Tour de Georgia

Voided results from 13 May 2003 to 31 July 2006.^[5]

2003

7th Road race, UCI Road World Championships

2004

1st Stage 1 (TTT) Vuelta a España

2005

6th Overall Tour of Austria

1st Points classification

1st Stage 1

2006

2nd Eindhoven Team Time Trial

2007

3rd Overall Sachsen Tour

2008

5th Overall Tour of Ireland

8th Road race, Olympic Games

10th Overall Tour of Missouri

1st Stage 4

2009

1st Stage 1 (TTT) Giro d'Italia

2012

2nd Road race, National Road Championships