Adam James Hansen is an Australian Ironman triathlete and former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally in the latter between 2007 and 2020, and also from 2022 to 2023. During his cycling career, he took five victories – including Grand Tour stage wins at the 2013 Giro d'Italia and the 2014 Vuelta a España, which came during a record run of twenty consecutive Grand Tour starts, and finishes, from 2011 to 2018.
Hansen at the 2009 Tour Down Under.
In road bicycle racing, a Grand Tour is one of the three major European professional cycling stage races: Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and Vuelta a España. Collectively they are termed the Grand Tours, and all three races are similar in format, being three-week races with daily stages. They have a special status in the UCI regulations: more points for the UCI World Tour are distributed in Grand Tours than in other races, and they are the only stage races allowed to last longer than 14 days, and these differ from major stage races more than one week in duration.
Image: Jacques Anquetil 1966
Image: Felice Gimondi 1966
Image: Eddy Merckx Molteni 1973
Image: Bernard Hinault 1978 (cropped)