Walter Godefroot

Walter Godefroot

Godefroot in 1997
Personal information
Full name	Walter Godefroot
Nickname	The Bulldog of Flanders
Born	(1943-07-02) 2 July 1943 (age 81) Ghent, Belgium
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Manager
Rider type	One-day specialist
Professional teams
1965–1966	Wiel's–Groene Leeuw
1967–1969	Flandria–De Clerck
1970	Salvarani
1971–1972	Peugeot–BP–Michelin
1973–1975	Flandria–Carpenter–Shimano
1976–1979	IJsboerke–Colnago
Managerial teams
1991–2005	Team Telekom
2006	Astana–Würth
2007	Astana
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France Points classification (1970) 10 individual stages (1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975) Giro d'Italia 1 individual stage (1970 Vuelta a España 2 individual stages (1971 Stage Races Four Days of Dunkirk (1974) One-day races and Classics National Road Race Championship (1965, 1972) Liège–Bastogne–Liège (1967) Tour of Flanders (1968, 1978) Paris–Roubaix (1969) Bordeaux–Paris (1969, 1976) Dwars door Vlaanderen (1966, 1968) Gent–Wevelgem (1968) Championship of Zürich (1970, 1974) GP of Aargau Canton (1969) Scheldeprijs (1969) Rund um den Henninger Turm (1974)
Medal record Representing  Belgium Men's road bicycle racing Olympic Games 1964 Tokyo Individual road race

Walter Godefroot (born 2 July 1943) is a retired Belgian professional road bicycle racer and former directeur sportif of Team Telekom, later known as T-Mobile Team.

As amateur cyclist, he won the bronze medal in the individual road race of the 1964 Summer Olympics after his young compatriot Eddy Merckx was caught in the final.^[1] Both men turned professional in 1965 and Walter Godefroot was presented as Merckx's bane in his early days, winning several races ahead of him: the Belgian championship in 1965, Liège–Bastogne–Liège (1967) and Paris–Roubaix (1969).^[2]

But Godefroot eventually didn't have Merckx's abilities in stage races and concentrated on the separate stages in the grand tours. He won ten stages in the Tour de France, including the stage on the Champs-Élysées in 1975 where the Tour finished for the first time, and the green jersey in the 1970 Tour de France, one stage in the 1970 Giro d'Italia and two stages in the 1971 Vuelta a España.^[3]

Being a specialist in one-day classic cycle races, he won another Belgian champion title in 1972, two Tours of Flanders at ten-year intervals in 1968 and 1978, two Bordeaux–Paris in 1969 and 1976 and had numerous runner-ups in other classics.

Remarkably, Godefroot informed the Tour de Flandres organization about the existence of the Koppenberg. From 1976, the hill was included in the course of the race.

At the end of his career, following the classics campaign in April 1977, he tested positive for a doping product along with several other top riders.

In 1981, Godefroot and his wife started a cycling shop in Deurle which still exists today.^[4]

He managed the Capri-Sonne-Koga Miyata, T-Mobile and Astana teams. He was notably the sports director of Bjarne Riis, Jan Ullrich and Erik Zabel during the victorious Tour de France editions in 1996 and 1997, although Riis and Zabel later admitted they used EPO in the 1996 Tour de France.^[5]

Godefroot stepped down as team manager before the 2006 season and was replaced by Olaf Ludwig. After the exclusion of Astana–Würth from the 2006 Tour de France, Godefroot returned to the peloton when he became manager of Astana. His contract was not renewed when it ran out in July 2007.^[6] He then withdrew from professional cycling.

In his racing days he was called 'The Bulldog of Flanders'.