Greg Henderson Explained

Greg Henderson
Full Name:	Gregory Henderson
Nickname:	Hendo
Birth Date:	1976 9, df=yes
Birth Place:	Dunedin, New Zealand
Height:	1.81 m
Weight:	72.5 kg
Currentteam:	Retired
Role:	Rider
Proyears1:	2002–2003
Proteam1:	7 UP–Maxxis
Proyears2:	2004–2006
Proyears3:	2007–2009
Proyears4:	2010–2011
Proyears5:	2012–2016
Proyears6:	2017
Majorwins:	RoadGrand Tours Vuelta a España 1 individual stage (2009)One day races and Classics Track
Show-Medals:	no

Gregory Henderson (born 10 September 1976) is a New Zealand former professional track and road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2002 and 2017. His career includes winning the 15km (09miles) scratch race at the 2004 world championships and, in road cycling, winning the points competition at the Tour de Georgia in 2005 and 2008.

Henderson rode in five Olympic Games and completed 11 Grand Tours. He also competed in four Commonwealth Games and was a four-time medallist, including winning gold in the points race in 2002. During an important part of his career, he served as André Greipel's main lead-out man, and they were colleagues at both and later .

In addition to 17 New Zealand track and road titles and eight World Cup track golds, Henderson has been New Zealand Track Cyclist of the Year (2001, 2002, 2003) and Athlete of the Year, Otago, New Zealand (2001, 2002, 2003).

Career

Track cycling

At the 1998 Commonwealth Games Henderson won bronze medals in the 40km (30miles) points race and the 4km (02miles) team pursuit.^[1] ^[2]

He won gold in the 40km (30miles) points race^[3] and bronze again in the 4km (02miles) team pursuit^[4] at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.^[2]

He won the 15km (09miles) scratch race at the 2004 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.^[5]

At the 2004 Summer Olympics he finished fourth in the points race and seventh in the madison.^[6]

His best placing in the 2006 Commonwealth Games was 10th in the scratch race.^[7] ^[2]

At the 2008 Summer Olympics he finished tenth in the points race and the madison.^[6]

Road cycling

In 2005, he won the points competition at the Tour de Georgia and International Tour de Toona. In 2006, he recovered from early injuries and won the inaugural Pro Cycling Tour (PCT) Reading Classic.

In 2009, he won the Clásica de Almería in Spain, the second stage of Vuelta Ciclista a Murcia, and the third stage of the Vuelta a España on his Grand Tour debut.^[8]

In 2010, he won the first stage of the Paris–Nice. In 2011, he won stage 2 of Paris–Nice and stage 3 of the Tour of California.

Henderson left Team Sky at the end of 2011, and joined, mainly to act as lead-out man for Andre Greipel.^[9] He credited his success in this role to the positioning skills which he developed as a track rider, and having to compete against quicker road sprinters such as Greipel, Mark Cavendish and Marcel Kittel. In April 2015, he expressed his opinion on Twitter that Fabio Aru of rival team missed the Giro del Trentino not because of illness as it was announced, but because he had an ongoing investigation into his biological passport for doping. Henderson apologised shortly after.^[10] He competed in the 2016 Tour de France.^[11]

In August 2017 Henderson announced his retirement from competition, having competed in his last race, the 2017 Colorado Classic, and indicated that he would move into full-time coaching, having trained athletes since 2014.^[12] The following month he was announced as Endurance Performance Director for USA Cycling.^[13]