Mr Patrick Jonker is a retired Australian road bicycle racer, having raced professionally from 1993 to 2004. He represented Australia twice at the Summer Olympics; in 1992 at the Barcelona Games and then again in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics where he finished 8th in the Individual time trial.
Mr Jonker was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder and was the first Australian Institute of Sport affiliated athlete to turn professional and race the Tour de France.
His career highlights include wins in the 1997 Route du Sud and the 1999 Grand Prix de Wallonie, and stage wins in the Tour of Ireland, the British Milk Race and the German Rheinland Phaltz. He finished 12th overall in the general classification at the 1996 Tour De France, the 2nd highest by an Australian at the time.
Mr Jonker was a trail blazer for a very successful generation of Australian cycling champions including Cadel Evans at the Tour De France. He ended his career with a very high profile victory in the 2004 Tour Down Under, racing for Team UniSA. He now works in France, Spain and Italy as a cycling guide/interpreter and is Team UniSA’s ambassador for the Tour Down Under.
