Who was Eddy Merckx?
Eddy Merck is a formerly-professional Belgian, bicycle racer. He completed in 1585 races in his 13-years-long career. He is one of the most celebrated cyst list of all time, with eleven Grand Tour wins, there World Championships and the World Hour Record to his name.
Eddy Merckx’s full name is Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx. He was born June 17, 1945, in Belgium, to Jennie Merckx 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. In 1962 e persuaded his parents to let him drop out to school to pursue competitive cycling full-time.
Early Life of Eddy Merck
In 1962; he entered 55 races as an amateur and won 23 of them, including Belgium’s national championship. He soon began to dominate cyclist in other European countries. In 1964 he won the Amateur World championship Road Race, and the next year he turned professional. His first major victory came in 1966, before the was even 21, at the Milan-San Remo cycle race in Italy.
Merckx won Belgium’s national championship and was begging to dominate the sport. His next victory came in 1964 at the Armature World Championship Road Race. The following year he started competing professionally and singed with Rik Van Looy’s Belgian team, Solo Superia. In more than seventy races. In 1966, Merckx moved to Peugeot’s cycling team and got his first major win as a professional at the Milan San Remo cycle race at the age of twenty. He won twenty races in 1967.
Achievements of Eddy
In 1967, Merckx started his first Grand Tour and won several stages of the race. At the end of the year, he was ranked month overall. He became the world champion after win UCI Road World Championships in the Netherlands, and also won the same in 1971 and 1974. In 1968, he took part in the Giro di Sardegna, which he won. During that season he sadly had to pull out from races 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 scored a total of 32 victories that season.
In the year of 1968-1974, he won the Paris-Nice race, the Tour de France, the Giro de Italia, and the Vuelta and Levante. He participated in the Paris-Luxemburg cycle race but suffered from an accident that could have been fatal. The riders were to be followed by pacers. Merckx’s pacers were 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.
New Record of Cycling
In the year of 1969 and 1975 Merckx won about half the races he participated in. he was a cycling legend when it came to 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 ability to maintain his speed even with high levels of lactic acid in his body.
In 1972, Merckx set the record for the greatest distance covered by a cyclist in one hour_49.431 Kilometres, or about 30.715 miles. He broke the record in the difficult and high-altitude terrain of the Mexico track. In 1977, Merckx got a new sponsor: FIAT. He started the season by winning the Tour Mediterranean and Grand Prix d’Aix. He completed the year by winning the kermis race. Merckx began completing in only a few selected races in order to focus more o his health.
Legacy of Eddy and Retirement
In May 1978, he announced his retirement from bicycle racing. After retirement, he started Eddy Merckx Cycle in 1980. Despite facing many problems, the company went on to achieve success professional cyclists. For a decade, Merckx helped manage the World Championships of the Belgium team. 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 Oatar and organized the Tour of Oman road races.
In his entire career, Merckx won over 445 races, which is a record in itself. He is recognized as the first athlete to have covered a record distance with 49.431 km n one hour. Eddy married Claudine Acou on December 5, 1967. The couple is proud parents of two children. Eddy’s son, Alex Merckx, is also a professional cyclist.