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 Skil–Shimano, Vacansoleil–DCM and Androni Giocattoli–Venezuela teams.

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 Skil–Shimano. 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 Skil–Shimano 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 Vacansoleil–DCM for the 2012 season, having signed a two-year deal.

Van Hummel joined Androni Giocattoli–Venezuela for the 2014 season, after his previous team – Vacansoleil–DCM – folded at the end of the 2013 season.

Van Hummel used to live in Driel, before moving to Elden.

Major results

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

Grand Tour	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Giro	–	–	–	–	–	–
Tour	WD	–	–	WD	–	–
Vuelta	–	–	–	–	–	–

Withdrew = WD; In progress = IP.