Baden Cooke
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Baden Cooke (born 12 October 1978) is an Australian retired professional racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2000 and 2013.[2]
.jpg) Cooke at the 2009 Four Days of Dunkirk | |||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Baden Cooke | ||||||||||||||
| Nickname | "Cookie" | ||||||||||||||
| Born | 12 October 1978 (age 45) Benalla, Victoria, Australia | ||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | ||||||||||||||
| Weight | 75 kg (165 lb) | ||||||||||||||
| Team information | |||||||||||||||
| Current team | Retired | ||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Road | ||||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | ||||||||||||||
| Rider type | Sprinter | ||||||||||||||
| Professional teams | |||||||||||||||
| 2000–2001 | Mercury | ||||||||||||||
| 2002–2005 | Française des Jeux | ||||||||||||||
| 2006–2007 | Unibet.com | ||||||||||||||
| 2008 | Barloworld | ||||||||||||||
| 2009 | Vacansoleil | ||||||||||||||
| 2010–2011 | Team Saxo Bank | ||||||||||||||
| 2012–2013 | GreenEDGE[1] | ||||||||||||||
| Major wins | |||||||||||||||
Grand Tours
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Medal record
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Born in Benalla, Victoria, Cooke began competitive cycling at 11.[3] He completed secondary school at Galen College in Wangaratta, Victoria, and was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder.[4]
His professional career began with the Mercury team in 2000, though he found racing in Europe to be more challenging than initially expected. Nevertheless, he adapted. He was more successful during that debut season in Australia and America, where he won stages of the Herald Sun Tour and the Sea Otter Classic, respectively.[3] Having moved to the French team Française des Jeux in 2002, Cooke competed in the Commonwealth Games that year, finishing third behind fellow Australians Stuart O'Grady and Cadel Evans. He also participated in the Tour de France in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2012. In 2003 he won the Green jersey which is the Points classification in the Tour de France by two points in a tight finish on Stage 20 on the Champs-Élysées with fellow Australian sprinter Robbie McEwen second and O'Grady seventh in the final points classification. In 2004 Cooke came 12th in the points classification.
Cooke represented Australia in the road race at the 2004 Summer Olympics along with McEwen, Michael Rogers, O'Grady and Matt White.
Cooke raced 2006 and 2007 for Unibet.com. He joined Barloworld for 2008 but in 2009 moved to Dutch cycling team Vacansoleil.[5] Cooke announced on his website that he would ride for Team Saxo Bank in 2010[6] – he continued with that team in 2011, before moving to the new GreenEDGE team for the 2012 season.[1] After the 2013 season, Cooke retired.[2]
After retiring, Cooke announced that he was moving into rider management.[7] In January 2014 he became the agent of former team-mate and winner of the 2013 Vuelta a España Chris Horner.[8] He subsequently also became agent for Michael Matthews, Gert Steegmans and Janez Brajkovič.[9]
He recently purchased a stake in Factor bikes and Black Inc wheels.
Television appearances
In 2021, Cooke competed on Australian Survivor: Brains V Brawn.[10]
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
| DSQ | Disqualified |
| DNF | Did not finish |
- ^ a b Farrand, Stephen (27 August 2011). "Baden Cooke and Matt Wilson to ride for GreenEdge in 2012". Cycling News. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
- ^ a b "Baden Cooke announces retirement". Cyclingnews.com. Future plc. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
- ^ a b Gabriella Ekstrom (2001). "Cyclingnews talks with Baden Cooke". cyclingnews.com.
- ^ AIS Athletes at the Olympics Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Baden Cooke naar Nederlandse ploeg Vacansoleil". sportweek.nl. 2008.
- ^ "Team Saxo Bank for 2010". www.badencooke.com.au. 2009. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.
- ^ Woodpower, Zeb (6 December 2013). "Interview with Baden Cooke". cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
- ^ Quénet, Jeff (10 January 2014). "Chris Horner appoints Baden Cooke as his new representative". cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
- ^ Benson, Daniel (16 October 2014). "Cooke in discussions with two new teams over Horner". cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
- ^ "Survivor Australia 2021 cast revealed". The Advertiser. 12 July 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2021.