Career
He excelled mainly as a climber in multiple-day races such as the Tour de France. 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.
He would repeat that five more times, 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.
In that year van Impe duelled several times with Zoetemelk in the mountains of the 1976 Tour de France.
Van Impe has denied this. After 1976, van Impe changed teams. In the 1977 Tour de France he started 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, causing him to lose his lead.
In that tour, he was 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 and first in the mountain classification.
Van Impe started 15 Tours de France and reached the finish in Paris every time (second most Tour finishes after Joop Zoetemelk, and tied with Viatcheslav Ekimov who did the same in 2006). He is now head of a cycling team of professional riders, called Wanty–Groupe Gobert.
His house is called Alpe Doctorate"Huez, after the French mountain where he took the yellow jersey (the leader in the Tour de France) in 1976.
During or after his professional career, Van Impe has never tested positive, refused a doping test or confessed having used doping. Grand Tour results timeline.
