Amber Neben

Amber Neben atop the podium after her victory in the Burley to Magic Mountain road race (stage 8 of the 2001 Women's Challenge)

Amber Neben (born: February 18, 1975) is an American cycle racer who won the World Time Trial Championshps in 2008. She was also the U.S. national road race champion in 2003 and is the only active American female cyclist to win multiple UCI category 1 stage races, having won the Gracia Tour in 2002, the Tour du Montreal in 2003 and the Tour de l'Aude in 2005 and again in 2006.

Biography

As a young junior in junior high and high school, Neben's principal athletic activities were centered around soccer and cross-country running. She attended the University of Nebraska on a track and cross-country scholarship, but developed stress fractures from running. Forced to curtail her running activities, she became an undergraduate assistant coach with the distance running program. Only subsequently, after graduating from college, did she take up the sport of cycling.

Meanwhile, she graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and went on from there to obtain a Master's degree in biology from the University of California at Irvine.

Her initial foray into cycle racing was as a mountain bike racer. While concentrating on MTB racing for several years, Neben also participated in road cycle racing. It was in this latter discipline that she enjoyed her greatest successes. A major breakthrough occurred during the 2001 Women's Challenge race, where she won the Rupert to Pomerelle stage with its culminating long, steep climb to the finish, becoming only the 4th American to win a stage at the Women's Challenge since it became a UCI event.

Following this, she concentrated almost exclusively on road cycling, being selected to the Road World Championship team in both 2001 and 2002.

In 2003, following the Montreal World Cup race, Neben tested positive for the banned substance 19-norandrosterone. The actual test results were not reported and confirmed until after the Tour du Montreal, which she won. Neben chose to appeal the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and, in the meantime, accepted a provisional suspension which began in mid-July of 2003.

Neben claimed that the positive test result had occurred as the result of taking supplements which were contaminated with the banned substance. A formal hearing before the North American CAS Panel was held later that year and in a report issued in October of 2003, the Panel concluded that a doping violation had occurred, but further stated that it was not an intentional doping violation.

In a split decision, the Panel decided that Neben should be suspended for 6 months from any race activity dating back to the beginning of her voluntary withdrawal and, further, that she would be required to submit to regular doping tests over the following 18 months. There were other conditions imposed as well.

Neben was thus eligible to participate in sanctioned racing for the year 2004. In the U.S. Olympic Trials held in June of that year, she finished in 2nd place in the Time Trial, missing first place and a spot on the 2004 Olympic team by just 8 seconds.

In the Spring of 2005, Neben achieved her greatest success up to that point in her cycling career when she won the Tour de l'Aude ahead of a strong international field. In 2006, Neben repeated her stage race victory in the Tour de l'Aude.

After a very strong season in 2007 and the first half of 2008, in which she scored several more high finishes in international and national competition, Neben was named to the 2008 U.S. Olympic road cycling team where she will compete in the road race portion of the Olympic Games competition in Beijing. Later in the year, Ms. Neben won the World Time Trial Championships at Varese, Italy.

Palmares

2013 (Pasta Zara - Cogeas)

2012 (Team Specialized - Lululemon)

• Panamerican Championships - Individual Time Trial
• Vuelta El Salvador - stages 2 and 3b
• The Exergy Tour - stage 2
• National Championships - Individual Time Trial
• Chrono des Nations

2011 (HTC Highroad Women)

• GP Stad Roeselare
• Chrono des Nations
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - 1st place GC
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - prologue
• San Dimas Stage Race - 1st place GC
• San Dimas Stage Race - stage 1

2010 (Webcor Builders Cycling Team)

• Tour Of New Zealand - stage 4
• Memorial Davide Fardelli
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - prologue

2009 (Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung)

• Gracia-Orlova - stage 3
• Tour de l'Aude - stage 3
• Giro Donne - stage 2
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - prologue

2008 (Flexpoint)

• World Championships - Individual Time Trial
• Tour Cycliste Féminin International Ardèche - 1st place GC
• La Mirada

2007 (Flexpoint)

• La Route de France - 1st place GC, Mountains jersey
• La Route de France - stages 4b and 6
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - 1st place GC
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - prologue

2006 (Buitenpoort - Flexpoint Team)

• Pan-American Games - Individual Time Trial
• Tour de l'Aude - 1st place GC
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - 1st place GC
• Redlands Bicycle Classic - prologue and stage 3

2005 (Buitenpoort - Flexpoint Team)

• Tour de l'Aude - 1st place GC
• Tour de l'Aude - stage 3b

2004 (T-Mobile Professional Cycling Team)

• Giro della Toscana - Memorial Michela Fanini - stage 3a
• Tour of the Gila - 1st place GC
• Tour of the Gila - stage 2

2003 (Team T-Mobile)

• Le Tour du Grand Montréal - 1st place GC
• U.S. National Road Race Championship - 1st place
• Gracia Tour - stage victory

2002 (Cannondale)

• Gracia Cez-Ede (cat. 1) - 1st place GC, Mountains jersey, 1 stage victory

External links

• Amber Neben's official web site

• Amber Neben's team (Dutch language)

• CAS arbitration ruling in Amber Neben case (pdf file)