Joop Zoetemelk

Joop Zoetemelk

Zoetemelk in 1971
Personal information
Full name	Hendrik Gerardus Joseph Zoetemelk
Born	(1946-12-03) 3 December 1946 (age 77) The Hague, Netherlands
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	68 kg (150 lb; 10 st 10 lb)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-round
Professional teams
1970–1972	Flandria–Mars
1973–1974	Gitane–Frigécrème
1975–1979	Gan–Mercier–Hutchinson
1980–1981	TI–Raleigh–Creda
1982–1983	COOP–Mercier–Mavic
1984–1987	Kwantum–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 1968 Mexico City Team time trial World Championships 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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