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Lucien Van Impe

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Lucien Van Impe
Personal information
Full nameLucien Van Impe
Nicknamede kleine van Mere
Born (1946-10-20) 20 October 1946 (age 78)
Mere, East Flanders, Belgium
Team information
Current teamRetired
DisciplineRoad and track
RoleRider
Rider typeClimber
Professional teams
1969–1974Sonolor
1975–1976Gitane
1977Lejeune
1978C&A
1979KAS
1980Marc
1981Boston Mavic
1982-1984Metauro Mobil
1985Santini
1986Dormilon
1987Sigma
Major wins
Grand Tours
Tour de France
General Classification
(1976)
Mountains Classification
(1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1983)
9 Individual Stages
Giro d'Italia
Mountains Classification
(1982, 1983)
1 Individual Stage
Vuelta a España
1 Individual Stage

One-day races and Classics

National Road Race Champion (1983)

Lucien Van Impe (pronounced [lɵsˈjɛn vɑn ˈɪmpə]; born 20 October 1946) is a Belgian cyclist, who competed professionally between 1969 and 1987. He excelled mainly as a climber in multiple-day races such as the Tour de France. He was the winner of the 1976 Tour de France, and six times winner of the mountains classification in the Tour de France.

Biography

Van Impe credits the start of his career to Spaniard Federico Bahamontes, a climber nicknamed the eagle of Toledo and a former Tour de France winner. In 1968 van Impe was King of the Mountains in the Tour de l'Avenir. Bahamontes used his influence to get van Impe a contract as a professional. In 1969, Van Impe started his professional career with a 12th place in the 1969 Tour de France. In 1971, Van Impe won his first Mountains classification in the Tour de France. He would repeat that five more times,[1] a record then shared with Bahamontes. When Richard Virenque broke the record with a seventh victory in 2004, Van Impe criticized Virenque for being opportunistic rather than the best climber; he said he had himself refrained from breaking Bahamontes' record himself out of reverence.

Van Impe's Sonolor team fused with Gitane to become Gitane-Campagnolo in 1975. Former French champion Cyrille Guimard, who retired in early 1976, became directeur sportif in 1976. In that year van Impe duelled several times with Zoetemelk in the mountains of the 1976 Tour de France. Guimard claims it was his order to attack Zoetemelk that won van Impe the Tour, shouting at van Impe that he'd run him off the road with the car if he didn't attack.[2] Van Impe has denied this. After 1976, van Impe changed teams. In the 1977 Tour de France he started favorite but failed to take a lead in the mountains. He waited until the last mountain stage, to Alpe d'Huez, but forgot to eat, causing him to lose his lead. In that tour, he was caught by one of the accompanying cars and fell, another cause for his defeat by Bernard Thévenet.

After three lesser years, Van Impe made a comeback in 1981 with second place and first in the mountain classification. He won the mountain classification in the Giro d'Italia twice.

Single-day races were not his specialty and it was a surprise that he won the national championship in 1983.

Van Impe started 15 Tours de France and reached the finish in Paris every time (second most Tour finishes after Joop Zoetemelk, and tied with Viatcheslav Ekimov who did the same in 2006).[3]

He is now head of a cycling team of professional riders, called You have called {{Contentious topics}}. You probably meant to call one of these templates instead:

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Editnotices

Talk page notices

Miscellaneous

Lucien Van Impe lives in Impe (his family name refers to that place) with his wife Rita, he has two grown up children, a son and a daughter. His house is called Alpe D'Huez, after the French mountain where he took the yellow jersey (the leader in the Tour de France) in 1976. When he came home that year, the bar where his supporters gathered every day to watch him win the Tour, was painted yellow entirely.

During or after his professional career, Van Impe has never tested positive, refused a doping test or confessed having used doping.[4]

Career achievements

Major results

1968
1st Stage 8 Tour de l'Avenir
1969
1st Overall Vuelta Ciclista a Navarra
1st Stage 6 Tour of Belgium
1971
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Mountains classification
1972
4th Overall Tour de France
1st Mountains classification
1st Stage 12
1973
5th Overall Tour de France
1st Stage 12b
2nd Overall Tour de Romandie
1st Stage 3
1st Stage 3 GP du Midi-Libre
1975
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Mountains classification
1st Stage 14
1st Stage 18
1st Overall Tour de l'Aude
1st Stage 1
1st Stage 3
1976
1st Overall Tour de France
1st Stage 14
2nd Overall GP du Midi-Libre
1st Stage 4b
1st Stage 2b Tour de l'Aude
1977
3rd Overall Tour de France
1st Mountains classification
1st Stage 15b
3rd Overall Critérium du Dauphiné
1st Stage 6
2nd Overall Tour de Suisse
1st Stage 7
1st Stage 8
1979
5th Overall Vuelta a España
1st Stage 15
1st Stage 16 Tour de France
1st Stage 7b Volta Ciclista a Catalunya
1981
2nd Overall Tour de France
1st Mountains classification
1st Stage 5
1982
2nd Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Mountains classification
1983
1st National Road Race Champion
4th Overall Tour de France
1st Mountains classification
1st Stage 19
9th Overall Giro d'Italia
1st Mountains classification
1st Stage 11
1986
1st Overall Vuelta a los Valles Mineros
1st Stage 1

Grand Tour results timeline

1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986
Tour 12 6 3 4 5 18 3 1 3 9 11 16 2 DNE 4 DNE 27 DNE
Stages won 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 1 0 1 — 1 — 0 —
Mountains classification 12 4 1 1 5 12 1 2 1 10 5 8 1 — 1 — NR —
Points classification NR NR 9 9 8 NR 10 9 10 NR 6 NR 17 — NR — NR —
Giro DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE 4 9 7 13 DNE
Stages won — — — — — — — — — — — — — 0 1 0 0 —
Mountains classification — — — — — — — — — — — — — 1 1 12 NR —
Points classification — — — — — — — — — — — — — 7 NR NR NR —
Vuelta DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE 14 DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE 11
Stages won — — — — — — — — — — 1 — — — — — — 0
Mountains classification — — — — — — — — — — NR — — — — — — NR
Points classification — — — — — — — — — — 8 — — — — — — NR
Legend
1 Winner
2–3 Top three-finish
4–10 Top ten-finish
11– Other finish
DNE Did not enter
DNF-x Did not finish (retired on stage x)
DNS-x Did not start (not started on stage x)
HD Finished outside time limit (occurred on stage x)
DSQ Disqualified
N/A Race/classification not held
NR Not ranked in this classification

Notes

  1. ^ "Past results for Lucien VAN IMPE (BEL)". letour.fr.
  2. ^ [1] Archived 25 August 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Historical results - Tour de France". Cycling hall of fame.
  4. ^ Randewijk, Marije (7 July 2007). "Ik zal toch niet de enige zijn?" (in Dutch). de Volkskrant.


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