Frank Vandenbroucke, a former winner of the Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Paris-Nice cycling races before his career was marred by a doping scandal, has died of a lung embolism. He was 34.
``An athlete with a brilliant but too short career has left us,'' Laurent De Backer, head of the Belgian cycling federation said on Tuesday.
Vandenbroucke was on holiday in Senegal when he was discovered dead in his room.
Vandenbroucke was always considered a great talent but his potential was hampered by personal problems. In 1998 he won the weeklong Paris-Nice spring race and a year later the oldest and one of the toughest classics on the calendar _ Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
