Team Jumbo–Visma is a Dutch professional bicycle racing team, successor of the former Rabobank. The team consists of four sections: ProTeam (the UCI WorldTeam team), UCI Women's Team , Continental (a talent team racing in the UCI Europe Tour), and Cyclo-cross.
The cycling team was founded for the 1984 season under the name Kwantum–Decosol, anchored by Jan Raas, with mostly cyclists coming from the TI–Raleigh cycling team. With Raas as directeur sportif from 1985 onwards, the head sponsor was succeeded by Superconfex, Buckler, WordPerfect and Novell, respectively, before Raas signed a contract with Rabobank, a Dutch association of credit unions, in 1996. After Rabobank sponsorship ended in 2012, it was known as Blanco, Belkin, Lotto-Jumbo and eventually Jumbo–Visma.
Since 1984, the team has entered every Tour de France and since the introduction of divisions in 1998, the team has always been in the first division. A 2012 investigation by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant concluded that doping was at least tolerated, from the team's 1996 beginnings as Rabobank until at least 2007.
Adrie van der Poel (born 17 June 1959 in Bergen op Zoom) is a retired Dutch cyclist. Van der Poel was a professional from 1981 to 2000. His biggest wins included six classics, two stages of the Tour de France and the World Cyclo-Cross Championships in 1996. He also obtained the second place and silver medal in the World Road Championships in 1983 behind Greg LeMond and five second places in the World Cyclo-Cross championships. The Grand Prix Adrie van der Poel is named after him.
Hendrikus Andreas "Hennie" Kuiper (born 3 February 1949) is a Dutch former professional road racing cyclist. His career includes a gold medal in the Olympic road race at Munich in 1972, becoming world professional road race champion in 1975, as well as winning four of the five “Monument” classics. He rode the Tour de France 12 times, finishing second twice and winning the stage to Alpe d'Huez on two occasions, however he never wore the yellow jersey. Kuiper, Ercole Baldini and Paolo Bettini are the only riders to have won both the Olympic road race and the world professional road race.
Ludo Peeters (born 9 August 1953) is a former Belgian professional road bicycle racer. He was professional from 1974 to 1990. He rode ten editions of the Tour de France and won 3 stages, one in 1980, one in 1982 and one in 1986. He also wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification for one day in 1982 after his stage win and also in 1984.
Jan Raas (born 8 November 1952) is a Dutch former professional cyclist whose 115 wins include the 1979 World Road Race Championship in Valkenburg, he also won the Tour of Flanders in 1979 and 1983, Paris–Roubaix in 1982 and Milan–San Remo in 1977. He won ten stages in the Tour de France. In six starts, Raas won the Amstel Gold Race five times. In his entire career he competed in 23 of the highly contested "Monument" Races and he finished on the podium in almost half of them: 3rd place six times, 2nd place zero times, and 1st place four times.
Raas was a tactician and clever sprinter. He struggled on the long steep climbs but excelled on the short climbs characteristic of the northern classics.
