Erik Breukink

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erik Breukink

Breukink at the 2007 Tour de France
Personal information
Full name	Erik Breukink
Date of birth	April 1, 1964 (1964-04-01) (age 44)
Country	Netherlands
Team information
Current team	Rabobank
Discipline	Road
Role	Team manager
Rider type	All-round
Professional team(s)
1985 1986–1989 1990–1992 1993–1995 1996–1997	Skala-Gazelle Panasonic PDM ONCE Rabobank
Managerial team(s)
2004–	Rabobank
Major wins
Maillot blanc in 1988 Tour de France
Infobox last updated on:
31 July 2007

Erik Breukink (born April 1, 1964 in Rheden, Netherlands) is a former professional road racing cyclist. In 1988, Breukink won the youth competition in the Tour de France. In 1990, Breukink reached the podium in Paris, finishing 3rd in the 1990 Tour de France. Currently he is the manager of the Rabobank team.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Amateur cycling years 1.2 Professional cycling years 1.3 Sports commentator 1.4 Team manager 2 Major victories 3 Final classification grand tours 4 External links 5 Notes

[edit] Biography

[edit] Amateur cycling years

Breukink was born in a cycling family, as his father Willem Breukink was director of the Gazelle bicycle factory. Despite this, he chose to be a soccer player. In 1980 he changed to pursue a cycling career.^[1] In 1982, this appeared to be a good choice, when he won the Dutch national pursuit championship for juniors. At the 1984 Olympic Games, Erik Breukink competed with Gert Jakobs, Maarten Ducrot and Jos Albertsin the 100km Team Pursuit and finish fourth place.^[2] In 1985, Breukink won 2 time trial stages in Olympia's Tour, and finished 3rd place overall. He decided to switch to a professional career.

[edit] Professional cycling years

Breukink made his debut as a pro in 1986 for the Skala-Gazelle team. He turned out to be a time trial specialist and was a good climber. In his Tour de France debut in 1987, he won one stage and finished second in the youth competition. His real breakthrough in the major courses was the 1988 Giro d'Italia, where he debuted with a 2nd place, winning the Gavia Pass stage in a snowstorm. In the 1988 Tour de France he won the youth competition and finished 13th place. In the 1989 Tour de France, he showed his time trial skills by winning the prologue, and wearing the yellow jersey for one day. In that year's Giro d'Italia, he almost won, but lost the lead in the Dolomites due to hunger. In 1990, Breukink wanted to focus on the Tour de France, so he switched to the PDM team, that allowed him to do so. In the 1990 Tour de France, the result was good, winning two stages and finishing 3rd overall. The result could even have been better, but Breukink suffered from some bad luck: in the climb to the Tourmalet Breukink had to switch bicycles three times. In 1991, Breukink together with the entire PDM-team had to leave the tour ranked 3rd, officially due to food poisoning, but it was later exposed that it was due to Intralipid^[3][4] In 1992, he appeared weak, especially in his favourite time trials. In 1993, Breukink switched to the ONCE-team, where his performance improved again. Bad luck followed him however, as just before the start of the 1993 Tour de France, he was hit by a car. The damage to his left knee caused him to give up during the Tour. Breukink rode the Tour de France four times afterwards, but never reached his old level. In 1997 he ended his professional cycling career, having ridden 11 Tours de France and won 4 stages. He garnered 61 career victories in total.

[edit] Sports commentator

After one year as a Public Relations officer for the Rabobank-team, Breukink started as co-commentator for the NOS, covering the Tour de France. In 2002 and 2003, the GP Erik Breukink^[5], a UCI level 2.3 course^[6], was run, with Erik Dekker and Fabian Cancellara as winners,^[7] but it was discontinued in 2004 due to financial problems.^[8]

[edit] Team manager

On 13 January 2004, it was announced that Erik Breukink started as a team manager for the Rabobank team.^[9] Thanks to his ONCE-years, Erik Breukink speaks Spanish fluently, which is helpful to communicate with the Spanish cyclists in the Rabobank team and cyclist Denis Menchov, who also speaks Spanish better than English.^[10] Since Breukink became team manager, the Rabobank cycling team's successes have included Paris-Tours, Milan-Sanremo, the Brabantse Pijl (3x), the Tirreno-Adriatico (2x), the Tour de Romandie, the final classification and three stages in the Vuelta a España, 6 stages in the Tour de France and the polka dot jersey (2x) in the Tour de France. On, 20 July 2006, Breukink received the "médaille de la fidélité" from the Tour de France organisation, because he had been present in the Tour de France for 20 years. (11 times as rider, 1 time as PR-officer, 5 times as sports commentator and 3 times as team manager).^[11]

[edit] Major victories

[edit] Final classification grand tours

(* means did not finish)

	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
Tour de France	21	12	*	3	*	7	*	29	20	34	52
Giro d'Italia	3	2	4
Vuelta a España							7

[edit] External links

• Palmares (French)
• Profile at official rabobank site (Dutch)

[edit] Notes

Awards
Preceded by Leo Visser	Dutch Sportsman of the Year 1990	Succeeded by Edwin Jongejans Arnold Vanderlyde
Sporting positions
Preceded by Raúl Alcalá	Tour de France maillot blanc winner 1988	Succeeded by Fabrice Philipot
Preceded by Tristan Hoffman	Dutch National Road Race Champion 1993	Succeeded by Steven Rooks
Preceded by Mario Gutte	Dutch National Time Trial Champion 1995	Succeeded by Erik Dekker
Preceded by Erik Dekker	Dutch National Time Trial Champion 1997	Succeeded by Patrick Jonker

v • d • e Tour de France Maillot blanc (White jersey) winners 1975: Moser | 1976: Martínez Heredia | 1977: Thurau | 1978: Lubberding | 1979: Bernaudeau | 1980: Van der Velde | 1981: Winnen | 1982: Anderson | 1983: Fignon | 1984: LeMond | 1985: Parra | 1986: Hampsten | 1987: Alcalá | 1988: Breukink | 1989: Philipot | 1990: Delion | 1991: Mejía | 1992: Bouwmans | 1993: Martín | 1994: Pantani | 1995: Pantani | 1996: Ullrich | 1997: Ullrich | 1998: Ullrich | 1999: Salmon | 2000: Mancebo | 2001: Sevilla | 2002: Basso | 2003: Menchov | 2004: Karpets | 2005: Popovych | 2006: Cunego | 2007: Contador

v • d • e Riders on Rabobank Mauricio Ardila | Jan Boven | Graeme Brown | Bram de Groot | Thomas Dekker | Marc de Maar | Michiel Elijzen | Theo Eltink | Juan Antonio Flecha | Rick Flens | Óscar Freire | Robert Gesink | Mathew Hayman | Pedro Horrillo | Dmitri Kozontchuk | Sebastian Langeveld | Tom Leezer | Gerben Löwik | Paul Martens | Denis Menchov | Koos Moerenhout | Bauke Mollema | Grischa Niermann | Joost Posthuma | Bram Tankink | Laurens ten Dam | William Walker | Pieter Weening | Manager: Erik Breukink

Persondata
NAME	Breukink, Erik
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Cycling team manager and former road bicycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH	1964-04-01
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rheden, Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH