Eddy Merckx: A tribute to the cycling legend
Text: Stephan Klemm
On a windowsill in his office stands a huge cobblestone, weighing 13 kilos, framed on a marble surface that reads: "Winner of Paris-Roubaix 1968-1970-1973". To the left of the wall behind the entrance door, a large cabinet contains a display case with many books, all about him, the greatest cyclist of all time, 525 victories, unrivalled. It's funny to see himself on the titles, says the much-vaunted Eddy Merckx in a visibly good mood. Cups and golden plaques are lined up next to him. "These are all fond memories of a great time," he says now, looking nostalgic.
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The name Eddy Merckx is the greatest seal of quality in cycling. Merckx won with a consistency that is unrivalled. He was a phenomenon on his bike, victorious on any terrain, in one-day races and tours. He was strong in the mountains and in time trials, on flat stages and a king of successful breakaways. He won an unrivalled 19 monuments, all five races in this category are on his list of victories: he won Milan-San Remo seven times, a record; the Tour of Flanders twice, the cobbled classic Paris-Roubaix three times, Liège-Bastogne-Liège five times, a record; and the Tour of Lombardy twice. His annual record stands at 54 victories, that was in 1971, with 120 starts.
Merckx also won the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia five times, which are also records, and he won the Vuelta once, making eleven triumphs in Grand Tours - unrivalled. Merckx rode 97 days in the yellow jersey - unrivalled. He only lost his status as number one in the Tour stage wins category in July 2024 - this position is now occupied by Brit Mark Cavendish with 35 stage wins, Merckx has 34. In addition, there is a world hour record from October 1972, set on the open-air track in Mexico City, 49.431 kilometres, a record that lasted 18 years. Merckx is also a three-time world champion. He only never won one of the big events in his career: Paris-Tours. Because of his compulsion to win and his mercilessness on the bike, Merckx was given a bizarre nickname: the cannibal. Merckx says: "Cannibal? That doesn't bother me." Merckx turns 80 on 17 June 2025, his hair colour changes noticeably from black to grey, he finds it difficult to walk that afternoon in March due to a fracture of his right hip. It happened in a crash on his racing bike in December of the previous year. Until then, he cycled 70 kilometres a week, mostly with his Belgian friends from the area, some of whom were once his helpers. As soon as his hip allows it, he wants to get back on the saddle.
Merckx's house in Meise near Brussels is a former riding stable, with four large buildings forming a rectangular, enclosed fortress, with the office opposite the house. Next to it are the premises of his former bicycle factory, founded in 1980, where frames named after him were manufactured before Eddy Merckx sold most of his shares in the company in 2008. Eight years ago, the bicycle manufacturer Ridley took over Eddy Merckx Bikes completely.
Eddy Merckx: Belgian power station
Merckx sits down at his black desk, sitting works better than standing at the moment, and begins to talk. About his career, his great victories, the coups with which he tormented his opponents, who also possessed great class: Rik van Looy, Roger de Vlaeminck, Raymond Poulidor, Luis Ocaña, Bernard Thévenet. But when it came down to it, he was usually in front, Eddy Merckx, born in Meensel-Kiezegem, 50 kilometres east of Brussels. He grew up in Woluwe-Saint Pierre, where his parents ran a grocery shop. The shop no longer exists, but the place where it stood is now called Square Eddy Merckx, Eddy Merckx Square. Eddy is the abbreviation for Merckx's real first name, Édouard, and he also has the honorary title of Baron, but he only ever wants to be addressed as: "Eddy, that's enough. I was awarded the title of Baron by King Albert II in 1996. That doesn't mean much to me." The Merckx power station produced from March to October. And then Merckx switched to the six-day track and defeated his rivals there too. How was that possible? "I definitely got good genes," says Merckx in Meise. But he also inherited a great capacity for suffering, mixed with an insatiable ambition.
Merckx probably put on his greatest show on 15 July 1969, the 17th stage of the Tour, starting in Luchon and finishing in Mourenx, 214 kilometres over a number of mountain passes in the Pyrenees. The Tour debutant, 24 years old and wearing the yellow jersey, did not grant his Belgian team-mate Martin van den Bossche the mountain prize on the Tourmalet. Instead, Merckx sprinted to this prestigious victory himself. The reason: van den Bossche had revealed to his captain the previous evening that he would be changing teams, from Faema to Molteni. This upset Merckx so much that he stormed to the front. And stayed there.
This meant that he had to ride the remaining 140 kilometres solo to the finish. On the way there, he had to cross the Soulor and the Aubisque, an insane effort in which he ran the risk of losing everything in the heat of the day in the event of an attack of weakness. But after 7:05 hours he reached the finish line in first place. He had distanced himself from his best pursuers by almost eight minutes. Frenchman Roger Pingeon remained behind Merckx in the overall standings, but was already 16:18 minutes behind, which increased to almost 18 minutes by the time he reached Paris. Jacques Goddet, then Tour director and editor-in-chief of "L'Équipe", believed he had seen the reincarnation of Attila the Hun and titled his article: "Merckissimo". His conclusion: "In conclusion, it must be said that the Tour is never won before Paris. Eddy Merckx also destroyed this legend."
Merckx mainly relied on Belgian helpers for his crazy excursions. For ten years, he rode in Italian teams, for Faema, Molteni and Fiat. However, he did not trust Italian aides, nor did he trust riders from his neighbouring country: "No Dutchmen" was his mantra. Instead, Belgians, loyal servants all, men he referred to as his family, colleagues such as Jos Huysmans, Victor van Schil, Jos de Schoenmaker, Joseph Bruyère and, after the scandal at Mourenx, van den Bossche again, as the two were reunited two years later at Molteni.
Mourenx saw Merckx not only as a criminal court for van den Bossche, but also as revenge for Savona, the place where he had been excluded from the Giro on 2 June 1969 - in the pink jersey. The reason was a positive doping test, the stimulant femcamfamine was discovered. In this case, however, the oddities predominated. Merckx says: "They analysed the A and B samples on the same night without anyone from my team being present - that's not correct. And what's more, the bottles that were analysed have disappeared."
Intrigues?
The previous evening, Rudi Altig, then part of the Salvarani team, had visited Merckx's room on behalf of his captain Felice Gimondi. Altig offered Merckx a large sum of money if he would let Gimondi win. Merckx refused and was positive shortly afterwards. In the end, Gimondi actually won the Giro.
Savona developed into a state affair, Belgian ministers took sides with Merckx, and yet: the regulations stipulated a one-month ban in such a case. Merckx would therefore not be able to start in the Tour, which began on 28 June in Roubaix. However, Merckx wanted to make his debut there in 1969, especially as the race stopped in his home town of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. At his trial, the International Federation of Professional Cyclists, which was responsible for the case at the time, finally acquitted him on the grounds that he was guilty: In case of doubt in favour of the accused. Merckx was back in the race. And as things turned out: He took his first yellow jersey in the summer of 1969 following a team time trial after stage 1b in: Woluwe-Saint-Pierre.
Merckx tested positive two more times during his career. In 1973, after his victory in the Tour of Lombardy, the substance detected was norephedrine. Merckx was subsequently stripped of his victory and given a one-month ban. In 1977, following the Flèche Wallonne, Merckx again failed a doping test. This time it was the stimulant pemoline, he was again banned for a month and his eighth place was cancelled.
After Savona and his Tour victory, Merckx had another dramatic experience in 1969. On 9 September, Merckx and his pacemaker Fernand Wambst hit their heads on the cement of the track after a fall during a derny race in the Blois velodrome. Wambst died on the way to hospital, Merckx survived seriously injured, the diagnosis was: severe concussion, whiplash, wounds in the scalp had to be stitched, his left pelvis had shifted, spinal nerves were pinched and vertebrae were affected. "Blois was my most traumatic experience," says Merckx, the death of Wambst "was a shock". From then on, the pelvic obliquity haunted Merckx throughout his career: "After Blois, I never found the same level of efficiency in the mountains again. The pain became chronic."
Eddy Merckx: A low blow with consequences
Merckx's career was characterised by two further dramatic incidents, both of which occurred during the 1975 Tour, when he was in a duel with Frenchman Bernard Thévenet for the Tour victory. Firstly, Merckx, still in the yellow jersey, was attacked by a French spectator in the final stage 14 shortly before the summit of the Puy de Dôme pass, who gave him a liver shot. Merckx, scarred by the blow, lost half a minute to Thévenet. Merckx himself identified the perpetrator, a man named Nello Breton, on the descent and later sued him for damages. The trial took place months later, but Breton only received a symbolic fine: he had to pay one franc to the state coffers.
One day after this action, Merckx lost his yellow jersey, which he was never able to wear again. And three days after the liver hit, he crashed heavily on the roll-in before the sharp start of the 17th stage in Valloire, at the foot of the Galibier, after a collision with the rear wheel of the Dane Ole Ritter: Merckx broke a cheekbone and a jawbone. He nevertheless continued the race, explaining: "I was second in the overall classification. I wanted to secure the bonuses for my team. That was pure madness." Merckx finished the Tour, came second and received thunderous applause in Paris, finally gaining great recognition from the French public. They had previously been very sceptical about the Belgian winning machine.
The 1975 Tour also heralded Merckx's farewell, and in 1977 he made one last appearance in the Tour of France, now aged 32, but he was no longer able to make a difference. Merckx finished sixth behind the sensational German Tour debutant Dietrich Thurau. And the following spring it was over. Merckx started for the last time on 19 March 1978, he had signed up for the Belgian Omloop van het Waalsand in Sint-Niklaas, where he finished twelfth. The power station could no longer produce.
Eddy Merckx, father of daughter Sabrina and son Axel, who was a modestly successful professional cyclist, and grandfather of five grandchildren, is Belgium's sportsman of the 20th century. And a kind of national treasure at home. But despite all his popularity, Merckx is always an attentive, friendly host who sometimes can't understand why he receives so much attention and so many honours.
And there are many of them. In Brussels, a stop on metro line 5 is named after him. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Brussels. On the Côte de Stockeu, a hill that is part of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège race, a Merckx monument was inaugurated in April 1993. He says: "None of this is that important to me. The important thing is that I was the best rider of my generation. And I probably was." He definitely was. Nobody will contradict him.
Eddy Merckx - The most important successes
Total: 525 victories on the road, 80 of them as an amateur; 98 victories on the track
Monuments
- Milan-San Remo: 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976 (winning record)
- Tour of Flanders:1969, 1975
- Paris-Roubaix: 1968, 1970, 1973
- Liège-Bastogne-Liège: 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 (winning record)
- Tour of Lombardy: 1971, 1972
Important classics
- Flèche Wallonne:1967, 1970, 1972
- Gent-Wevelgem: 1967, 1970, 1973
- Amstel Gold Race: 1973, 1975
World Championships
- 1967 in Heerlen (ahead of Jan Janssen, Netherlands, and Ramon Saez, Spain)
- 1971 in Mendrisio (ahead of Felice Gimondi, Italy, and Cyrille Guimard, France)
- 1974 in Montreal (ahead of the Frenchmen Raymond Poulidor and Mariano Martinez)
Grand Tours
- Giro d'Italia: 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974 (record); 24 stage wins
- Tour de France: 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974 (record); 34 stage wins
- Vuelta: 1973; 6 stage wins
Important round trips
- Paris-Nice:1969, 1970, 1971
- Critérium du Dauphiné: 1971
- Tour de Suisse: 1974
Further achievements
- Super Prestige classification (best driver of the year, determined by a points system of the most important races) 1969 to 1975
- Hourly world record 25 October 1972 on the open-air track in Mexico City, 49.431 kilometres
