Johnny Hoogerland

This guy from the Dutch province of Zeeland undoubtedly gave his employer the most publicity in 2011, though it was not the way Johnny Hoogerland had imagined it. The Tour de France images of when he was hit by a following car and then ended up in the barbed wire went all over the world. It shows Hoogerland’s character that these images were not the last of his Tour participation. He swallowed the pain and, with 33 stitches in total, he still made a successful Tour de France as a sportsman, including a number of days in the Polka Dot jersey as the leader of the mountains classification. Later in the season we saw him in the final lap of the World Championship. In April he was in the final leading group on the Cauberg in the Amstel Gold Race and in Limburg and the Ardennes we will definitely see him in the front. In 2012, Hoogerland will, no doubt, often be in the attack, on the flat or in the mountains. The morale is always there with this guy from Zeeland.