baseballlover312, 06-03-14 : "Nuke Moscow...Don't worry Russia, we've got plenty of love to go around your cities"
Sarah Palin, 08-03-14 (CPAC, on Russian aggression) : "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke"
Big thanks to jdog for making this AMAZING userbar!
At approximately 8:49 AM on November 4th, 1977, Jurgen Janssens was born in a small hospital on the outskirts of Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. His father, Rik, was owned a bicycle shop, and Jurgen grew up riding and racing. Francis Janssens: Jurgen was always on his bike from the day he mastered riding one, he was saying, "Dad lets go ride!" I remember the day he joined a cycling club for the first time, he was so excited, and was beating kids a few years older than him in his first few races.
Jurgen was a relatively big kid, and he took the cobbles and smaller hills well, the mountain climbing that he is known from developed much later in this career. At age 16, Jurgen quit school and joined went to train with the Belgian National Team. It was there that some began to realize the Belgian's potential ...
baseballlover312, 06-03-14 : "Nuke Moscow...Don't worry Russia, we've got plenty of love to go around your cities"
Sarah Palin, 08-03-14 (CPAC, on Russian aggression) : "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke"
Big thanks to jdog for making this AMAZING userbar!
... It was here at the National Training Center that Jurgen started taking Cyclo-cross seriously. He dominated the Junior circuit in his first year in the age category, winning every single race on the calender. He then dominated the road season, winning all kinds of races, flat, cobbles, hills, everything except time trials. At that young age, he was recognized as the next great Belgian, and some said he would be the next Merckx. The domainace continued the next season, but many thought Janssens would suffer on the U23 circuit. There were all wrong ...
... Many doubted that Jurgen would be able to dominate the U23 circuit as easily as the junior circuit. They were dead wrong. At the crisp young age of 18 years 6 months. Jurgen Janssens won the U23 De Ronde in a sprint finish. He then took second in the U23 Paris-Roubiax after getting a flat with 10 km to go while leading. After another win at Liège–Bastogne–Liège Espoirs, many teams gave offers to the young Janssens to ride as a trainee. He suprisngly refused all of them, saying that "I wanted to choose his own races." This stayed with Janssens his whole career, and he never took part in the famous Criterium du Dauphine once in his long career. After a long string of good results throughout the rest of the season, Jurgen Janssens signed his first pro contract with Belgian team Lotto-Mobistar the day before the Tour de l'Avenir started. The young Belgian finished second place a mere 6 seconds behind Frenchman Laurent Roux. This was to be Janssens's last amatuer race, as he opted to take an early break and do some cyclo-cross before the 1998 season. It was here that the Legend's professional career began.
In Case you haven't figured it after reading that last little bit, I will use Sali's 1998 DB and the team Lotto-Mobistar for the rest of this story. I will go with .4 potential and hard difficulty. I won't reveal Jurgen's stats
Let's hope this lasts a good 15 years and comes full circle
What does he have against Dauphine?
baseballlover312, 06-03-14 : "Nuke Moscow...Don't worry Russia, we've got plenty of love to go around your cities"
Sarah Palin, 08-03-14 (CPAC, on Russian aggression) : "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke"
Big thanks to jdog for making this AMAZING userbar!
The day before the Tour D'Avenir, Jurgen Janssens signed a three year contract with the Belgian Team Lotto-Mobistar.
Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke: It was really hard to get Jurgen to sign. He wanted to be the team leader in every race for every kind of race. We ended up offering him leadership in every race except for the cobbled classics, as we already had a strong cobbled team. We decided to send him to all of the major classics and the Vuelta in his first season. I wasn't really sure Jurgen to do a GC at a GT yet, so we told him to do his best but that we had no expectations. His big goal was to win a WT Classic in his first year.
This of course, was the year that lots of top races folded, that the WT system was introduced, and Paris-Tours was made a Major classic. Gent-Wevelgem, E3 Harelbeke, Omloop, and Giro di Lombardia all folded due to lack of sponsorship. DDV, Brabantse Pijl, were made WT Classics along with the new Major classic Paris-Tours.
