Talking with Olympic Cyclist Christian Vande Velde
From Lemont to Beijing

by: Paul Banks

Christian Vande Velde is an American Olympic cyclist with major wins in many races including the Tour de Luxembourg in 2006 and UCI World Cup in 1999. Vande Velde finished the 2008 Tour de France in fifth place, behind winner Carlos Sastre and 17th in the Olympic road race in Beijing. Vande Velde, the son of United States Bicycling Hall of Fame inductee John Vande Velde, has been a professional cyclist for 10 years and currently rides for Team Garmin-Chipotle. He rode on two of Lance Armstrong’s victorious Tour de France teams. I had an exclusive conversation with the accomplished mountain biker in the press box at U.S. Cellular Field on the night he and two other Olympians were honored on the field prior to a Chicago White Sox home game.

 

Van de Velde was born in Hinsdale, IL, lived in Lemont for most of his life and attended Lemont high school. He lived in Spain for the last 11 years and just returned home to Chicago this year. I asked him about competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

 

“It was an amazing experience being in Bejjing, a race took place right on the Great Wall of China. It was a crazy experience being a part of that so far away from home. The Culture is so different than ours, it felt a lot like South America at times, he said.

 

I then followed up by asking him about Chicago’s sports scene. “I’ve been a fan of Chicago sports my whole life, I went to Bulls, Blackhawks and Sox games growing up and to be honored {here tonight} for a sport that isn’t really that big in Chicago is pretty exciting,” Vande Velde said.

 

He also agreed with me about how great the Chicago sports fans are and articulated why that might be, “Tradition. We have such a great tradition whether it be Wrigley Field or Michael Jordan, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, we’ve had such rich traditions. As a sports culture, it’s huge, one of the biggest,” Vande Velde said. He also thought Chicago would be the perfect host for 2016. “I think it would be great to showcase the city of Chicago to much of the world. What a cool and great city it really is,” Christian said.