# Jeroen Blijlevens

Jeroen Johannes Hendrikus Blijlevens (born 29 December 1971) is a retired road bicycle racer from the Netherlands, who was a professional rider from 1994 to 2004. He most recently worked as a directeur sportif for UCI Women's WorldTeam CCC Liv, and has also worked as a cycling co-commentator at Eurosport Netherlands.
Nicknamed Jerommeke, he was one of Holland's leading sprinters in the 1990s, claiming a total of 11 stage victories across the three Grand Tours (Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia). He won a total number of 74 races in his professional career.

## Biography

Blijlevens was born in Gilze en Rijen, North Brabant in 1971, as a son of a shoe sales man. In 1990, he won his first race as an amateur. He scored nineteen victories as an amateur, and at the end of 1993 was signed by Cees Priem for TVM–Bison Kit. Blijlevens showed good results in his first years, and in 1995 was selected to ride the Tour de France, where he won the fifth stage. Blijlevens, not a good climber, left the race before the Alps.
In 1996, Blijlevens again won a stage in the Tour de France. In 1997, he finished second to Erik Zabel in the sixth stage of the Tour de France, but when the jury disqualified Zabel for irregular sprinting, the victory was given to Blijlevens. In 1998 Blijlevens won the fourth stage of the Tour. That Tour was full of doping allegations, also towards the TVM team, and as soon as the race had passed the French-Swiss border, Blijlevens left the race, as a protest against the treatments by the French police.
In 1999, Blijlevens wore the pink jersey as leader of the general classification in the Giro d'Italia, after winning the third stage. After the events of 1998, the TVM team was excluded from the 1999 Tour de France. The cyclists of TVM started a legal procedure to force the Tour organisers to invite them, but failed. At the end of that year, Blijlevens left TVM for Team Polti.
In 2000, Blijlevens invested in his climbing-abilities, but this did not work out as planned, and Blijlevens was not as successful as before. He failed to win a stage in the Tour de France, and was even disqualified after finishing the last stage for seeking out and assaulting Bobby Julich. When Polti stopped as a sponsor at the end of the year, Blijlevens signed for Lotto–Adecco for 2001.
In 2001, Blijlevens rode the Giro d'Italia, where the Italian police raided his team's hotel, but no forbidden products were found. As a protest against this treatment, the cyclists refused to start the eighteenth stage.
At the end of 2001, Blijlevens could not find a new team, and made plans to ride as an amateur again, but finally he signed a contract for one year at Domo–Farm Frites. Blijlevens rode for a low base salary, with bonuses for victories. After a year full of injuries, Blijlevens was not given a contract for 2003, and switched to the BankGiroLoterij–Batavus team.
After his retirement at the end of 2004, Blijlevens made plans to break the speed record on a bicycle, but failed to do so.

### Doping

In June 2013 he became sports director of the new Blanco Pro Cycling team, and as part of a Dutch nationwide doping inquiry signed a statement saying he had never used doping. In July he was named in a French Senate report as one of many cyclists who had tested positive for EPO during retesting of samples from the 1998 Tour de France, Blijlevens then confessed that he had used EPO since 1997, and that he had lied in the investigation because he wanted to keep his job.

## Major results
### 1992

    1st PWZ Zuidenveld Tour

### 1993

    1st GP de Lillers

### 1995

    1st Draai van de Kaai
    1st Profronde van Pijnacker
    1st Ronde van Midden-Zeeland
    1st Trofeo Alcudia
    1st Stage 5 Tour de France
    1st Stage 10 Vuelta a España

### 1996

    1st Draai van de Kaai
    1st Trofeo Mallorca
    1st Profronde van Heerlen
    1st Stage 5 Tour de France
    1st Stage 5 Vuelta a España

### 1997

    1st Hengelo
    1st Veenendaal–Veenendaal
    1st Profronde van Wateringen
    1st Profronde van Surhuisterveen
    1st Stage 6 Tour de France

### 1998

    1st Woerden
    1st Stage 4 Tour de France
    Vuelta a España
       1st Stages 2 & 5

### 1999

    1st Grand Prix de Denain
    1st Profronde van Pijnacker
    1st Trofeo Mallorca
    1st Nokere Koerse
    1st Scheldeprijs
    1st Profronde van Stiphout
    1st Dwars door Gendringen
    1st Stage 21 Vuelta a España
    Giro d'Italia
       1st Stages 3 & 7

### 2000

    1st Mijl van Mares

### 2003

    1st Ruddervoorde