Michael Barry (cyclist)

Michael Barry
	Barry at the 2011 Tour de Romandie.
Personal information
Full name	Michael Barry
Born	18 December 1975 (age 48); 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
	Giro d'Italia, 1 Stage TTT

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.

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 and he were using an extensive amount of 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 National Under-23 Road Race 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 National Road Race 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