| The Rabobank team during the 2005 Rund um den Henninger Turm race. | ||
| Team information | ||
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| UCI code | RAB | |
| Based | Netherlands | |
| Founded | 1984 | |
| Status | UCI ProTeam | |
| Bicycles | Giant Manufacturing | |
| Key personnel | ||
| General manager | Erik Breukink | |
| Team name history | ||
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Rabobank (UCI Team Code: RAB[1]) is a professional bicycle racing team, sponsored by the Rabobank. The team consists of three sections: ProTeam (the UCI ProTour team), Continental (a talent team racing in the UCI Europe Tour), and Cyclo-cross. The team formerly rode Colnago frames but as of 1 January 2009 began a two year contract riding Giant frames equipped with Shimano components.[2]
The cycling team was founded for the 1984 season under the name Kwantum, with mostly cyclists coming from the TI-Raleigh cycling team.[3] Since 1984, the team has entered every Tour de France[4] and since the introduction of divisions in 1998, the team has always been in the first division.[5]
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In road bicycle racing, teams take name from their main sponsors. The Rabobank team has previously had the following sponsors, and thus names.
After the season of 1983, the TI-Raleigh team split up because of tension between former world champion Jan Raas and team leader Peter Post,[6] with seven cyclists following Post to the new Panasonic-team and six cyclists joining Raas to the Kwantum team.[7] The team captains of the Kwantum team were Guillaume Driessens, Jan Gisbers and Walter Godefroot.[8] In their first year, the team managed to win the red jersey for intermediate sprints and one stage in the 1984 Tour de France, the Amstel Gold Race and the Dutch national road championship.[8] After the 1984 season, Jan Raas stopped as an active cyclist and became team manager. In 1985 the Kwantum team had a successful year. Victories included two Tour de France stage, the Tour of Luxembourg, Paris–Tours, Paris–Brussels, the Tirreno–Adriatico, the Tour of Belgium, again the Dutch national road championship, and the World cycling championship (Joop Zoetemelk).[9] 1986 was less successful; the most important victory was Tour of Belgium.[10]
For the 1987 season, the main sponsor became Superconfex. In that year, the team was officially known as Superconfex – Kwantum – Yoko – Colnago. Jan Raas remained the team leader. After a victory in Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne for Ludo Peeters, the new sprinter Jean-Paul van Poppel (coming from the Skala cycling team) gave the team a great year, with three stage wins in the Tour de France (of which two for van Poppel) and the victory in the points classification in the Tour de France for Jean-Paul van Poppel. Joop Zoetemelk ended his career with a victory in the Amstel Gold Race.[11] From 1988 on, the team was known as Superconfex – Yoko – Opel – Colnago. 1988 was also a successful season for the team, with victories in Paris–Brussels, the Tour of Ireland, the Tour of Belgium, the Amstel Gold Race, and six stages in the Tour de France.[12] In the 1989 season, Jean-Paul van Poppel changed to the Panasonic team. In 1989 his sprinting capacities were missed, and the number of victories was reduced. Still, Paris–Brussels, the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Tours were won, together with two stages in the 1989 Tour de France.[13]
After the 1989 season, the main sponsoring was taken over by Buckler. The Tour of Belgium was won again, and the Ronde van Nederland was won as well. That year, the team had the winner of the Dutch national road race championships again, as Peter Winnen won the race.[14] In 1991, the team won the Amstel Gold Race, the Ronde van Nederland and Tour of Flanders. The team had taken over Steven Rooks from the Panasonic team, who immediately became the Dutch national road race champion.[15] The worst year in the team's history was 1992. Only 26 races were won in the season, compared to 64 victories in the successful 1988 season.[16] 1992 also saw a young Erik Dekker entering the team. After that season, Buckler decided to stop sponsoring.
A new sponsor was found in WordPerfect. Steven Rooks left the team, Raúl Alcalá joined the team. Still, the 1993 season did not turn out a great season, with only 29 victories, the most important being Three Days of De Panne and the Tour DuPont.[17] In 1993 and 1994, Michael Boogerd and Leon van Bon started their professional career in the team, and Viatcheslav Ekimov also came. The Tour du Pont was won again, together with the Tour of Luxembourg. The year still was disappointing with only 25 victories.
In 1995, the team was joined by Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, the winner of the points classification in the 1994 Tour de France. Abdoujaparov won one stage in the Tour de France, but other than that, the year was still not what the sponsors had hoped, so a new sponsor had to be found. The title sponsor of the previous two years, WordPerfect, was a product of Novell Software, which carried the team's name this one season.
Raas became the team manager of the Rabobank team while Theo de Rooy, Adrie van Houwelingen and Zoetemelk were directeur sportifs.[2] As a Dutch cycling team, the team has signed many of the prominent Dutch cyclists of the 1990s including Adrie van der Poel, Richard Groenendaal and Erik Breukink as well as keeping the prominent Dutch cyclists from the Novell team that included Leon van Bon, Erik Dekker and Michael Boogerd. In addition the team had many successful cyclists in Edwig van Hooydonck, Rolf Sorensen, Johan Bruyneel and the neo-pro for the 1996 season Australian Robbie McEwen.[2]
The Rabobank team has dominated the Dutch National championships over several disciplines in cycling for example Elite and Under 23 time trial championships, Elite and Under 23 Road Race, Elite and Under 23 Cyclo-cross disciplines as well as Mountain Bike championships. The team also has had the World Champion in several categories for example Cyclo-cross; in 1996 Adrie van der Poel, in 2000 Richard Groenendaal and in 2004 Sven Nys. Óscar Freire became UCI Road World Champion in 2004. Sven Nys, Thijs Verhagen and Lars Boom were Under 23 Cyclo-cross World Champions in 1997, 2002 and 2007 respectively while Boom was became Under 23 World Time trial champion in 2007.
In the 2000 Cyclo-cross World championships there was a conflict between the commercial team interests and the national team interests. Groenendaal attacked during the first lap and was chased by defending cyclo-cross world champion Mario De Clercq who was followed by Groenendaal's Rabobank teammate Sven Nys. Team manager Jan Raas allegedly told Nys not to cooperate in the chase of his commercial teammate and as a result De Clercq never caught Groenendaal enabling Groenendaal to become World Champion. As a result, Nys received much criticism from the Belgian team manager Erik De Vlaeminck as well as the Belgian public.[18]
Jan Raas was the team manager for the first eight years of the teams existence. In 2003 Raas was removed rather abruptly which surprised the other members of staff including Theo De Rooy as well as riders Erik Dekker and Michael Boogerd.[19] De Rooy was promoted to team manager and a former Rabobank rider who had been at that time working as a PR man for Rabobank, Erik Breukink, was named as the new directeur sportif to replace De Rooy. In August 2007 in the aftermath of the affair in which Michael Rasmussen was removed during the 2007 Tour de France, De Rooij resigned from his position as team manager.[20]
The road racing team has won several Classics such as the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1997, Championship of Hamburg in 1998, the Amstel Gold Race in 1999 and 2001, Paris–Tours in 1999, 2004 and 2010, Clásica de San Sebastián in 2000 and Milan – San Remo in 2004, 2007 and 2010. Erik Dekker won the UCI World Cup in 2001 due to his Classic win and high placings in many of the classics.
The team signed American Levi Leipheimer in 2002 as a rider for the Tour de France. Leipheimer finished eighth in his first Tour but crashed out of the race on the first stage of the 2003 Tour de France. Leipheimer finished ninth overall the following year. The team became more of a Grand Tour team as could be seen by Michael Rasmussen's win in the Mountains Classification of the 2005 Tour de France. When Denis Menchov took the lead in the 2005 Vuelta a España, he was not expecting to be competing for the overall classification[21] The Rabobank team at that year's Vuelta were not seen as particularly strong or able to assist Menchov in the mountain stages.[22] Menchov finished second to Roberto Heras which was the highest placing of a Rabobank team rider at a grand tour after Michael Boogerd's fifth place in the 1998 Tour de France. Heras was later disqualified for doping and Menchov was made the winner.[23] The following year Menchov focused on the Tour de France where the team rode strongly with Menchov, Boogerd and Rasmussen.
During the 2007 Tour de France, Rabobank fired Michael Rasmussen (2005 Tour de France, 2006 Tour de France K.O.M.) for code-violations while he was in the yellow jersey.[24] The remaining riders of the Rabobank team were given the choice to start the 17th stage without Michael Rasmussen, or to withdraw. That evening they decided to withdraw, but the team changed its mind and announced the following morning that the riders would be starting the 17th stage.[25] Although he started with the rest of the team, Denis Menchov (team leader on the road, who deferred to Rasmussen when the latter seemed to have a better chance at winning) abandoned the race in the middle of the stage.[26]
The Rabobank team was invited for the 2008 Tour de France.[27] Denis Menchov had decided to focus on the Tour de France. To do that, he did not defend his Vuelta a España-title, and rode the 2008 Giro d'Italia as preparation for the Tour de France.[28] Menchov finished 4th place in the 2008 Tour de France, and Óscar Freire won the points classification. The team had to wait until 2009 for the first successes in the Giro d'Italia, when Denis Menchov won two stages; a mountain finish and a time trial. This second win earned him the pink leader jersey, which the team defended to the end of the race, earning Menchov, and Rabobank, their third Grand Tour GC win.
The Rabobank cyclo-cross team has dominated the sport in the past with Sven Nys and Richard Groenendaal winning the General Classification competitions such as the Superprestige, the World Cup and the Gazet van Anwerpen trophy over the last eight years. Groenendaal dominated the Dutch cyclo-cross championships for many years. Groenendaal left the team after the 2006–2007 season. He was at that time one of the few remaining Rabobank riders from the 1996 team. Lars Boom joined the team in 2002 as a junior cyclo-cross rider and has already achieved success in the Elite cyclo-cross championships as well as showing promise riding in the UCI Europe Tour with the Rabobank Continental team.
In 2002, the Rabobank cycling team was split into the normal team and the GS3 team, for cyclo-cross and young talents. In 2005 it was renamed to the Continental team. Since 1996, the team won 1796 races,[29] of which 491 were won in the (UCI) ProTour, and 362 in the cyclo-cross protour.
As of 1 January 2011
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As of 19 October 2011.[30]
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Note: (*) are (also) cyclo-cross specialists
As of 1 Januari 2010.
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