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Karsten Kroon

Personal information
Full name	Karsten Kroon
Date of birth	January 29, 1976 (age 31)
Country	Netherlands
Height	1.80 m
Weight	67 kg
Team information
Current team	Team CSC
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Amateur team(s)
	AGU
Professional team(s)
1997-2005 2006-	Rabobank Team CSC
Major wins
Tour de France, 1 stage GP Kanton Aargau, 2001 Rund um den Henninger Turm, 2004
Infobox last updated on:
January 15, 2007

Karsten Kroon (born January 29, 1976 in Dalen, Netherlands) is a Dutch professional road bicycle racer who currently rides for Team CSC in the UCI ProTour bicycling series. As an amateur rider, Kroon showed his talent by winning the professional race of Ronde van Drenthe in 1996. He was then brought into the youth squad of Holland based team Rabobank in 1997, where Kroon won a number of amateur races in two years. In 1999, he moved to the senior squad of Rabobank, where he rode until 2005. He gathered but a handful of wins in his six years at Rabobank, most notably stage 8, on Bastille Day, of the 2002 Tour de France. Kroon and his Rabobank team mate Erik Dekker approached the finish in a seven man group, and with the help of the more experienced Dekker, Kroon won a stage win in his first ever Tour de France participation.^[1] During his time at the Rabobank team, Karsten Kroon at some point lead the mountain jersey competition in each of the three Grand Tours, though his lead didn't hold to the end in any of the races.

On August 10, 2005 it was announced that he, until 2007, was to ride for Team CSC. Kroon wanted more freedom in his racing. "I've never said that I want to be leader," he told CyclingNews.com, "I only want to get chances".^[2] In the March and April races of 2006, Kroon was the joint team captain in a number of ProTour races. He finished in the top ten of Tirreno-Adriatico and Ronde van Vlaanderen. His most noticeable work would still be as a helper, as he helped his team mate Fränk Schleck win the Amstel Gold Race. When Schleck attacked the front group, Kroon successfully disrupted the efforts of the riders trying to pull Schleck back in, and finished himself as number four.^[3] In La Flèche Wallonne, Kroon finally finished on the podium himself, as the third placed rider just in front of Schleck.

• 1996
  • Ronde van Drenthe
• 1997
  • Vlaamse Pijl
  • Stage 2, Circuit Franco-Belge
• 1998
  • Stage 2, and Overall, Ster der Beloften
  • Stage 6, Circuit des Mines
  • Stage 2 and 3, Tour of Navarra
  • Stage 2, Vuelta Ciclista a Leon
• 2000
  • 13 days in the mountain jersey, Giro d'Italia
• 2001
  • GP kanton Aargau, Gippingen
  • One day in the mountain jersey, Vuelta a España
• 2002
  • Stage 8, 146th Overall, 2002 Tour de France
• 2003
  • Stage 5, GP Tour du Poitou
• 2004
  • Rund um den Henninger Turm, Frankfurt
  • 115th Overall, 2004 Tour de France
• 2005
  • One day in the mountain jersey, 135th Overall, 2005 Tour de France
• 2006
  • Stage 2 and 5, 3 Länder-Tour

1. ^ Kroon takes stage victory, BBC Sport, July 14, 2002
2. ^ Kroon to CSC, CyclingNews.com, August 10, 2005
3. ^ Mixed fortunes for Kroon and Boogerd, Pro Cycling, April 17, 2006

• KarstenKroon.com (fansite)
• Team CSC profile