Phil Anderson (March 20, 1958 - ) is an Australian cyclist holding the unique honour of being the first non-European cyclist to wear the Yellow jersey (Maillot jaune) of the Tour de France.

Born Philip Grant Anderson on March 20, 1958 in London. He grew up in the suburb of Kew in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, graduating from Trinity Grammar School in 1975.

Cycling Career

Won the Gold Medal in the 1978 Commonwealth Games Road Race in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

His professional cycling career began in 1980 and lasted for fifteen years, retiring at the end of the 1994 season. He had over 90 professional victories in his career. During that time he raced with the following teams:

• 1980 - 1983: Peugeot - France
• 1984 - 1987: Panasonic - The Netherlands
• 1988 - 1990: TVM - The Netherlands
• 1991 - 1994: Motorola - USA

For 1984-1985 he was #1 UCI world ranked cyclist. In 1987 he was awarded the Order of Australia for service to cycling. In 2001 he received a Centenary Medal for service to Australian society through the sport of cycling.

Tour de France

As of 2005, Phil Anderson is the highest Australian finisher in the overall race classifications, coming fifth in 1982 and again in 1985. In 1981 he first wore the race leaders yellow jersey, the first for a non-european cyclist. He again donned the yellow jersey in 1982 for 9 days. He was also awarded the white jersey as best young (under 25) rider in 1982.

In his early years on the tour, as the sole Australian, he was nicknamed Skippy, after the kangaroo character in the Australian children's television series (1966-68), Skippy the Bush Kangaroo . Coming from Australia, the young Phil Anderson faced a big challenge "It was a big change; I'd never lived out of home before, so that was a big difference, and then there's the length of the races; you know all of a sudden you're riding 200 kilometres a day instead of back here you'd be racing 80 or 100 kilometres a day; huge fields, you turn up at a race and you'd have 200 riders, 250 riders." he told a reporter for The Sports Factor radio program on the ABC in 1999.

There was strong motivation for Anderson to perform well "It's difficult because I was on a French team, and I felt that the French riders got priority, and I had to go a bit deeper or had to be a little better than some of my colleagues on the team. But that hardened me, and put pressure on me, and I think became part of my make-up in the end."

Anderson described what it meant to win the yellow jersey for the first time in 1981:

"It happened in the Pyrenees. This was my first Tour de France. I didn't have aspirations of becoming the wearer of the yellow jersey or anything like that. I was given my instructions and I was supposed to look after a rider on my team, the team leader, a Frenchman, and I forgot my instructions and just sort of went in to survival mode over a number of mountain passes, just staying up with some of the top riders, and before I knew it, my team director came up beside me in his car and told me, 'Listen, what happened to your leader, the guy that you've been instructed to watch today?' you know. And to help if he has any troubles, or just pace him back if he's having some troubles. And I said, 'Oh gee, that's right. Where is he?' And he said, 'he's five or ten minutes back, in the next group.' I said, 'No worries I'll wait up for him.' He said, 'No, no, stay up here, you're doing OK, just stay out of trouble and try and hang on as long as possible.' "

"So hang on I did, and whistled down the next mountain and got to the last climb and I stayed up with Bernard Hinault; there was one rider, a Belgian rider, Lucien van Impe rode away, an excellent climber, he rode away and so we came in a couple of minutes later, but I had enough time from some good days previously, that I climbed into the yellow jersey, and I had no idea of what the sort of yellow jersey represented, because I mean there's so much history to it, and for me it was just like, 'Oh yes, great, I don't have to wash my old jersey tonight, you know, get a new one'. But really, you're sort of at the highest level of the sport."

Anderson won two stages of the Tour de France in his career: Stage 2: Bâle – Nancy in 1982, and Stage 10: Rennes – Quimper in 1991. Tour de France placings and awards include:

• 1981: 10th overall, First non-euopean cyclist to wear the race leaders Yellow jersey
• 1982: 1st (Stage 2), 5th overall, yellow jersey for 9 days, awarded white jersey as best young rider
• 1983: 9th overall
• 1984: 10th overall
• 1985: 5th overall
• 1986: 39th overall
• 1987: 27th overall
• 1989: 38th overall
• 1990: 71st overall
• 1991: 1st (Stage 10), 45th overall
• 1992: 81st overall
• 1993: 6th (Stages 7 + 20), 84th overall
• 1994: 4th (Stage 20), 69th overall

Career Highlights

Some notable career highlights include:

• 1981: First non-euopean cyclist to wear the Tour de France race leaders Yellow jersey
• 1982: Tour de France 1 stage, yellow jersey for 9 days, awarded white jersey
• 1983: 1st Amstel Gold , 2nd Tour de Romandie , 3rd Liège-Bastogne-Liège
• 1984: 1st Meisterschaft von Zurich, 1st Grand Prix of Frankfurt, 1st Catalan Week, 2nd Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 3rd Super Prestige Pernod
• 1985: 1st Dauphiné Libéré, 1st Tour de Suisse , 1st Grand Prix of Frankfurt, 1st GP E3 Harelbeke, 2nd Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2nd Ghent-Wevelgem, 2nd Super Prestige Pernod
• 1986: 1st Paris-Tours , 3rd Giro di Lombardia
• 1987: 1st Milano-Torino
• 1988: 1st Tour of Denmark, 2nd Ronde van Vlaanderen,
• 1989: 1st Tour de Romandie , 3rd Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Giro d'Italia 1 stage
• 1990: 1st Inter-Giro Classification
• 1991: 1st Tour of Britain, 1st Semaine Cycliste Intl., 1st Tour Mediterranean , 1st Tour DuPont, 1st Criterium Holland
• 1992: 1st Tour of Ireland
• 1993: 1st Tour of Britain, 1st G.P. Impanis, 1st Tour of Sweden

External Links

• Official website
• Sports Factor 1999 Interview