Kenny van Hummel

Kenny Robert van Hummel (born 30 September 1982) is a retired road bicycle racer from the Netherlands, who specialised in sprint finishes. He competed professionally between 2006 and 2014, with the , and teams.

Career Born in Elden, Gelderland, van Hummel started cycling races at the age of seven, and one year later he became a member of cycling club "De Adelaar" in Apeldoorn. He had a successful youth career, and at 1998 joined the Rabobank youth team. He started road races and cyclo-cross races. In 2000, his second year as a junior, he came in fourth in the 2000 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships for juniors.

In 2004, van Hummel changed teams to Van Hemert-Eurogifts. Van Hummel won a sprint in the ZLM Tour, and became second in the national championships for espoirs. One year later, Van Hummel won the Dutch road race championship for cyclists without professional contract, and won five criteriums.

In 2006, Van Hummel became a professional cyclist for . In that year he reached the podium in stages of the Tour of Belgium and the ENECO Tour, and won the Tour of North-Holland, which finished in a sprint.

2009 was a successful year for Van Hummel, especially the month of May. He won five races, the Profronde van Fryslan, Dutch Food Valley Classic, the Tour de Rijke and a stage in the Four Days of Dunkirk, and confirmed that he could win sprints as a professional. He became leader in the 2008–2009 UCI Europe Tour. At the Dutch National Road Race Championships, Van Hummel was competing for the win all day. Koos Moerenhout escaped close to the end, but Van Hummel finished second by winning the sprint.

Van Hummel was selected to join the 2009 Tour de France, after his team received a wildcard. Van Hummel was the first one to leave in time trial in the first stage, and finished the time trial in the second-worst time. After the sixth stage, Van Hummel was ranked last in the general classification. In the following mountain stages, Van Hummel could not keep up with the other cyclists, and finished among the last cyclists every day, sometimes riding tens of kilometers on his own, with a large margin to the other cyclists. His difficulties were increased by the fact that his team felt they could not afford to devote a domestique to assist Van Hummel (as is commonly done for other sprinters such as Mark Cavendish), as they could not afford to run the risk of having both riders disqualified. His daily struggle against the time limit, and his positive attitude made him a popular cyclist in the Netherlands. In the seventeenth stage, he fell and had to leave the race due to his sustained injuries.

After the mountain stages, the French newspaper L'Équipe named Van Hummel the "worst climber ever" in the Tour de France. The newspaper said that it never happened before that the same cyclist finished last in every mountain stage. What they did not say was that some other riders already left the tour because of the heavy mountain stages.

Van Hummel joined for the 2012 season, having signed a two-year deal.

Van Hummel joined for the 2014 season, after his previous team – – folded at the end of the 2013 season.

Major results

2000 2nd Time trial, National Junior Road Championships 2001 9th Paris–Roubaix Espoirs 2002 2nd Ronde van Overijssel 2003 4th ZLM Tour 2004 1st ZLM Tour 2nd Road race, National Under-23 Road Championships 8th Rund um die Nürnberger Altstadt 2005 3rd Grote Prijs Stad Zottegem 4th Noord-Nederland Tour 5th Beverbeek Classic 7th Omloop van het Houtland 9th Overall Olympia's Tour 10th Omloop der Kempen 10th Rund um die Nürnberger Altstadt 2006 3rd Madison, National Track Championships (with Aart Vierhouten) 5th International Grand Prix Doha 8th Dutch Food Valley Classic 8th Noord-Nederland Tour 8th Ronde van Midden-Zeeland 9th Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen 2007 1st Ronde van Noord-Holland 2nd Grote Prijs Gerrie Knetemann 5th Schaal Sels 6th Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne 2008 4th Dutch Food Valley Classic 10th Paris–Brussels 2009 1st Ronde van Overijssel 1st Batavus Pro Race 1st Dutch Food Valley Classic 1st Tour de Rijke 1st Peperbus Profspektakel 1st Stage 1 Four Days of Dunkirk 2nd Road race, National Road Championships 2nd Ronde van Drenthe 2nd Scheldeprijs 2nd Ronde van Noord-Holland 3rd Arno Wallaard Memorial 8th Münsterland Giro 2010 Tour of Hainan 1st Stages 4, 5, 7 & 9 1st Stage 1 Tour de Picardie 1st Stage 2 Tour of Belgium 2nd Arno Wallaard Memorial 2nd Dutch Food Valley Classic 2nd Omloop van het Houtland 4th Ronde van Overijssel 5th Ronde van het Groene Hart 8th Trofeo Cala Millor 8th Profronde van Fryslan 2011 1st Overall Ronde van Drenthe 1st Stages 1 & 2 1st Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen Tour of Hainan 1st Points classification 1st Stages 6, 7 & 9 1st Stage 8 Tour of Turkey 2nd Handzame Classic 2nd Tour de Rijke 7th Nationale Sluitingsprijs 10th Scheldeprijs 2012 2nd Overall Tour de Picardie 1st Stage 2 2nd Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen 2nd Grand Prix d'Isbergues 3rd Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne 5th Handzame Classic 5th Ronde van Zeeland Seaports 5th Halle–Ingooigem 6th Grand Prix de Denain 9th Paris–Brussels 2013 2nd Overall Arctic Race of Norway 1st Stage 1 2nd Handzame Classic 3rd Overall Tour de Picardie 3rd Ronde van Zeeland Seaports 3rd Dutch Food Valley Classic 5th Omloop van het Houtland 2014 1st Stage 6 Tour de Langkawi 1st Stage 1 Tour d'Azerbaïdjan 1st Stage 10 Vuelta a Venezuela 4th Grand Prix de Denain 4th Grote Prijs Jef Scherens 6th Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen 8th Volta Limburg Classic 9th Ronde van Zeeland Seaports

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

+ Legend — Did not compete DNF Did not finish