Francisco Mancebo, the oldest rider to win a pro race, finally retires at 49

When Francisco 'Paco' Mancebo launched his professional career in 1998, the Euro as a currency was only just getting established, Google had just been started as a research project, and social media wasn't even a thing yet. Now, after 27 years, Mancebo is finally bringing his time in the peloton to an end.

Organisers of the Tour de Kyushu posted on X yesterday that the final stage was his last race.

Mancebo, born March 9, 1976, was a promising junior and under-23 rider in the mid-1990s, and impressed enough in his 1997 season with a stage win in the Vuelta Navarra and a top-10 in the espoirs race at the world championships that he was called up from Banesto's development team into the pros in 1998.

In his first professional season, he won the GP Miguel Indurain, beating experienced riders like Stefano Garzelli and Davide Rebellin from a 16-rider breakaway. That was the first of 38 career UCI victories.

The Spanish climber won the best young rider classification in the 2000 Tour de France and finished 9th overall. He landed on the podium of the Vuelta a España in 2004 and was fourth in the Tour de France in 2005.

Mancebo won his first and only Grand Tour stage in 2005 at the Vuelta a España in a summit finish on stage 10, where he out-sprinted Roberto Heras and Denis Menchov, but before he could find any further success, Mancebo was swept up in the Operacíon Puerto doping scandal.

In 2006, Mancebo transferred from Banesto to the French AG2R Prévoyance team and was due to start as their GC leader for the Tour de France. However, the scandal erupted before the opening stage, and Mancebo, suspected to be on Eufemiano Fuentes' list of clients receiving blood boosters like EPO and transfusions, did not start along with other named riders like Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich.

Mancebo, who was never sanctioned in the Operación Puerto case as it dragged on for a decade, signed for Relax-GAM in 2007, but it would be his last season in the major leagues.

Shifting to a lower-key focus, Mancebo continued to race for a variety of Continental teams, doing a stint in the US with Rock Racing in 2009, with whom he won a stage of the Tour of California. He continued with American teams from 2011 to 2013 before joining a long stint of racing in Asia.

For the past seven seasons, Mancebo has raced with the Japanese Matrix Powertag squad, taking a handful of wins until achieving his final victory in January this year, becoming the oldest rider ever to win a UCI road race when he won stage 1 of the 2.2 Tour du Sahel at 48.

Now 49, Mancebo will close out his career two years shy of Davide Rebellin's age of retirement: the Italian, also impacted by a doping scandal, retired after the 2022 Veneto Classic but passed away six weeks later.