Pedro Horrillo Cyclist
Pedro Horrillo Muñoz (born September 27, 1974, in Eibar in the Basque region) is a retired Spanish racing cyclist who rode for Rabobank in the UCI ProTour from 2005 to 2009.Before turning professional in 1998, Horrillo was a philosophy student at the University of the Basque Country. Horrillo turned professional with the Vitalicio Seguros team which included notable names such as Óscar Freire and Juan Miguel Mercado who would win three stages between them in the 2006 Tour de France. In 2001 Horrillo joined Freire at Mapei-Quick Step; he would later ride for Quick Step-Davitamon when the Italian company decided not to renew its sponsorship. His biggest win was a stage at the 2004 Paris–Nice race.In 2005, Horrillo won a stage at the 2005 Volta a Catalunya and nearly won a stage at the 2005 Vuelta a España with a late attack until he was caught 200 metres from the line. Horrillo is a self-confessed fan of Paris–Roubaix, describing it as: "If I could only have ridden one race as a pro, that would have been it - and if possible, in the rain because that's the real Roubaix when it rains" (Cycle Sport magazine interview, November 2006 issue).Horrillo is known as a good writer and in recent years has written columns for de Volkskrant during the Tour de France and is a regular contributor to the Spanish newspaper El País. In 2009 he wrote a column concerning the UCI's whereabouts system called El Señor Adams for El País. The English version was entitled Mr Adams.Horrillo experienced a life-threatening crash after falling over a guard rail into a ravine during the eighth stage of the 2009 Giro d'Italia. Paramedics recovered him 60 meters below his bike with fractures to his thigh bones, kneecap, and neck, in addition to a punctured lung. He woke up in the ambulance that was taking him to the hospital, but doctors put him into a chemically induced coma to aid his treatment. The next day, largely in reaction to Horrillo's dramatic injury, the peloton protested the safety conditions in the Giro, which led to Stage 9 being neutralized. He was taken out of the coma the following day, with scans revealing no brain injury, and Rabobank team doctors stating that he was to be moved to a hospital in Spain within eight to ten days. On 22 June, it was announced that Horrillo would leave the Spanish hospital and be able to go home, some five weeks after the crash, but although he recovered from the injuries, he retired without taking part in another race, as he could no longer ride at the same level.Horrillo has a wife named Lorena.
