Fabio Jakobsen

Fabio Jakobsen emerged as one of the top sprinters in his first season in the WorldTour with Quickstep in 2018, taking wins in the Scheldeprijs and Nokere Koerse as a neo-pro. He expanded on this in 2019, winning Scheldeprijs again and adding stages of the Volta ao Algarve, Tour of Turkey, Tour of California and the Dutch title to his palmares before winning his first two Grand Tour stages in the Vuelta a España. In 2020, Jakobsen won stages in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and Volta ao Algarve and the GP Jean-Pierre Monseré before the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the races. Upon his return to competition at the Tour de Pologne, Jakobsen suffered a nearly life-threatening crash on the opening stage when he was bumped by Dylan Groenewegen and fell into the barriers, which then collapsed and smashed him in the face as they swung around into the path of the rest of the peloton.  A UCI official (also injured, but recovered) behind the barrier broke his fall, helping to save his life. Jakobsen's teammate Florian Sénéchal stopped, noticing he was choking on his own blood, and helped clear his airway before UAE team doctor Dirk Tenner jumped out of the car to help, too.

The incident put Jakobsen in the ICU for a week but, after a five-hour operation, he was in stable condition and able to return home to the Netherlands to complete his recovery. He suffered a brain injury, a fractured skull, broken nose, broken soft palate, lost ten teeth and part of his upper and lower jap, a broken thumb, contusions of his lungs, vocal cord, and bruised backside where he landed on the UCI official.

Jakobsen was able to get back to the WorldTour peloton in April, 2021 and claimed his first victory at the Tour de Wallonie in July. He returned to the Vuelta a España and won three stages and the points classification. He struggled to forgive Groenewegen, who was suspended for nine months for the incident, and supported a lawsuit against the Dutch rider for his actions.

Jakobsen had a prolific 2022 season, winning more races such as stages in Valenciana, Algarve, Paris-Nice, Tour de Hongrie, and the Baloise Belgium Tour. He won Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, his first Tour de France stage and the European road title.

A second crack at the Tour de France in 2023 caused controversy as Soudal-Quickstep left Mark Cavendish off the team in favour of Jakobsen when Cavendish was one win away from breaking the Tour stage win record. Jakobsen crashed, went winless and dropped out. He left Quickstep for Team DSM in 2024, but could only manage a stage of the Tour of Turkey in his first year there.

Key Results

🥇 Tour de France stage (2022)

🥇 5x Vuelta a Espana stages (2019, 2021)

🥇 European road championships (2022)

🥇 2x Scheldeprijs (2018, 2019)
🥇 Danilith Nokere Koerse (2018)

🥇 Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne (2022)

🥇 4x stages Volta ao Algarve (2019, 2020, 2022)

🥇 3x stages Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (2020, 2022)