page_title: Joop Zoetemelk
section_title: Professional career
hierarchical_section_title: Joop Zoetemelk / Professional career
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Joop Zoetemelk lors du tour des Pays-Bas 1979. Nederlands: Collectie / Archief&#160;: Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie&#160;: Profronde van Nederland 1979 Beschrijving&#160;: Joop Zoetemelk Annotatie&#160;: Randnummers negatiefstrook: nr. 10 , 11: Hennie Kuiper Datum&#160;: 18 augustus 1979 Locatie&#160;: Hilvarenbeek, Noord-Brabant Trefwoorden&#160;: portretten, sport, wielrennen Persoonsnaam&#160;: Zoetemelk, Joop Fotograaf&#160;: Dijk, Hans van / Anefo Auteursrechthebbende&#160;: Nationaal Archief Materiaalsoort&#160;: Negatief (zwart/wit) Nummer archiefinventaris&#160;: bekijk toegang 2.24.01.05 Bestanddeelnummer&#160;: 930-4019
context_page_description: Hendrik Gerardus Joseph "Joop" Zoetemelk is a retired professional racing cyclist from the Netherlands. 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, the 1980 Tour de France and also finished 8th, 5th, 4th and 2nd. He was the first rider to wear the Tour de France's Polka Dot Jersey as the King of the Mountains. He also 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 2019, 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.
context_section_description: Zoetemelk turned professional for Briek Schotte's Belgian Mars-Flandria team in 1970. He came second to Eddy Merckx in that year's Tour de France.
  He would wear the Yellow Jersey for the first time in the 1971 Tour de France and for the second time after winning the Prologue in the 1973 Tour de France, while also picking up another Stage win in that years edition.
  Zoetemelk won Paris–Nice, the Semana Catalana and the Tour de Romandie in 1974 and then 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. He returned next season to win Paris–Nice again and then caught meningitis. He never fully recovered and the head injury reduced his sense of taste. He nevertheless won 20 races that season, including Paris–Nice, the Tour of Holland and the Dwars door Lausanne and a stage of the Tour de France. He also came fourth in the Tour de France.
  During the 1975 Tour de France Zoetemelk won stage 15 and finished strongly overall, placing behind only Bernard Thevenet, Eddy Merckx and Lucien Van Impe in a Tour where the next closest contenders were close to 20:00 or more behind the winner. In the 1976 Tour de France he won stage 9 up Alp d’Huez by :03 in a hard fought climb where he and Van Impe dropped all other riders and were alone crossing the finish. In stage 10 Zoetemelk once again won the stage, this time beating Van Impe and Thevenet by just one second, in the process coming within just seven seconds of the Yellow Jersey. On stage 14 however, Van Impe attacked and for all intents and purposes won the tour. Zoetemelk would win again on Stage 20 but he remained more than 4:00 behind Van Impe as every other rider was more than 12:00 back. 
  In the 1977 Tour de France he would have the worst Tour placing of his career up to that point, which was partially because he was penalized ten minutes and had a stage win revoked. He still finished in the Top 10 overall.
  During the 1978 Tour de France he won stage 14 and took the Yellow Jersey on Alp d’Huez, which he would hold for 6 stages before losing it on the final ITT to Bernard Hinault. In the 1979 Tour de France he survived the ‘'hell of the north” cobbles of Roubaix on Stage 9, which is a notorious stage where several riders can get multiple flat tires and there are always many crashes. Zoetemelk survived with four other riders in the winning group, won 3:45 over the next finishers and moved into the yellow jersey, which he would hold for 6 stages. Following the stage 11 time trial it was a two way battle between him and Hinault and it was possible that he would win the Vuelta-Tour Double. In the end Hinault would take the lead and he and Zoetemelk finished nearly a half hour ahead of the rest of the field as Zoetemelk refused to give up and attacked on the final stage into Paris. It was not enough to break Hinault however as he took 2nd place on the podium for the 5th time.
  The following year he was riding with a new team in TI-Raleigh, who was one of the strongest cycling teams in the world and they grew even stronger after signing Zoetemelk. At one point in this Tour TI-Raleigh won seven stages in a row, one of which was an ITT won by Zoetemelk where he gained 1:39 on Hinault and pulled within 0:21 of the overall lead prior to the first stages in the high mountains. Hinault withdrew and Zoetemelk remained the strongest rider in the Tour despite suffering a violent crash on Stage 16 which cut his arm and leg open. He would also claim another stage win during the final ITT winning the 1980 Tour de France by nearly 7:00 over Hennie Kuiper and Raymond Martin.
  In 1981 he would finish 4th overall and he would finish 2nd for the 6th and final time during the 1982 Tour de France. While he was in his late 30s during his final Tours between 1982-1986 and was no longer a pre-race favorite he still remained the strongest GC general classification rider on his team and always had a respectable placing in the overall standings. Including in his final Tour, which he rode wearing the Rainbow Jersey as rei
caption: Zoetemelk in 1979
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