Jeroen Johannes Hendrikus Blijlevens (born 29 December 1971) is a retired

road bicycle racer Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common ...

from the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, who was a professional rider from 1994 to 2004. He most recently worked as a

directeur sportif A ''directeur sportif'' ( French for sporting director, although the original French term is often used in English-language media; plural ''directeurs sportifs'') is a person directing a cycling team during a road bicycle racing event. It is se ...

for UCI Women's WorldTeam , 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 Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

s (

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...

Vuelta a España The Vuelta a España (; en, Tour of Spain) is an annual multi-stage bicycle race primarily held in Spain, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. Inspired by the success of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, the r ...

and Giro d'Italia). He won a total number of 74 races in his professional career.

Biography

Blijlevens was born in

Gilze en Rijen Gilze en Rijen () is a municipality in the southern Netherlands. The municipality contains four villages: Rijen, Gilze, Hulten and Molenschot. It is home to the Gilze-Rijen Air Base. Rijen grew in the 19th century due to its leather factories. P ...

North Brabant North Brabant ( nl, Noord-Brabant ; Brabantian: ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the we ...

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 Cees Priem (born 27 October 1950) is a retired Dutch professional road bicycle racer. After his cycling career, Priem became team manager of TVM. He competed in the individual road race and team time trial events at the 1972 Summer Olympics. ...

for . Blijlevens showed good results in his first years, and in 1995 was selected to ride the

, 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

. In 1997, he finished second to

Erik Zabel Erik Zabel (; born 7 July 1970) is a German former professional road bicycle racer who raced most of his career with Telekom. With 152 professional wins and 211 wins in his career, he is considered by some to be one of the greatest German cycl ...

in the sixth stage of the

, 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 Tour or Tours may refer to: Travel * Tourism, travel for pleasure * Tour of duty, a period of time spent in military service * Campus tour, a journey through a college or university's campus * Guided tour, a journey through a location, directed ...

. 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 The general classification in the Giro d'Italia is the most important classification of the Giro d'Italia, which determines who is the overall winner. It is therefore considered more important than secondary classifications as the points classif ...

, after winning the third stage. After the events of 1998, the TVM team was excluded from the

1999 Tour de France The 1999 Tour de France was a multiple stage bicycle race held from 3 to 25 July, and the 86th edition of the Tour de France. It has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong originally won the event, the United States Anti-D ...

. 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 . 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

, and was even disqualified after finishing the last stage for seeking out and assaulting

Bobby Julich Robert Julich ( ), popularly called Bobby Julich, (born on November 18, 1971, in Corpus Christi, Texas) is an American former professional road bicycle racer who last rode for Team CSC in the UCI ProTour racing series. He got his international b ...

. When Polti stopped as a sponsor at the end of the year, Blijlevens signed for 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 . 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 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. In June 2013 he became sports director of the new 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 The Senate (french: Sénat, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly (France), National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. The French Senate is made up of 34 ...

report as one of many cyclists who had tested positive for EPO during retesting of samples from the

1998 Tour de France The 1998 Tour de France was the 85th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race was composed of 21 stages and a prologue. It started on 11 July in Ireland before taking an anti-clockwise route through France to finis ...

, 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 Delta Profronde was a single-day road bicycle race held annually in June in Zeeland, Netherlands. In 2005, the race was organized as a 1.1 event on the UCI Europe Tour. It was previously known as Ronde van Midden-Zeeland and it was an amateur race ...

:1st Trofeo Alcudia :1st Stage 5

:1st Stage 10

;1996 :1st Draai van de Kaai :1st Trofeo Mallorca :1st

Profronde van Heerlen RaboRonde Heerlen or Profronde van Heerlen ( en, Proftour Heerlen) is an elite men's and women's professional road bicycle racing event held annually in Heerlen, Netherlands. It's one of the largest post-Tour de France criteriums with about 50,000 ...

:1st Stage 5

;1997 :1st Hengelo :1st Veenendaal–Veenendaal :1st Profronde van Wateringen :1st Profronde van Surhuisterveen :1st Stage 6

;1998 :1st Woerden :1st Stage 4

::1st Stages 2 & 5 ;1999 :1st

Grand Prix de Denain Grand Prix de Denain is a professional cycle road race held in Denain, France. For 10 years from 2005 the race was organized as a 1.1 event on the UCI Europe Tour The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicycle racing competitions whi ...

:1st Profronde van Pijnacker :1st Trofeo Mallorca :1st

Nokere Koerse Nokere Koerse is a European semi classic single day cycle race held in the Belgian region of Flanders. Since 2005, the race has been organized as a 1.1 event on the UCI Europe Tour. Starting in 2016 it was a 1.HC event. The Nokere Koerse was c ...

:1st

Scheldeprijs The Scheldeprijs is a cycling race in Flanders and the Netherlands which starts in Terneuzen, crosses the Scheldt River, and finishes in Schoten. Until 2018 it was held entirely in Belgium. The event, ranked as a 1.HC race on the UCI Europe Tour, ...

:1st

Profronde van Stiphout Profronde van Stiphout ( en, Proftour of Stiphout), also known as Bavaria Profronde Stiphout due to sponsorship reasons is an elite men's and women's professional road bicycle racing event held annually in Stiphout, Netherlands ) , anthem ...

:1st Dwars door Gendringen :1st Stage 21

: Giro d'Italia ::1st Stages 3 & 7 ;2000 :1st Mijl van Mares ;2003 :1st Ruddervoorde

References

External links

* *
Official Tour de France results for Jeroen Blijlevens
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blijlevens, Jeroen 1971 births Living people Dutch male cyclists Dutch Tour de France stage winners People from Gilze en Rijen Dutch Vuelta a España stage winners Cycling announcers Dutch Giro d'Italia stage winners Cyclists from North Brabant