15 Facts About Nicolas Portal

Nicolas Portal was a French directeur sportif and professional road bicycle racer.

Nicolas Portal missed much of the 2009 season because of problems with cardiac arrhythmia and retired as a professional cyclist following the 2010 season.

Nicolas Portal stayed with his final professional team, Team Sky, as a manager from the 2011 season.

Nicolas Portal died of a heart attack on 3 March 2020, aged 40.

Nicolas Portal's father was a quarry manager and his mother worked as a medical secretary.

Nicolas Portal started cycling as a mountain biker and was successful at youth and under-23 levels in the late 1990s, before switching to road cycling.

Nicolas Portal rode as a stagiaire with AG2R Prevoyance at the end of 2001, having been recommended to team manager Vincent Lavenu by a mutual friend.

Nicolas Portal rode his first Grand Tour the same year at the Vuelta a Espana and then competed in the Tour de France for the first time in 2003.

Nicolas Portal would ride the Tour a further five times, always reaching the finish in Paris.

Nicolas Portal was part of the team that saw Oscar Pereiro win the 2006 Tour de France, a race he finished even though he suffered a serious crash on stage 15.

Nicolas Portal was joined at Caisse d'Epargne by his brother Sebastien, a cyclist, the following year.

Nicolas Portal missed the entire 2009 season with cardiac arrhythmia, but rode a full final season with Team Sky in 2010.

For 2013, following the departure of some of Team Sky's leading staff, Nicolas Portal was promoted to lead sporting director.

In 2019, after guiding Egan Bernal to victory in the Tour, Nicolas Portal became the first sporting director to win the race with three different riders since Cyrille Guimard in 1983, having previously won it with Chris Froome four times and Geraint Thomas once.

Nicolas Portal died suddenly from a heart attack, aged 40, at his home in Andorra on 3 March 2020.