The Belgian champion, who will turn 80 in June, tells himself to Corriere della Sera: “such a race is not sold … what’s the point of doping in a stupid and flat stage? I had almost won that tour”
The bulletin board is boundless. Infinity. Cinqui laps of Italy, as many Tour de France, three World Cup plus an endless series of victories that made him raise his arms to the sky over five hundred times. Eddy Merckx, the largest of all time, will turn 80 on June 17th and told himself in the round at Corriere della Sera. With a couple of particularly delicate and significant passages.
“Stupid stop”
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The reference goes to the tour of 1969. “They had offered me money to sell the lap. Rudy altrig of Salvarani. He offered me many if I had accepted, maybe I wouldn’t have turned out to be positive. If I accepted? Jokes? A tour you don’t sell”. Yes, because Merckx was expelled after the Savona stage, found positive for two stimulants. Eddy ensures that he did not take any prohibited substance: “Absolutely not. I remember well what happened in Savona and cried, of course I was crying. I was ready to leave, they made the counter -analysis of the urine taken the night before, and they stopped me. It was the same product that they had found in Gimondi the year before, Fencamfamina: he was carved, however. Stupid, flat, I had almost won the lap.