Eddy Merckx

Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx (born 17 June 1945), known as Eddy Merckx (, ), is a Belgian former professional road and track cyclist racer who is the most successful rider in the history of competitive cycling. His victories include an unequalled eleven Grand Tours (five Tours de France, five Giros d'Italia, and a Vuelta a España), all five Monuments, setting the hour record, three World Championships, every major one-day race other than Paris–Tours, and extensive victories on the track.

Born in Meensel-Kiezegem, Brabant, Belgium, he grew up in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre where his parents ran a grocery store. He played several sports, but found his true passion in cycling. Merckx got his first bicycle at the age of three or four and competed in his first race in 1961. His first victory came at Petit-Enghien in October 1961.

After winning eighty races as an amateur racer, he turned professional on 29 April 1965 when he signed with . His first major victory came in the Milan–San Remo a year later, after switching to . After the 1967 season, Merckx moved to , and won the Giro d'Italia, his first Grand Tour victory. Four times between 1970 and 1974 Merckx completed a Grand Tour double. His final double also coincided with winning the elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships to make him the first rider to accomplish cycling's Triple Crown. Merckx broke the hour record in October 1972, extending the record by almost 800 metres.

He acquired the nickname "the Cannibal", suggested by the daughter of a teammate upon being told by her father of how Merckx would not let anyone else win. Merckx achieved 525 victories over his eighteen-year career. He is one of only three riders to have won all five 'Monuments' (Milan–San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the Giro di Lombardia) and the only one to have won them all at least twice. Merckx was successful on the road and also on the track, as well as in the large stage races and one-day races. He is almost universally regarded as the greatest and most successful rider in the history of cycling.

Since Merckx's retirement from the sport on 18 May 1978, he has remained active in the cycling world. He began his own bicycle brand, Eddy Merckx Cycles, in 1980 and its bicycles were used by several professional teams in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Merckx coached the Belgian national cycling team for eleven years, stopping in 1996. He helped start and organize the Tour of Qatar from its start in 2002 until its final edition in 2016. He also assisted in running the Tour of Oman, before a disagreement with the organizers led him to step away in 2017.

Early life and amateur career

Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx was born in Meensel-Kiezegem, Brabant, Belgium on 17 June 1945 to Jules Merckx and Jenny Pittomvils. Merckx was the first-born of the family. In September 1946, the family moved to Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, in Brussels, Belgium in order to take over a grocery store that had been up for lease. In May 1948, Jenny gave birth to twins: a boy, Michel, and a girl, Micheline. As a child Eddy was hyperactive and was always playing outside.

Eddy was a competitive child and played several sports, including basketball, football, table tennis and boxing, the latter in which he won some local boxing tournaments. He even played lawn tennis for the local junior team. However, Merckx claimed he knew he wanted to be a cyclist at the age of four and that his first memory was a crash on his bike when he was the same age. Merckx began riding a bike at the age of three or four and would ride to school every day, beginning at age eight. Merckx would imitate his cycling idol Stan Ockers with his friends when they rode bikes together.

In summer 1961, Merckx bought his first racing license and competed in his first official race a month after he turned sixteen, coming in sixth place. He rode in twelve more races before winning his first, at Petit-Enghien, on 1 October 1961. In the winter following his first victory, he trained with former racer Félicien Vervaecke at the local velodrome. Merckx won his second victory on 11 March 1962 in a kermis race. Merckx competed in 55 races during the 1962 calendar year; as he devoted more time to cycling, his grades at school began to decline. After winning the Belgian amateur road race title, Merckx declined an offer from his school's headmaster to have his exams postponed, and dropped out of school. He finished the season with 23 victories to his name.

Merckx won the amateur road race at the 1964 UCI Road World Championships in Sallanches, France. The following month, he came twelfth in the individual road race at the Tokyo Olympics. Merckx remained an amateur until April 1965, and finished his amateur career with eighty wins to his credit.L'Équipe, France, 13 March 2007

Professional career

1965–1967: Solo–Superia and Peugeot–BP–Michelin

1965: First professional season

Merckx turned professional on 29 April 1965 when he signed with Rik Van Looy's Belgian team, . He won his first race in Vilvoorde, beating Emile Daems. On 1 August, Merckx finished second in the Belgian national championships, which qualified him for the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships. Raphaël Géminiani, the manager of the Bic cycling team, approached Merckx at the event and offered him 2,500 francs a month to join the team the following season. Merckx chose to sign; however, since he was a minor the contract was invalid.

After finishing the road race in 29th position, Merckx returned to Belgium and discussed his plans for the next season with his manager Jean Van Buggenhout. Van Buggenhout helped orchestrate a move that sent Merckx to the French-based Peugeot–BP–Michelin for 20,000 francs a month. Merckx elected to leave due to the way he was treated by his teammates, in particular Van Looy. Van Looy and other teammates mocked Merckx for his various habits such as his eating, or called him names. In addition, Merckx later stated that during his time with Van Looy's team he had not been taught anything. While with , he won nine races out of the nearly 70 races he entered.

1966: First Monument victory

In March 1966, Merckx entered his first major stage race as a professional rider, the Paris–Nice. He took the race lead for a single stage before losing it to Jacques Anquetil and eventually coming in fourth overall. Milan–San Remo, his first participation in one of cycling's Monuments, was the next event on the calendar for Merckx. There, he succeeded in staying with the main field as the race entered the final climb of the Poggio. He attacked on the climb and reduced the field to a group of eleven, himself included. Merckx was advised by his manager to hold off on sprinting full-out to the finish line until as late as possible. At the end of the race, three other riders approached the line with him, and Merckx beat them in the sprint. In the following weeks, he raced the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix, the most important cobbled classics; in the former he crashed and in the latter he had a punctured tire. At the 1966 UCI Road World Championships he finished twelfth in the road race after suffering a cramp in the closing kilometers. He finished the 1966 season with a total of 20 wins, including his first stage race win at the Tour of Morbihan.

1967: Second straight Milan–San Remo and world champion

Merckx opened the 1967 campaign with two stage victories at the Giro di Sardegna. He followed these successes by entering Paris–Nice where he won the second stage and took the race lead. Two stages later, a teammate, Tom Simpson, attacked with several other riders on a climb and was nearly 20 minutes ahead of Merckx, who remained in a group behind. Merckx attacked two days later on a climb 70 km into the stage. He was able to establish a firm advantage, but obeyed orders from his manager to wait for the chasing Simpson. Merckx won the stage, while Simpson secured his overall victory.

On 18 March, Merckx started the Milan–San Remo and was seen as a 120–1 favorite to win the race. He attacked on the Capo Berta and again on the Poggio, leaving only Gianni Motta with him. The two slowed their pace and were joined by two more riders. Merckx won the four-man sprint to the finish. His next victory came in La Flèche Wallonne after he missed out on an early break, caught up to it, and attacked from it to win the race. On 20 May, he started the Giro d'Italia, his first Grand Tour. He won the twelfth and fourteenth stages en route to finishing ninth in the general classification.

He signed with Faema on 2 September for ten years worth 400,000 Belgian francs. He chose to switch over in order to be in complete control over the team he was racing for. In addition, he would not have to pay for various expenses that came with racing such as wheels and tires. The next day, Merckx started the men's road race at the 1967 UCI Road World Championships in Heerlen, Netherlands. The course consisted of ten laps of a circuit. Motta attacked on the first lap and was joined by Merckx and five other riders. The group thinned to five as they reached the finish line where Merckx was able to out-sprint Jan Janssen for first place. In doing so, he became the third rider to win the world road race amateur and professional titles. By winning the race he earned the right to wear the rainbow jersey as world champion.

1968–1970: Faema

1968: First Grand Tour victory

Merckx's first victory with his new team came in a stage win at the Giro di Sardegna. At Paris–Nice, he was forced to quit the race due to a knee injury he sustained during the event. He failed to win his third consecutive Milan–San Remo and missed out at the Tour of Flanders the following weekend. His next victory came at Paris–Roubaix when he bested Herman Van Springel in a race that was plagued by poor weather and several punctures to the competing riders.
At the behest of his team, Merckx raced the Giro d'Italia instead of the Tour de France. He won the race's second stage after he attacked with one kilometer to go. The twelfth stage was marred by rainy weather and featured the climbs of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo for the stage finish. By the time Merckx had reached the penultimate climb, there was a six-man group at the front of the race with a nine-minute advantage. Merckx attacked and was able to get a sizable distance between himself and the group he left before he stopped to change his wheel in order to slow down due to orders from his team manager. Merckx got back on his bike and caught the leading breakaway and rode past it to the finish, where he won the stage and took the race lead. Merckx went on to win the race, along with the points classification and mountains classification. In the Volta a Catalunya, Merckx took the race lead from Gimondi in the race's time trial stage and won the event as a whole. He finished the season with 32 wins in the 129 races he entered.

1969: A victory in Paris and injury in Blois

Merckx opened the 1969 season with victories at the Vuelta a Levante and the Paris–Nice overall, as well as stages in each of the races. On 30 March 1969 Merckx earned his first major victory of the 1969 calendar with his win at the Tour of Flanders. On a rainy day that featured strong winds, he attacked first on the Oude Kwaremont, but a puncture nullified any gains he was able to establish. He made a move on the Kapelmuur and was followed by a few riders. As the wind shifted from a crosswind to a headwind with close to seventy kilometers left to go, Merckx increased the pace and rode solo to victory. The seventeen days after the Tour of Flanders saw Merckx win nine times. He won Milan–San Remo by descending the Poggio at high speed. Merckx saw victory again in mid-April at the Liège–Bastogne–Liège when he attacked with 70 kilometers remaining.

He began the Giro d'Italia on 16 May, stating that he wished to ride less aggressively than the year before in order to save energy for the Tour de France. Merckx had won four of the race's stages and held the race lead going into the sixteenth day of racing. However, before the start of the stage race director Vincenzo Torriani, along with a television camera and two writers, entered Merckx's hotel room and informed him that he had failed a doping control and was disqualified from the race, in addition to being suspended for a month. On 14 June, the cycling governing body, the FICP, overturned the month long suspension and cleared him due to the "benefit of the doubt."

Before starting the Tour, Merckx had spent a large amount of his time resting and training, racing only five times. Merckx won the race's sixth stage through attacking before the leg's final major climb, the Ballon d'Alsace, and then outlasting his competitors who were able to follow him initially. During the seventeenth stage, Merckx was riding at the head of the race with several general classification contenders on the Col du Tourmalet. Merckx shifted into a large gear, attacked, and went on to cross the summit with a 45-second advantage. Despite orders to wait for the chasing riders, Merckx increased his efforts. He rode over the Col du Soulor and Col d'Aubisque, increasing the gap to eight minutes. With close to fifty kilometers to go, Merckx began to suffer hypoglycemia and rode the rest of the stage in severe pain. At the end of the stage, Merckx told the journalists "I hope I have done enough now for you to consider me a worthy winner." Merckx finished the race with six stage victories to his credit, along with the general, points, mountains, and combination classifications, and the award for most aggressive rider.

His next major race was the two-day race, Paris–Luxembourg. Merckx was down fifty-four seconds going into the second day and attacked eight kilometers from the finish, on the slopes of the Bereldange. Merckx rode solo to catch the leading rider Jacques Anquetil, whom he dropped with a kilometer remaining. Merckx won the stage and gained enough time on the race leader Gimondi to win the race.

On 9 September, Merckx participated in a three-round omnium event at the concrete velodrome in Blois where each rider was to be paced by a derny. Fernand Wambst was Merckx's pacer for the contest. After winning the first intermediate sprint of the first round, Wambst chose to slow their pace and move to the back of the race despite Merckx wanting to stay out in front for fear of an accident. Wambst wanted to pass everyone to provide a show for the crowd. The duo then increased their pace and began to pass each of the other contestants; however, as they passed the riders in first position, the leading derny lost control and crashed into the wall. Wambst chose to avoid the derny by going below it, but the leader's derny came back down and collided with Wambst, while Merckx's pedal caught one of the dernies. The two riders landed head first onto the track.

Wambst died of a fractured skull as he was being transported to a hospital. Merckx remained unconscious for 45 minutes and awoke in the operating room. He sustained a concussion, whiplash, trapped nerves in his back, a displaced pelvis, and several other cuts and bruises. He remained at the hospital for a week before returning to Belgium. He spent six weeks in bed before beginning to race again in October. Merckx later stated that he "was never the same again" after the crash. He would constantly adjust the height of his seat during races to help ease the pain.

1970: A Giro–Tour double

Merckx entered the 1970 campaign nursing a case of mild tendonitis in his knee. His first major victory came in Paris–Nice where he won the general classification, along with three stages. On 1 April, Merckx won the Gent–Wevelgem, followed by the Tour of Belgium – where he braved a snowy stage and followed the day up with a victory in the final time trial to secure the title – and Paris–Roubaix. In Paris–Roubaix, Merckx was battling a cold as the race began in heavy rain. He attacked thirty-one kilometers from the finish and went on to win by five minutes and twenty-one seconds, the largest margin of victory in the history of the race. The next weekend, Merckx attempted to race for teammate Joseph Bruyère in La Flèche Wallonne; however, Bruyère was unable to keep pace with the leading riders, leaving Merckx to take the victory.

After the scandal at the previous year's Giro d'Italia, Merckx was unwilling to return to the race in 1970. His entry to the race was contingent upon all doping controls being sent to a lab in Rome to be tested, rather than being tested at the finish like the year before. He started the race and won the second stage, but four days later showed signs of weakness with his knee as he was dropped twice while in the mountains. However the next day, Merckx attacked on the final climb into the city of Brentonico to win the stage and take the lead. He won the stage nine individual time trial by almost two minutes over the second-place finisher, expanding his lead significantly. Merckx did not win another stage, but expanded his lead a little more before the race's conclusion.

Before beginning the Tour, Merckx won the men's road race at the Belgian National Road Race Championships. Merckx won the Tour's opening prologue to take the race's first race leader's yellow jersey. After losing the lead following the second stage, he won the sixth stage after forming a breakaway with Lucien Van Impe and regained the lead. After expanding his lead in the stage nine individual time trial, Merckx won the race's first true mountain stage, stage 10, and expanded his lead to five minutes in the general classification. Merckx won three of the five stages contested within the next four days, including a summit finish to Mont Ventoux, where upon finishing he was given oxygen. Merckx won two more stages, both individual time trials, and won the Tour by over twelve minutes. He finished the Tour with eight stage victories and won the mountains and combination classifications. The eight stage wins equaled the previous record for stage wins in a single Tour de France. Merckx also became the third to accomplish the feat of winning the Giro and Tour in the same calendar year.

1971–1976: Molteni

1971: A third consecutive Tour and second world championship

Faema folded at the end of the 1970 season causing Merckx and several of his teammates to move to another Italian team, Molteni. The first major victory for Merckx came in the Giro di Sardegna, which he secured after attacking on his own and riding solo through the rain to win the race's final stage. He followed that with his third consecutive Paris–Nice victory, a race he led from start to finish. In the Milan–San Remo, Merckx worked with his teammates in a seven-man breakaway to set up a final attack on the Poggio. Merckx's attack succeeded and he won his fourth edition of the race. Six days later, he won the Omloop Het Volk.

After winning the Tour of Belgium again, Merckx headed into the major spring classics. During the Tour of Flanders, Merckx's rivals worked against him to prevent him from winning. A week later, he suffered five flat tires during the Paris–Roubaix. The Liège–Bastogne–Liège was held in cold and rain conditions. After attacking ninety kilometers from the finish, Merckx caught the leaders on the road and passed them. He rode solo until around three kilometers to go when Georges Pintens caught him. Merckx and Pintens rode to the finish together, where Merckx won the two-man sprint. Instead of racing the Giro d'Italia, Merckx elected to enter two shorter stages races in France, the Grand Prix du Midi Libre and the Critérium du Dauphiné, both of which he won.

The Tour de France began with a team time trial that Merckx's team won, giving him the lead. The next day's racing was split into three parts. Merckx lost the lead after stage 1b, but regained it after stage 1c due to a time bonus that he earned from winning an intermediate sprint. During the second stage, a major break with the major race contenders, including Merckx, formed with over a hundred kilometers to go. The group finished nine minutes ahead of the peloton as Merckx came around Roger De Vlaeminck during the sprint to win the day. After a week of racing, Merckx held a lead of around a minute over the main contenders. The eighth stage saw a mountain top finish to Puy-de-Dôme