A bicycle racer, from Belgium.

He races for the Mapei bicycle team, a juggernaut of a team that, like the New York Yankees, attains a dominant position in the sport by paying money for it.

Johan Museeuw is one of their better cyclists, known as a prototypical Belgian racer. Belgian bike racers are known as being hard men, in that they don't sprint well, they don't climb well, but they are just really, really strong. As such, Johan tends to do well in one day races, as opposed to stage races, like the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia.

Johan has won numerous races, most notably the fiendishly difficult Paris-Roubaix race, which involves bad weather, lot's of cyclists, a 200+ km of racing, mud, and cobbles the size of baby's heads. The most recent of his two Paris-Roubaix victories was especially notable, as two years previously he was in a very bad crash in the very same race. The crash involved broken bones in the knee, bacterial infections, and nearly an amputation. A really cool picture of his 2000 victory shows him pointing to his once damaged knee as he crossed the finish line.

All in all, he's one nearly 100 races (As of this writing), including the Amstel Gold Race, Paris-Tours, and 4 Ronde van Vlaanderens (Tour of Flanders).

Sadly, his future racing career is in question - just months after his triumphant victory and return from injury, he was involved in a bad motorcycle accident. Once again, however, he has vowed to return, and only quit racing on his own terms.


update- 4/15/02

Well, he's done it again. Museeuw has won the 100th running of the Paris-Roubaix, 3 minutes clear of the second place rider. He did this with an amazing 41km solo break at the finish. He now joins Francesco Moser, Eddy Merckx, and Rik Van Looy as three time Paris-Roubaix winners. Will he be able to match Roger DeVlaeminck's 4-peat? Tune in next year to find out. (If he doesn't retire first)

This time, he was riding for the team Domo-Farm Frites.

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