Eddy Merckx Biography

BIRTH: June 17, 1945, Belgium

Eddy Merckx Biography : Belgian cyclist, Records

Eddy Merckx is a Belgian, formerly professional, bicycle racer. He has competed in about a thousand races in his career. He is one of the top cyclists with eleven Grand Tour wins, three World Championships and the World Hour Record to his name.

Eddy Merckx’s full name is Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx. He was born on June 17, 1945, in Belgium to Jennie Pittomvils and Jules Merckx. Eddy began cycling at the mere age of four and got his first racing license in 1961. He dropped out of school to pursue his passion.

Eddy started his journey to becoming a professional cyclist in 1961. In his first race he came in sixth. Eddy took part in twelve more races that year. At the age of sixteen, he won his first race at Petit-Enghien in October 1961. After he won the race, he started training under former bicycle racer Félicien Vervaecke. In 1962, Eddy competed in more than fifty races. That year he got his second success at the Kermesse.

Merckx won Belgium’s national championship and was beginning to dominate the sport. His next victory came in 1964 at the Amateur World Championship Road Race. The following year he started competing professionally and signed with Rik Van Looy’s Belgian team, Solo Superia. During his time with Solo Superia he took part in more than seventy races.

In 1966, Merckx moved to the Peugeot cycling team and got his first major win as a professional at the Milan San Remo cycle race at the age of twenty. Apart from this, he competed in, and won, the UCI Road World Championships in 1967, 1971 and 1974. He won twenty races that season.

In 1967, Merckx got back to back success in races. Merckx started his first Grand Tour and won several stages of the race. At the end of the year, he was ranked ninth overall. He became the world champion after winning the UCI Road World Championships in the Netherlands. In 1968, he took part in the Tour of Sardinia, which he won. During that season he sadly had to pull out from races like the Paris-Nice race and Tour of Flanders due to a knee injury. Despite that, Merckx attended the 1968 Giro d’Italia race and won. He had a total of 32 victories in that season.

In 1969, he won the Paris-Nice race and Vuelta a Levante stage races. He also started the Giro d’Italia race. Merckx successfully cleared all the stages of the race and received the award for being the most aggressive rider. He participated in the Paris-Luxemburg cycle race but had a life threating accident. The race consisted of the rider being followed by a pacer. Merckx’s pacer was Fernand Wambst. A collision occurred between Merckx, his pacer and another pacer. Wambst died in the accident and Merckx was heavily injured; it took him months to recover.

Between 1969 and 1975 Merckx won about half the races he participated in. He was the legend of cycling with regards to physical fitness. An experiment was also conducted on Merckx to study how he managed to race for such long periods. The result showed that he had the gift of maintaining his speed even with high levels of lactic acid in his body.

In 1972, Merckx created the record for the greatest distance covered by a cyclist in one hour. He broke the record in the most challenging condition of the Mexico track. In 1977, Merckx got a new sponsor: FIAT. He started the season by winning the Tour Méditerranéen and Grand Prix d’Aix. He completed the year by winning the Kermis race. FIAT ended their sponsorship at the end of 1977. To focus more on his health, Merckx competed in only a few selected races.

In May 1978, he announced his retirement from bicycle racing. After the retirement he started Eddy Merckx Cycles company in 1980. It became the largest and most famous brand in 25 countries. For a decade, Merckx managed the Belgian tram for the world championships. Even after he retired, Merckx was involved with the sport in some way or the other. In 2002, Merckx helped in arranging the Tour of Qatar and organized the Tour of Oman road races.

In his entire career, Merckx won over 450 races, which is a record in itself. He is recognized as the only athlete who covered a record distance with 49.431 km in one hour.

Eddy married Claudine Acou on December 5, 1967. The couple are proud parents of two children. Eddy’s son, Axel Merckx, is also a professional cyclist.