Marc Wauters

Marc Wauters (born 23 February 1969 in Hasselt, Belgium) is a former Belgian cyclist who was professional from 1991 until 2006. The 2004 Olympian, nicknamed The Soldier was a member of the Rabobank cycling team of the UCI ProTour since 1998 and had to end his career several weeks short because of a broken collarbone which he suffered during a training on 20 September 2006.

Wauters participated at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens where he took part in both the road race and the time trial without any success. In his early career, between 1991 and 1996 he won several of the smaller road races in The Netherlands and Belgium he was cycling in. The only exception to this was his win in the 5th stage of the 1995 Vuelta a Andalucía.

In 1997 and 1998 Wauters didn't win a single race, although he became 7th at the World Cycling Championships 1998, his highest position in this event during his career. From 1999 on after winning the GP Eddy Merckx he started achieving wins again. In this year he also won Paris–Tours, 2 stages in the Tour de Luxembourg plus the overall ranking and the overall classification in the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt. Trying to defend his title in Rheinland-Pfalz he won 3rd stage in 2000. At the end of the tour he had defended his title successively. He won the GP Eddy Merckx for the second time in his career in 2001. His Tour de France stage win in the same year turned out to be his last win in his career outside of Belgium. Wauters was known as a worker in the peloton and didn't win much, but helped his team mates achieving decent results. Meanwhile he developed himself into one of Belgium's best time trial specialists, winning the Belgium championships in 2002, 2003 and 2005. At the 2004 World Championships he finished on a 7th position.

On 15 October 2006 a memorial race was held in Zolder, Belgium to wave Wauters officially goodbye from the sport.