Richard Virenque

French cyclist. The first Frenchman to receive a medal in the Tour de France since Fignon in 1989, he came second in the 1997 Tour, wearing the Maillot Jaune for a day. He was best climber of the Tour in 1994–7 and third in the world road championships in 1994. He was a member of the Festina squad which was expelled from the 1998 Tour de France following allegations concerning drug-taking.

His top placing in the general classification of the Tour de France and his multiple wins of the Polka dot jersey placed him at the top of the French hopefuls as a potential winner of the Tour de France.

However, in 1998 team Festina was shattered by a doping scandal (see the doping scandals of the Tour de France) after health assistant Willy Voet was arrested with large quantities of prescription drugs and illegal drugs used for doping. Virenque claimed that all this had happened, in his own words, "à l'insu de mon plein gré" ("without the knowledge of my own will").

Virenque was highly criticized by the media and satirists for his stubborn denial in the face of increasing evidence and his pretense of having been doped without his knowledge. The Les Guignols de l'info show portrayed him repeating "à l'insu de mon plein gré" (literally, "unbeknownst to my free will"), and this phrase soon passed into French popular culture as a sign of hypocritical denial. After initially denying that he had doped himself, he confessed to having doped himself (doping oneself is not a crime).

While he was bested by fellow Frenchmen Laurent Jalabert in the 2001 and 2002 editions of the Tour de France for the King of the Mountains competition, he won his sixth polka dot jersey in 2003 to tie the previous record of Federico Bahamontes and Lucien van Impe while riding for the new QuickStep-Davitamon team. Belgian Lucien van Impe, having himself won the classification 6 times, publicly claimed that Virenque was disrespecting the previous record holder Bahamontes and himself, and that he himself gave up the chance to break Bahamontes' previous record out of respect for Bahamontes.

In the Tour de France, Virenque has also finished twice on the final podium (3rd in 1996 and 2nd in 1997) and won several stages, among them the legendary climb up to Mont Ventoux in 2002.

On September 24, 2004, Richard Virenque announced his retirement from competitive cycling, but has stayed in the public eye, appearing on and winning Je suis une célébrité, sortez-moi de là! (the French version of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!).