Theo Middelkamp

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Medal record
Competitor for Flag of the Netherlands Netherlands
Road bicycle racing
World Championships
Bronze 1936 Bern Elite Road Race
Gold 1947 Reims Elite Road Race
Silver 1950 Moorslede Elite Road Race

Theofiel ("Theo") Middelkamp (Nieuw-Namen, February 23, 1914Kieldrecht, May 2, 2005) was a Dutch cyclist.

Middelkamp was born as the second son in a family of nine children. At an early age, he wanted to be a footballer, but he soon realised that there was much more money to be earned in cycling, as football was not yet a professional sport in the Netherlands.

Middelkamp was the first Dutchman to win a stage in the Tour de France. When he came to the Tour, he had never even seen mountains, coming from the very flat parts of the Netherlands. However, in his first Tour, on July 14, 1936, he won the difficult mountain stage from Aix-les-Bains to Grenoble, which went over the Col du Galibier. That year, he finished 23rd overall. In 1937 he had to quit the Tour because of a fall, in which he broke a finger.

In 1938 he won the second stage (Bayonne-Pau). In that tour, he won 5,000 francs, much less than he could have earned in races in Flanders, and so he decided not to participate in any later Tours. As Middelkamp famously said, "I cannot live on fame and honour".

During the Second World War, Middelkamp earned money by smuggling, but he was caught and spent several months in prison. After the war, he went back to full-time cycling.

In 1947, Middelkamp became the first Dutch world champion on the road, in Reims, after having been close to that title in the previous year.

Middelkamp ended his career in 1951, when he bought a pub in Kieldrecht. For a long time, he would not talk to journalists about his cycling years, until he spoke about his famous 1936 stage win in a television program in 2003. Middelkamp died in 2005.

[edit] Major results

1934
Flag of the NetherlandsDutch National champion
1936
Tour de France: 23rd overall; 1 stage win
1936
World Championship (road race): 3rd place
1938
Flag of the NetherlandsDutch National champion
1938
Tour de France: 43rd overall; 1 stage win
1943
Flag of the NetherlandsDutch National champion
1945
Flag of the NetherlandsDutch National champion
1947
World Championship (road race): 1st place
1950
World Championship (road race): 2nd place
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Hans Knecht
World Road Racing Champion
1947
Succeeded by
Briek Schotte