Édouard Louis Joseph (Eddy), the Baron Merckx (Meensel-Kiezegem, 17 June 1945) was a professional cyclist from 1961 to 1978. Cycling fans consider him to be the most successful cyclist in history, with 525 competitions to his name. In 2000, the French magazine Vélo called him the ‘greatest cyclist ever’ and many sports journalist refer to him as the cycling god. He won the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia five time each, has won all of the top events except for the Paris-Tours, has won the Vuelta a España, has won the world championship as both a professional and as an amateur, and has broken the world hour record.

As a child, Eddy Merckx really admired Stan Ockers. When Ockers died in an accident in 1956, Eddy was deeply shocked and saddened, along with many of his countrymen.

In 1961, Merckx began his cycling career. Three years later, he became world amateur champion at Sallanches (France). In 1966, he won the first of what would eventually become seven Milan-San Remo’, a record that has still not been equalled to this day. In Heerlen, the Netherlands, a year later, he became world champion for road cycling, a distinction that he would claim a further two times. In that same year, he married Claudine Acou.

In 1968, Merckx became the first Belgian in history to win the Tour of Italy (the Giro). He would go on to win the Giro a further four times. For Eddy’s teams – he rode for the Italian teams of Faema, Faemino and Molteni – the Giro was more important than the Tour de France.

Eddy won his fist Tour in 1969: he won six stages, the end classification (yellow jersey), the point aggregate (green jersey) and the climbing classification (polka-dot jersey). If the white jersey (best under-25) had been around then, Merckx would have won that, too. He became a national hero in that year, because it had been exactly 30 years since a Belgian - Sylvère Maes - had won the Tour de France.