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Alessandro Ballan is a professional cyclist from Italy who was born November 6, 1979. Ballan finished the 2006 season ranked number 6 on the UCI ProTour.
Alessandro Ballan (born November 6, 1979 in Castelfranco Veneto, Veneto) is an Italian professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTour team Lampre-Fondital. Although he possesses a frame that is usually more associated with climbing, Ballan has established himself as a leading spring classics contender in recent years. His nickname, Bontempino, is a diminutive reference to Guido Bontempi, to whom he bears a resemblance.
Ballan turned professional in 2004 with the Lampre team. Despite a decent amateur career, Ballan was not sought after by professional teams, and required a little bit of helps to secure a professional contract. In his first season, Ballan worked as a domestique for Romans Vainsteins and Gianluca Bortolami. In 2005, Ballan was given the opportunity to aim for high placings in the spring classics and achieved a stage victory and second overall in the Three Days of De Panne, along with sixth place in the Ronde van Vlaanderen, having attacked the leading group with 37km to go. Later in the season, he achieved his first and so far only ProTour victory in taking stage 4 of the Eneco Tour of Benelux.
In 2006, Ballan started his spring classics campaign as a highly rated contender, given his performances in 2005 and his success in the warm-up races in winning the Trofeo Laigueglia, a second place to Tom Boonen in the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen and third overall at the Tirreno-Adriatico. Ballan was a leading protagonist in the classics: he took fifth at the Ronde van Vlaanderen and followed this with third at Paris-Roubaix, following the disqualifications of Peter Van Petegem, Vladimir Gusev and Leif Hoste. Later in the season, Ballan further proved his talent with a second placing in stage 12 of the Tour de France and a third place overall in the Tour of Poland. Ballan finished in sixth place in the individual rankings of the 2006 UCI ProTour.
