He joined the professional team, which included English
time trial specialist
Chris Boardman. This team became known as Crédit Agricole from 1999. In the
1998 Tour de France, a race for which he confirmed to doping himself with illicit and proscribed
erythropoietin, he wore the yellow jersey for three days. He also won his first stage. In 2001 he wore the yellow jersey for six days. He was
Australian Cyclist of the Year and
Australian Male Road Cyclist of the Year in 1998 and 2001. In 1998 he finished second in the green jersey classification. On 6 July 2000, he pulled out of the Tour de France after breaking his collarbone in three places with to the finish, he still finished the stage. In 2001, O'Grady had been in contention for the green jersey with
Erik Zabel but he was defeated on the final day. In 2001, he had a narrowing in the iliac
artery. Tests showed his right leg produced more power than his left. After surgery in April 2002, he was again in contention in the
2002 Tour de France. In
2003 and 2004 he was overshadowed in the green jersey competition by fellow Australian sprinters
Baden Cooke (2003) and
Robbie McEwen (2004). O'Grady still managed to win his second Tour de France stage, in 2004. . O'Grady moved to in 2004 to concentrate on races such as
Paris–Roubaix and the
Tour of Flanders. After a start fraught with injuries and
doping allegations in his team, he won two stages and the points classification in the
Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. He won a stage in the
2004 Tour de France and spent a few days in the green jersey. He won the
UCI Road World Cup race,
HEW Cyclassics. He topped his victories by winning an Olympic
gold medal in the
madison cycling with
Graeme Brown. In the 2005 Tour de France, O'Grady came second in the green jersey classification to
Thor Hushovd of Norway, followed by
Robbie McEwen. Late in 2005, he signed a one-year contract with
Bjarne Riis to ride on , now known as Saxo Bank, for 2006. He broke several ribs in an early season race in Italy and a vertebra in the Tour de France. O'Grady continued riding the Tour despite the pain, coming third in the final stage. Early in 2007, O'Grady became the first Australian to win a major classic when he crossed the line first in
Paris–Roubaix. He had a puncture midway but recovered to rejoin the field before arriving alone in the
Roubaix Velodrome. On 15 July 2007, O'Grady was forced to abandon on stage 8 of the
2007 Tour de France, from Le-Grand-Bornand to Tignes, after crashing on a descent, fracturing eight ribs, his right shoulder blade, right collar bone and three vertebrae, and puncturing his right lung. O'Grady crashed into the 2009
Milan–San Remo when another rider came down in front of him, he punctured his lung and suffered a broken right collar bone once again as well as a broken rib. On 8 August 2011, O'Grady announced that he had joined the new Australian team for 2012. He announced his retirement from professional cycling as a competitive rider on 23 July 2013, following the conclusion of the 2013 Tour de France.
Doping On 24 July 2013, O'Grady was named in the
French Senate report detailing
EPO use in the 1998 Tour de France as having returned a sample suspicious for EPO use. He confirmed the same day in an interview with an Australian newspaper that he had taken EPO prior to the 1998 Tour de France, but stated that the arrests around that Tour scared him off doping in the rest of his career. As a result of his doping admission, the
Australian Institute of Sport indefinitely suspended O'Grady from its 'Best of the Best'. O'Grady had been inducted in 2006. ==Personal life==