Erik Zabel (born July 7 1970, Berlin) is a German cyclist. He is considered to be one of the best sprinters of the late 1990s. He has won the green jersey in the Tour de France in no less than 6 consecutive years between 1996 and 2001.
Zabel grew up in East-Berlin. After good results as an amateur cyclist, he became a professional in 1992 for a small German team. In 1993 he changed teams to Team Telekom (later the T-Mobile Team). There he became a good sprinter. His biggest strength was his all-round quality: where a cyclist like Mario Cipollini, who was arguably the faster sprinter, left the big stage races before the mountain stages, Erik Zabel could climb reasonably well. This meant that he could pick up a number of victories in the last stages of the Tour de France for example, and take the green jersey to Paris.
Major victories
- 1994
- 1995
- 1996
- Tour de France: 2 stages, green jersey
- 1997
- 1998
- Milan-San Remo
- National championship road race
- Tour de France: green jersey
- 1999
- GP Frankfurt
- Tour de France: green jersey
- 2000
- 2001
- Milan-San Remo
- Tour de France: 3 stages, green jersey
- Vuelta d'Espana : 3 stages
- Number 1 in the UCI ranking
- 2002
- Tour de France: 1 stage
- GP Frankfurt
- Number 1 in the UCI ranking
- 2003
- 2004
