Chavez commits to Australian cycling team

Colombian Esteban Chavez has re-signed with Orica-BikeExchange, only days after his historic Tour of Lombardy win.

Colombian star Esteban Chavez has capped his outstanding season by signing a three-year contract extension with Australian cycling team Orica-BikeExchange.

It means the 26-year-old will stay with Orica-Bike-Exchange until at least the end of the 2019 season.

On Saturday, Chavez won the Tour of Lombardy for the first time.

It means Orica-BikeExchange have taken out four of cycling's five "monuments", or most-prestigious one-day classics.

Along with Lombardy, the team have also won Milan-SanRemo, Paris-Roubaix and Liege-Bastogne-Liege since their 2012 formation, with only the Tour of Flanders so far eluding them.

Chavez is the first non-European to win Lombardy and the first Colombian to claim a monument.

Also this year, Chavez finished runner-up in the Giro d'Italia and third overall in the Vuelta a Espana.

Those results confirmed Chavez as a potential Grand Tour winner.

Chavez's smiling and humble nature has also made him a big hit with cycling fans.

"I am super happy here and it is like one family," Chavez said in a team statement.

"I never think to stay here for a couple of years and then look somewhere else, because I am 100 per cent happy here.

"I want to stay here with the people who gave me the opportunity when no one else gave me the opportunity or believed in me."

Chavez joined the team two years ago and has become their biggest star.


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Source: AAP



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