Generally recognised as the all-time greatest cyclist, in anyone’s language
ICONS OF CYCLING
Eddy Merckx. The Cannibal. The GOAT: Greatest Of All Time. As with Muhammad Ali in boxing or Pelé in football, if people only knew one cyclist around the time of the moon landings, it was that Belgian…
Like Novak Djokovic on any surface of tennis court, or Michael Phelps in any swimming discipline, Merckx won across every type of race. Track, cobbles, mountains, sprint. Hour, day, week, fortnight. The lot. (There are comparisons to another great, albeit more superficially: as a young man, he resembled Elvis.)
In the late 1960s and early 1970s Eddy conquered all, relentlessly, mercilessly. Sometimes by, literally, miles. Five Tours, five Giros, a Vuelta. All five ‘Monuments’ (Milan–San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Giro di Lombardia). Countless titles and records. He almost literally won everything: every classic race except Paris–Tours.
The ‘Cannibal’ tag came from his all-consuming competitiveness. No following the unwritten rules by letting someone else win a stage if he was far ahead. If he had a beef – with other cyclists, the press, race organisers (most notoriously at the 1969 Giro d’Italia, when he was banned following a dubious ‘drug test result’) – his legs usually did the talking. The Merckx of vintage in-race photos is aloof, focused; on the podium he’s nonchalant, with a told-you-so sm
