Joop Zoetemelk

Joop Zoetemelk
Zoetemelk in 1971
Personal information
Full nameHendrik Gerardus Joseph Zoetemelk
Born (1946-12-03) 3 December 1946 (age 77)
The Hague, Netherlands
Height1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight68 kg (150 lb; 10 st 10 lb)
Team information
Current teamRetired
DisciplineRoad
RoleRider
Rider typeAll-round
Professional teams
1970–1972Flandria–Mars
1973–1974Gitane–Frigécrème
1975–1979Gan–Mercier–Hutchinson
1980–1981TI–Raleigh–Creda
1982–1983COOP–Mercier–Mavic
1984–1987Kwantum–Decosol–Yoko
Major wins
Grand Tours
Tour de France
General classification (1980)
Combination classification (1973)
10 individual stages (1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980)
5 TTT stages (1980, 1981, 1983)
Vuelta a España
General classification (1979)
Mountains classification (1971)
3 individual stages (1971, 1979)

Stage Races

Paris–Nice (1974, 1975, 1979)
Tour de Romandie (1974)
Critérium International (1979)
Tirreno–Adriatico (1985)

One-day races and Classics

World Road Race Championships (1985)
National Road Race Championships (1971, 1973)
Amstel Gold Race (1987)
La Flèche Wallonne (1976)
Paris–Tours (1977, 1979)
Medal record
Representing  Netherlands
Men's road bicycle racing
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 1968 Mexico City Team time trial
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 1985 Giavera di Montello Men's road race

Hendrik Gerardus Joseph "Joop" Zoetemelk (pronounced [joːp ˈsutəmɛl(ə)k];[a] born 3 December 1946) is a Dutch former professional racing cyclist. He started and finished the Tour de France 16 times, which were both records when he retired. He also holds the distance record in Tour de France history with 62,885 km ridden. He won the 1979 Vuelta a España and the 1980 Tour de France.

Besides winning the Tour de France he also finished the Tour in 8th, 5th, 4th (three times) and 2nd (six times) place for a total of eleven top 5 finishes which is a record.[1] He was the first rider to wear the Tour de France's polka dot jersey as the King of the Mountains and even though he never won this classification in the Tour de France, he did win it in the 1971 Vuelta a España and was considered one of the best climbers of his generation.

If not for a ten minute time penalty for a doping infraction in 1977, he would have finished in the top 5 in each of the first 12 Tours he entered.

He won the World Professional Road Championship in 1985 at the age of 38, with a late attack surprising the favorites of LeMond, Roche, Argentin and Millar. He completed a total of 16 World Championships which is notable considering more than half the field abandons nearly every World Championship and in addition to his win he has come in the top 10 seven other times. As of 2024, he is the oldest men's individual road race world champion.[2]

His record number of starts in the Tour de France was surpassed when George Hincapie started for the 17th time, but Hincapie was disqualified from three tours in October 2012, for doping offenses, giving the number of starts record back to Zoetemelk. Nobody other than Zoetemelk achieved sixteen Tour de France finishes until Sylvain Chavanel did so in the 2018 Tour de France. Currently, three riders have had more than 16 starts in the Tour de France, but no one has yet exceeded the record of finishing the event 16 times. He retired from the sport to run a hotel at Meaux, France.[3]


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  1. ^ "Joop Zoetemelk dans le Tour de France". Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). mrambaul.club.fr
  2. ^ "Alejandro Valverde is 2nd Oldest Road Male Champion". NBC Sports/Associated Press. 30 September 2018.
  3. ^ Siebelink, Jan (2006) 'Pijn is genot, Thomas Rap (Netherlands), ISBN 90-6005-632-9, p. 93