Noël Dejonckheere, the Belgian sprinter turned mentor and federation coach for young US riders seeking to cut their teeth in Europe, has died at 67 at his home in Izegem, west Flanders.
Dejonckheere is widely credited as being one of the first to see Greg LeMond’s potential talents for European racing, meeting the three-times Tour de France winner while both were competing in the USA in the 1970s and encouraging the teenage LeMond to try his luck on the other side of the Atlantic.
While LeMond went on to ride as a junior in Belgium for a year and then lived in Kortrijk, near Izegem for the rest of his professional career, Dejonckheere turned pro himself, taking 60 wins include six stages of the Vuelta a España.
On retirement he then became a sports director and long-term staff member at 7-Eleven, Motorola and BMC thanks to his trusted relationship with team manager Jim Ochowicz. He was also employed by USA Cycling for a decade as the director of the Under 23 development program, based in Izegem.
Numerous young US riders learned the ropes of the European racing scene while based at Izegem and under De Jonckheere’s tutelage. They include Danny Pate, Dave Zabriskie, Brent Bookwalter, Taylor Phinney and Tejay Van Garderen and Tyler Farrar. Other top riders Dejonckheere had already helped cut their teeth during his time at 7-Eleven and Motorola included Lance Armstrong and Canada’s Gord Fraser.
The most striking case of all is surely Greg LeMond.
According to an article published by the cycling museum Koers.be, Dejonckheere and LeMond crossed paths while the Belgian was racing in the States in the mid-1970s.
As the article recounts, “in his biography entitled ‘Greg LeMond Yellow Jersey Racer‘, the American wrote: ‘I just met him and he rode with me even though I had been racing only for four or five months. He went back and told his parents he’d seen the new Eddy Merckx!’
“Dejonckheere advised him to train in a more focused way and to come over to race in Europe. LeMond acted upon this advice. A good thing too! Without Dejonckheere’s encouragement he may never have realized his full racing potential.”
Already Junior World Champion in 1978, LeMond then raced in Belgium for a year, winning a number of junior races before being scouted by Cyrille Guimard for Renault-Elf-Gitane in 1981.
While LeMond’s career then garnered him three Tour de France titles and two further World Championships win, he always remained a devotee of cycling-mad West Flanders,…
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