Hendrik Gerardus Joseph "Joop" Zoetemelk (; 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.
He finished the Tour in 8th, 5th, 4th (three times) and 2nd (six times) for a total of eleven top 5 finishes which is also a record. 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 2020, he is the oldest men's individual road race world champion.
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.
Early life and career
Zoetemelk was raised in Rijpwetering, the son of Maria and Gerard Zoetemelk. He started working as a carpenter. He became a speed-skater and a regional champion before turning to cycling in 1964. He joined the Swift club in Leiden and made a fast impression, winning youth races in his first season. He rode particularly well as a senior in multi-day races. He won the Tour of Yugoslavia, the Circuit des Mines, three stages and the mountains prize in the Tour of Austria, and the 1969 Tour de l'Avenir. He also won a gold medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City in the 100 km team time-trial with Fedor den Hertog, Jan Krekels and René Pijnen.
Professional career
Zoetemelk turned professional for Briek Schotte's Belgian Mars–Flandria team in 1970. Initially he was riding in support of team leader Roger De Vlaeminck, but the Belgian abandoned the race due to a crash near the end of the first week. Zoetemelk proved to be by far the strongest remaining rider on the team. Of his teammates who finished the race the highest placed was 69th, with the majority of others coming in the range of 80th to 100th place. While he admitted that Eddy Merckx was the strongest rider in the world in that year's Tour de France, and was not challenging him for victory, he managed to finish on the podium in 2nd place and was the only rider to finish within 15:00 of Merckx during his first two Tour victories in 1969 and 1970.
He would wear the yellow jersey for the first time in the 1971 Tour de France, following a stage in which he, Luis Ocaña and Bernard Thévenet were able to drop Merckx for the first time. On stage 10 however, Ocaña stole the show in one of the most memorable attacks in Tour history taking the jersey from Zoetemelk and distancing all of the other favorites. On stage 14 Ocaña and Zoetemelk were involved in one of the most famous crashes in Tour history on the Col de Menté. Zoetemelk managed to survive the impact but Ocaña was seriously injured and had to be taken to the hospital. From that point on Merckx would lead the race and Zoetemelk would finish 2nd for the second consecutive year.
He wore the yellow jersey for the second time after winning the Prologue in the 1973 Tour de France, which took place in his home country of the Netherlands. He also picked up another stage win in that year's edition.
Zoetemelk won Paris–Nice, the Semana Catalana and the Tour de Romandie in 1974. He then had a near-death experience during a violent crash, once again involving Luis Ocaña, except this time Zoetemelk had to be taken to the hospital as he crashed heavily into a car left unattended at the finish of the Midi Libre in Valras-Plage, France. He cracked his skull and came close to dying.