Baden Cooke (born 12 October 1978) is an Australian professional racing cyclist for UCI ProTour team Orica-GreenEDGE.
Born in Benalla, Victoria, Cooke began competitive cycling at 11. He completed secondary school at Galen College in Wangaratta, Victoria, and was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder.
His professional career began with the Mercury team in 2000, though he found racing in Europe to be more challenging than initially expected. Nevertheless, he adapted. He was more successful during that debut season in Australia and America, where he won stages of the Herald Sun Tour and the Sea Otter Classic, respectively. Having moved to the French team Française des Jeux in 2002, Cooke competed in the Commonwealth Games that year, finishing third behind fellow Australians Stuart O'Grady and Cadel Evans. He also participated in the Tour de France in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. In 2003 he won the sprinters points classification competition green jersey by two points in a tight finish on Stage 20 on the Champs-Élysées with fellow Australian sprinter Robbie McEwen second and O'Grady seventh in the final points classification. In 2004 Cooke came 12th in the competition for the green jersey.
Cooke represented Australia in the road race at the 2004 Summer Olympics along with McEwen, Michael Rogers, O'Grady and Matt White, but did not finish .
Cooke raced 2006 and 2007 for Unibet.com. He joined Barloworld for 2008 but in 2009 moved to Dutch cycling team Vacansoleil. Cooke announced on his website that he will ride for Team Saxo Bank in 2010 - he continued with that team in 2011, before moving to the new GreenEDGE team for the 2012 season.
Read more about Baden Cooke: Cycling Career
Famous quotes containing the word cooke:
“We have found that morals are not, like bacon, to be cured by hanging; nor, like wine, to be improved by sea voyages; nor, like honey, to be preserved in cells.”
—William Cooke Taylor (1800–1849)