Cycling great celebrates his birthday
Cycling legend, Belgian Eddy Merckx celebrates his 65th birthday today.
“Happy 65th birthday to the great Eddy Merckx!!,” Lance Armstrong posted on his Twitter account.
Armstrong beat Merckx at the Tour de France by winning seven times, but that is about it. Merckx raced from 1961 to 1978, disputed 1800 races and won 525 times – five times the Tour de France and a record 96 days in the yellow jersey. He is the only one to have won the yellow, green and polka-dot jersey in the same Tour de France (1969).
Merckx admits today that his number of wins is because he had to race more days to make money. Still, he battled other greats at the time – Tom Simpson, Felice Gimondi, Joop Zoetemelk, Raymond Poulidor, Roger De Vlaeminck – who were racing just as often.
Merckx arrived thanks to his 1966 Milano-Sanremo win at age 20, three years younger than when Mark Cavendish won last year. He went on to win it six more times. The world took note with his five Tour de France victories, but he also won the Giro d’Italia five times and the Vuelta a España once. Adding up to eleven Grand Tour victories.
“Eddy Merckx” appears in almost every race’s list of past winners.
Unlike Armstrong, Merckx was not limited to Grand Tours, he won at least twice in each of cycling’s five monuments: Milano-Sanremo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Giro di Lombardia. He also set the hour record (49.431km) that held for many years and still stands as the benchmark for modern day comparisons.
“A great bike rider & legend in own lifetime,” Robbie McEwen said on his Twitter, “but above all, just a really nice bloke.”
Brothers Fränk and Andy Schleck also joined in with messages of well wishes.
Teams:
1965: Peugeot-BP
1966-1967: Faema
1968-1970: Molteni
1971-1976: Fiat
1977: C&A
1978: Solo-Superia
Major wins:
Tour de France (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974)
Giro d’Italia (1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974)
Vuelta a España (1973)
World Championships (1967, 1971, 1974)
Milano-Sanremo (1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976)
Ronde van Vlaanderen (1969, 1975)
Paris-Roubaix (1968, 1970, 1973)
Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975)
Giro di Lombardia (1971, 1972)