Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Joseba Beloki (b. August 12, 1973 in Lazkao (Guipuzcoa), in the Basque region of Spain) is a professional bicycle racer. Beloki turned professional cyclist in 1998 with the Euskatel team, joined Festina in 2000 and ONCE in 2001. A strong climber in the high mountains and a top performer in the individual time trials, he has made it to the podium in the Tour de France in 2000 (3rd place), 2001 (3rd place) and 2002 (2nd place). On July 14, 2003, during the ninth stage of the 2003 Tour de France, Beloki was in second place overall (just 40 seconds behind Lance Armstrong) and negotiating a hairpin turn while descending Cote de La Rochette, just 8km from the stage finish at Gap. His tire lost traction in road tar that had been made molten by the sun (Road surface temperature was reported to be 125F), sending his rear wheel skidding first in one direction and then the other and shreding the rear tire. Beloki suffered a hard fall that broke his right femur in two places, his elbow and his wrist. In the 2004 Tour de France, Beloki is expected to ride with the Stayer team. In 2001, Beloki also finished first in the Tour of Catalonia. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.