Zoetemelk's era. Another record he held was for the most stages completed in TDF history with 365, a record that was not broken until 2018 by Chavanel. Doping During the 1977 Tour de France he won the mountain time trial on stage 15B, but a few days later it was revealed he took a banned substance and had this stage win revoked and was penalized ten minutes. In the 1979 Tour de France Zoetemelk tried attacking Hinault on the final stage of the race into Paris. Hinault and Zoetemelk stayed away for the entire stage and Zoetemelk was given a ten minute doping penalty after the race was over. During the 1983 Tour de France he was given a doping penalty. He was no longer a favorite for victory at this stage in his career and was not taking substances for "performance enhancement", but just to "survive" the race. Much later it was revealed by riders from this era that often times they would take substances just to survive the race. He was not implicated during his Tour win in 1980. Assessment Zoetemelk is one of the most successful Tour riders of all time; he finished second a record six times and won once. His career coincided with the rise and fall of both Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, riders considered by many to be the #1 and #2 in all of Tour De France history. While Merckx was rivaled by Luis Ocaña and Hinault by Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond, by the end of most of their Tour victories it was Zoetemelk who proved to be the only rider in the entire field capable of keeping either one of them within striking distance. Specifically in Merckx's 1969 and 1970 Tour wins nobody was able to keep him within fifteen minutes in 1969 and in 1970 Zoetemelk was the only rider to do so. He also finished 2nd to Merckx in 1971 following Ocana's infamous crash on the Col de Menté, a crash in which Zoetemelk was involved but somehow managed to avoid injury. In fact, early in the 1971 Tour de France Zoetemelk wore the Yellow Jersey for the first time becoming the first GC contender to take the Yellow from Merckx. Then in the 1979 Hinault victory nearly the entire field finished a half hour or more behind him, but Zoetemelk was able to keep him within about