Lucien Van Impe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**Lucien van Impe**
Personal information
Full name	Lucien van Impe
Nickname	de kleine van Mere
Date of birth	October 20, 1946 (1946-10-20) (age 61)
Country	Belgium
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road and track
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climber
Professional team(s)
1969–1974 1975–1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982-1984 1985 1986 1987	Sonolor Gitane Molteni Lejeune C&A KAS Marc Boston Mavic Metauro Mobil Santini Dormilon Sigma
Major wins
Tour de France, 1 overall, 6 mountain classifications
Infobox last updated on:
April 3, 2008

Lucien van Impe (born 20 October 1946 in Mere, Belgium) was a Flemish cyclist from 1969 to 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.

1 Biography
2 Most important successes
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] 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 forst polka dot jersey as "King of the Mountains" 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 cycling champion Cyrille Guimard, who retired from racing in early 1976, became the 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 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 as a 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 timely, causing him to lose his lead. In that tour, he was also 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 overall and first in the mountain classification. He still won the mountain classification in the Giro d'Italia twice.

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

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

[edit] Most important successes

1971: Mountain classification Tour de France
1972: Stage in Tour de France; Mountain classification Tour de France
1973: Stage in Tour de France
1975: 2 stages in Tour de France; Mountain classification Tour de France
1976: Tour de France; Stage in Tour de France
1977: Stage in Tour de France; Mountain classification Tour de France
1979: Stage in Tour de France
1981: Stage in Tour de France; Mountain classification Tour de France
1982: Mountain classification Giro d'Italia
1983: Stage in Giro d'Italia; Mountain classification Giro d'Italia; Belgian championship on the road; Stage in Tour de France; Mountain classification Tour de France