Famous people often drive the world, but in a way that we don’t think about. They often serve as ambassadors, rather than actually being the ones who invent new things and contribute through their own deeds. Some famous people do, but not all of them.

Athletes, particularly star athletes, gather a lot of attention and have a lot of fans. Fans typically bet on their favorite athletes or teams, often using online sportsbooks. Experienced fans use bonus codes to make the most of their betting, like this betiton welcome bonus.

Cycling is a great sport that has even better athletes. Cycling superstars are many, but here are the most famous ones, in no particular order.

Lance Armstrong

He is arguably cycling’s most notorious athlete. Known as the one who was doping, he was stripped of all his victories, particularly his 7 consecutive Tour de France victories. Actually, he was stripped of all his victories from 1998 until 2010. All of his sponsors dropped him and he is said to have had quite a few problems with the brands in court.

However, he is basically a product of the time, wherein multiple interviews he stated that in order to win or rather, to compete with the best at the time, you had to have been doping, otherwise you would have been left in the dust. Today’s cycling has much stricter doping monitoring, probably as a product of Armstrong’s experience. Doping has been a problem in cycling since the beginning of the sport, and to this day, it is still an issue.

ChuckThePhotographer, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Eddy Merckx

Eddy Merckx is one of the world’s greatest cyclists, with around 525 victories, which is astonishing in itself. He also has 5 Tours and Giros and a single Vuelta. That in itself would make him one of the best cyclists, but he also competed in mountain biking and is known to have been able to compete on any terrain. He is still involved in professional cycling, but not as a competitor, but rather on the business side of things.

He does occasionally cycle, of course.

Peter Sagan

Sagan is the current version of Lance Armstrong but without the doping. He has 7 Tour de France victories under his belt, though not consecutive ones. He also has a single Giro victory, as well as many other, non-Grand Tour victories. Sagan is currently one of the top athletes in the cycling world, though his career might be nearing its apex, not to mention that the competition is looking to be very difficult.

Tadej Pogacar

At only 23 years of age, Pogacar already has two consecutive Tour de France victories, as well as a third-place at the Vuelta. The Slovenian is looking like one of cycling’s future great champions. Some have even gone so far as to compare him to Eddy Merckx, and given his trajectory, it might actually become true. 

Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mario Cipollini

Cipollini has a nickname, Super Mario, of course, the reason being that he is Italian and that he won 42 individual stages at the Giro d’Italia. Of the many tournaments he competed at, he hasn’t won a single Grand Tour in the general classification category, but he had many stage victories. For example, he was known to leave the Tour de France mountain stages, preferring to race on the beach ones.

These are the world’s most famous cyclists.