Johannes Adrianus "Jan" Janssen (; born 19 May 1940) is a Dutch former professional cyclist (1962–1972). He was

world champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

and winner of the

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 ...

and the

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 ...

, the first Dutch rider to win either. He rode the Tour de France eight times and finished all but the first time. He won seven stages and wore the yellow jersey for two days (after stage 16 in

1966 Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo ...

and after stage 22B in

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * J ...

). He was easily spotted in the peloton because of his blond hair and his glasses.

Early life

Janssen was born at

Nootdorp Nootdorp () is a small town in the Dutch province of South Holland. It is bordered by Zoetermeer to the north, by The Hague (specifically Leidschenveen-Ypenburg) to the west, by Delfgauw to the south and by Pijnacker to the east. Nootdorp was a ...

, a small town near

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

and

Delft Delft () is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, and The Hague, to the northwest. Together with them, it is part of both the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolita ...

, just five days after the Netherlands surrendered to the Nazis. He later moved to

Putte Putte () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality includes the towns of Putte, Beerzel, and the hamlets and . The town of Putte is around east of Mechelen. In 2021, Putte had a total population of 18,109. ...

, a village on the

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

border between

Roosendaal Roosendaal () is both a city and a municipality in the southern Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant. Towns/villages of the municipality * Roosendaal (population: 66,760) * Wouw (4,920) * Heerle (1,900) * Nispen (1,440) * Wouwse P ...

and

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. He worked with his parents as a youth, digging the heavy ground of the western Netherlands to excavate foundations for the buildings the family firm erected. He joined the cycling club at Delft when he was 16 and as a novice won 25 races in two years."The world pro champion remembers Bill and Ben", Sporting Cyclist, 1964

Career

Janssen turned professional after an amateur career in which he won several Dutch classics and rode for 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 ...

in the

Tour de l'Avenir Tour de l'Avenir ( en, Tour of the Future) is a French road bicycle racing stage race, which started in 1961 as a race similar to the Tour de France and over much of the same course but for amateurs and for semi-professionals known as independen ...

, which was then open to amateurs and to independents, or semi-professionals. Janssen rode for

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

teams and is especially associated with Pelforth-BP, sponsored by a

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer ...

and an

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

company. His talent, authority, and command of French quickly established him as the team leader. At first he had a reputation as a sprinter but he quickly developed into a rider of multi-day races. He competed in the individual road race at the

1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics ( it, Giochi Olimpici estivi del 1960), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad ( it, Giochi della XVII Olimpiade) and commonly known as Rome 1960 ( it, Roma 1960), were an international multi-sport event held ...

. He rode his first Tour de France in 1963, when he won a stage, but a crash forced him to retire. In 1964 he won

Paris–Nice Paris–Nice is a professional cycling stage race in France, held annually since 1933. Raced over eight days, the race usually starts with a prologue in the Paris region and ends with a final stage either in Nice or on the Col d'Èze overlooki ...

, then two stages and the green jersey of points leader in the Tour. Later that year he became

Sallanches Sallanches (; frp, Salenches) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department of France. Located close to the Mont Blanc massif, many visitors pass through the town en route to well-known alpine resorts such as Chamonix, Megève and Saint-Gervais-le ...

, in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. He wore the green jersey again in the Tour of 1965 and in 1966 came close to winning overall. But it was finally in 1968 that he became the first Dutchman to win the Tour de France, beating the

Herman Van Springel Herman Vanspringel (14 August 1943 – 25 August 2022), also spelled Herman Van Springel, was a Belgian road racing cyclist, from Grobbendonk, in the Flemish Campine or Kempen region. He achieved podium finishes in all three of the grand tour ...

, by 38 seconds. That remained the smallest winning margin until 1989, when Greg LeMond won by only eight seconds ahead of Laurent Fignon. Janssen had not worn the yellow jersey as leader of the

general classification The general classification (or the GC) in road bicycle racing is the category that tracks overall times for riders in multi-stage races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest cumulat ...

in 1968 until he reached

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

at the end of the final stage, an individual time-trial. The Tour in 1968 was, like the previous year, for national teams rather than trade teams. The organisers resolved to "experiment" with national teams in a measure widely interpreted as revenge by the organiser,

Félix Lévitan Félix Lévitan (12 October 1911 in Paris – 18 February 2007 in Cannes), a sports journalist, was the third organiser of the Tour de France, a role he shared for much of the time with Jacques Goddet. Lévitan is credited with looking after ...

, on sponsors he thought had provoked a strike against drug tests the previous year. Putting into one team riders who the rest of the year rode for rival sponsors proved a problem and internal rivalries were said to divide the Dutch team more than most. Janssen had to overcome these internal problems to win. His victory in the orange jersey of the

rather than the blue, yellow and white of the

Pelforth Heineken N.V. is a Dutch brewer which owns a worldwide portfolio of over 170 beer brands, mainly pale lager, though some other beer styles are produced. The two largest brands are Heineken and Tecate; though the portfolio includes Amstel, F ...

team made his first win for the Netherlands all the more popular at home.

Retirement

He retired from racing, he says, after being left behind in the Tour of Luxembourg and being ashamed to hear his name listed on the race radio service among other also-rans."There are no more hungry riders – says Janssen", Cycling, 8 February 1990 "I knew then that I was Jan Janssen, winner of the Tour de France and the championship of the world and that it was time for me to stop", he says. He left the peloton to run a bicycle frame-building business in the south-western village of

, which is divided by the border with Belgium. That company still bears his name today. His neighbours there included another world champion,

Hennie Kuiper Hendrikus Andreas "Hennie" Kuiper (born 3 February 1949) is a Dutch former professional road racing cyclist. His career includes a gold medal in the Olympic road race at Munich in 1972, becoming world professional road race champion in 1975, a ...

. Janssen continued to ride his bike in retirement as a member of the Zuid-West Hoek club. He continues to make personal appearances along with other Dutch riders of his era. He said he enjoyed being recognised while on training rides.

Personality

The Dutch race organiser Charles Ruys, who called Janssen a businesslike, honest and straightforward man, said: :Anybody who tries to do something unpleasant to Jan, may it be in a race or a matter of money, has a very tough opponent. Like most successful bikies, Jan knows the value of money. So much so that he gives the impression that he is our Minister of Finance. A bit of insight into his personality, showing the respect and compassion he showed for his fellow riders, can be gathered from a 2007 interview regarding the feisty British rider Tom Simpson. (See the

Death of Tom Simpson Tom Simpson (30 November 1937 – 13 July 1967) was a British professional cyclist, one of Britain's most successful of all time. At the time of the 1967 Tour de France, he was the undisputed leader of the British team. In the 13th stage o ...

): :"Occasionally Tommy could be annoying. When it was rolling along at 30kmh and - paf!… he’d attack. Oh leave us alone! There's still 150km to go pipe down. But often, he wanted war.” Janssen went on to say, “Even in the feed zones. It's not the law, but it's not polite. Musettes (lunch bags) were up in the air there was panic and crashes. It was Simpson acting like a jerk. It didn't happen often. Occasionally I was angry at him. I’d say to him in his native English: You fucking cunt... There were often many teams, five or six, in the same hotel together every evening. Each had their own table. And at a certain moment, Tommy walked into the restaurant like a gentleman, with a cane, bowler hat and in costume… He was like a Lord in England and the rest of us were in tracksuits. Everyone saw that, laughed, and the things he had done during the race were forgotten.”

Views of modern racing

Janssen spent most of his career with a French sponsor, profiting from the higher rate that the French franc enjoyed then against the guilder. But since then things have changed, he said. :We had to be good all the time, from the first of February until the end of October. Because it was my duty to make the most of my sponsor's name, to get publicity. And if you had an off-day, well, you were letting your sponsors down. Now the whole sponsorship of sport has taken off. It has become so interesting to a company, because a company that wants to get its name known, you can buy a good team, with good management, good public relations, and you can get all the big names. I think, too, that the motivation has changed with the professionals as well. You get riders like

Steven Rooks Steven Rooks (born 7 August 1960) is a former Dutch professional road racing cyclist known for his climbing ability. His professional career ran from 1982–1995. Career In the 1988 Tour de France, Rooks finished second and won a finish on ...

and

Gert-Jan Theunisse Gert-Jan Theunisse (born 14 January 1963) is a Dutch former road bicycle racer. He won the 1988 edition of the Clásica San Sebastián one-day race. In the 1989 Tour de France, he won the King of the Mountains competition. Biography Theunisse ...

saying that after the Tour they are stopping at home because they can't be bothered with

criterium A criterium, or crit, is a bike race consisting of several laps around a closed circuit, the length of each lap or circuit ranging from about 400 m to 10,000 m. Overview Race length can be determined by a number of laps or total time ...

s, and that's not attractive for the public."There are no more hungry riders" – says Janssen, Cycling, 8 February 1990

Career achievements

Major results

;1961 : 1st Stage 13

;1962 : 1st

Züri-Metzgete Züri-Metzgete (Zürich German; en, Championship of Zürich; german: Meisterschaft von Zürich) was a European Classic cycle race held annually in Zürich, Switzerland, and continued as a non-professional mass participation event from 2007 unt ...

: 3rd Overall

::1st Stage 1, 4 & 7 : 3rd Overall

Olympia's Tour The Olympia's Tour is a cycling stage race held in the Netherlands. History A.S.C. Olympia was founded in Amsterdam on 27 November 1898. It ran one-day races but wanted a race through all the Netherlands. The first Olympia's Tour was in 1909, ...

::1st Stage 4 ;1963 : 1st Stage 2b ( TTT)

: 1st Stage 7

: 2nd Overall

Grand Prix du Midi Libre The Grand Prix du Midi Libre (referred to as just Midi Libre) was a multiple-stage road cycling course in the south of France. The race, named after the newspaper that organized it, was first organized in 1949 and was an important preparation co ...

::1st Stage 3 & 5 ;1964 : 1st Jersey rainbow

UCI World Road Race Championships :

::1st

Points classification The points classification is a secondary award category in road bicycle racing. Points are given for high finishes and, in some cases, for winning sprints at certain places along the route, most often called ''intermediate sprints''. The points cl ...

::1st Stage 7 & 10a : 1st Jersey white

Overall

;1965 : 1st Jersey green

::1st Stage 12 : 1st Overall

Ronde van Nederland The Tour of the Netherlands ''(Dutch: Ronde van Nederland)'' was a road bicycle racing stage-race in the Netherlands, founded in 1948. It's an annual race since 1975. Because of the start of the UCI ProTour in 2005, it was replaced by the Eneco ...

::1st Stage 3 : 1st Stage 7a

Critérium du Dauphiné The Critérium du Dauphiné, before 2010 known as the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, is an annual cycling road race in the Dauphiné region in the southeast of France. The race is run over eight days during the first half of June. It is par ...

: 1st Stage 1

: 1st Stage 4a Tour du Sud-Est : 1st

Grand Prix du Parisien The Grand Prix du Parisien was an annual road bicycle race held in Paris, France as a team time trial A team time trial (TTT) is a road bicycle race in which teams of cyclists race against the clock (see individual time trial for a more deta ...

;1966 : 1st

Bordeaux–Paris The Bordeaux–Paris professional cycle race was one of Europe's classic cycle races, and one of the longest in the professional calendar, covering approximately – more than twice most single-day races. It started in northern Bordeaux in sout ...

: 1st

Brabantse Pijl The Brabantse Pijl ( en, Brabant Arrow, french: italic=yes, Flèche Brabançonne or ''Flèche Branconne'') is a Flanders Classics road bicycle race held annually in Flemish Brabant and in Walloon Brabant, Belgium. Since 2005, the race has been or ...

;1967 : 1st Overall

Super Prestige Pernod The Super Prestige Pernod was a season-long competition in road bicycle racing between 1958 and 1987. For the first edition it was known as the Prestige Pernod, and for the last four years as the Super Prestige Pernod International. History Disag ...

: 1st

Overall

::1st

::1st Stage 1b : 5th Overall

::1st

::1st Stage 13 : 1st

Paris–Roubaix Paris–Roubaix is a one-day professional bicycle road race in northern France, starting north of Paris and finishing in Roubaix, at the border with Belgium. It is one of cycling's oldest races, and is one of the ' Monuments' or classics of th ...

;1968 : 1st Jersey yellow

Overall

::1st Stage 14 & 22b : 6th Overall

::1st

::1st Stage 1a & 1b : 1st Stage 5

: 1st Stage 5

Vuelta a Mallorca The Challenge Vuelta Ciclista a Mallorca ( en, Tour of Majorca, ca, Challenge Volta Ciclista a Mallorca) is a series of four (five until 2012) professional one day road bicycle races held on the Spanish island of Mallorca in late January or earl ...

;1969 : 1st Overall

::1st Stage 2 : 1st Stage 2

: 1st Stage 5

: 1st

Grand Prix d'Isbergues Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and c ...

;1970 : 1st Stage 6

: 1st Stage 3a Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco : 1st Stage 2

;1972 : 1st Stage 2 Tour de Luxembourg

Grand Tour results timeline

References

External links

www.janjanssen.nl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Janssen, Jan 1940 births Living people Dutch male cyclists Tour de France winners Vuelta a España winners Dutch Tour de France stage winners UCI Road World Champions (elite men) Dutch Vuelta a España stage winners People from Pijnacker-Nootdorp Olympic cyclists of the Netherlands Cyclists at the 1960 Summer Olympics UCI Road World Championships cyclists for the Netherlands Cyclists from South Holland Super Prestige Pernod winners 20th-century Dutch people 21st-century Dutch people

Early life

Career

Retirement

Personality

Views of modern racing

Career achievements

Major results

Grand Tour results timeline

See also

References

External links