Eddy Merckx has dominated cycling like no one else. He was considered a “cannibal” because of his hunger for success. The most popular Belgian 80 will be on Tuesday.
The hip is now made of plastic, they have chopped a meter of the intestine away, the heart bitches – but the “cannibal” has not lost his bite: Eddy Merckx still rumbles regularly and multimedially through soft cyclists and about boring races, but celebrates Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel – because they, the greatest, are similar.
On Tuesday (June 17) Merckx will be 80 years old. And it is popular as ever. Also because he has an opinion with everything and everyone. “If my name fades, that’s the course of time”writes Merckx in the afterword of a biography that has just been published (Guy Roger: “Merckx – The Unit”): “If you continue to remember, that would be a form of recognition.”
“I am the happiest person in the world”
Anyone who has only come into contact with cycling in the past 60 years will remember. And the afterborns will be sung by the giant’s reputation from the Meensel-Kiezegen. Of a almost breathtaking success story.
“I am the happiest person in the world with my five tour victories, five Giro victories, a Vuelta, all classics and my world championship titles as well as an hourly world record”says Merckx. He celebrated 525 victories in 18 years. The most successful driver of the “Modue”, Mark Cavendish, does not get away for a third.
Merckx attacks the Tour de France 1975.
Birthday reception with the king
And because Merckx was a “cannibal” on the bike, but also an accessible, fine sports man (and not like the five-time tour champion Bernard Hinault in the competition), the Belgians still love him to this day. On Thursday even Belgium’s King Philippe Merckx received and congratulated in advance. “That makes me very happy”said the jubilee, “My races have been so long ago.” But they have an effect, with the king and the people.
Audience to the king: Philippe of Belgium receives Eddy Merckx a few days before his 80th birthday.
In 2019, the Tour de France in Brussels – in honor of Merckx, who had reached something never before on the Tour of France 50 years earlier: he won six stages, the yellow jersey, sprinter jersey, mountain rating, combination rating, the price for the most combative driver and the team classification. Pure cannibalism – who celebrated hundreds of thousands on the capital streets half a century later. The huge hustle and bustle was not necessarily right for the celebrant: “Sometimes it is difficult to be Eddy Merckx here in Belgium.”
| Number of victories | Run |
|---|---|
5 x | Tour de France |
5 x | Giro d’Italia |
1 x | Vuelta a Espagna |
7 x | Milan-Sanremo |
5 x | Liège-Bastogne-Liège |
3 x | Paris-Roubaix |
2 x | Flanders tour |
2 x | Lombardy tour |
3 x | World championship |
Positive doping tests no longer play a role today
Belgium’s Merckx love is so big that its dark pages almost play no role today. In 1969, under dubious circumstances, he was excluded from the Giro due to doping, the lock before the following tour – right, the legendary – canceled. Further positive tests followed in 1973 and 1977. The “cannibal” has, today consensus, has eaten more than victories. But that does not fit into the heroic narrative, at best it also occurs in Guy Roger’s biography.
Merckx celebrates the victory on the Tour of Flanders in 1969.
He had “In a genetic point of view, get something from my parents and grandparents that the others don’t have”says Merckx there. “Passion, respect, modesty” are also the success pillars of the greatest career that cycling has ever seen.
Merckx ‘name will not fade. All Titani cycling services are still measured on the “cannibal”. And this, otherwise with everything, only granted that he could not carry the comparison with Pogacar or Evenepoel on the street. “Too happy”he said to the 80th of the AFP news agency, “If I had started against today’s generation.”