Merckx, Eddy

Eddy Merckx, in full Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx, Baron Merckx, (born June 17, 1945, Meensel-Kiezegem, Belgium), Belgian champion bicycle racer, arguably the greatest professional rider ever. In a professional career stretching from 1965 to 1978, he recorded 445 victories in 1,585 races. During his peak years (1969–75), he won some 35 percent of the races he entered. Because the focus of the sport has become specialized since Merckx’s era—the stars of one-day classics do not usually shine in multiday stage races, and vice versa—nobody is likely to approach his total wins. He was nicknamed “the Cannibal” for his voracious appetite for victories.

Merckx won the men’s amateur division of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Road World Championships, also known as the World Cycling Championships, in 1964. With 80 wins as an amateur, he turned professional the next year and won the open (professional) division of the UCI Road World Championships in 1967, 1971, and 1974. He was highly successful in the three great stage races, winning the Vuelta a España (1973), the Giro d’Italia (1968, 1970, 1972–74), and the Tour de France (1969–72, 1974). He also won lesser stage races such as the Tour of Switzerland, the Dauphiné-Libéré, and Paris-Nice.

Merckx was a strong climber, winning the polka-dot jersey of the Tour de France’s “King of the Mountains” in 1969 and 1970, and a formidable time trialist, breaking the world record for distance covered in a one-hour ride in 1972. Moreover, Merckx set records for the most days as leader of the Giro (72) and of the Tour de France (96) as well as for most stages won in the Tour de France (34).

Merckx also excelled in the great one-day classics, winning Milan-San Remo (1966–67, 1969, 1971–72, 1975–76), Paris-Roubaix (1968, 1970, 1973), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1969, 1971–73, 1975), the Tour of Flanders (1969, 1975), the Amstel Gold Race (1973, 1975), and the Tour of Lombardy (1971–72).

After retiring as a racer in 1978, Merckx opened a bicycle factory near Brussels that designs and supplies custom bicycles, including those for several professional teams.