Eddy Merckx more universal than Cannibal

Eddy Merckx was called “The Cannibal”. However, he never liked that nickname because “what does a cannibal do? Eat meat, children, people? I limited myself to racing and winning whenever I could”, he told Cosimo Cito of Repubblica some time ago.

And for him, Eddy Merckx, winning “every time I could” meant winning very often, because he had the superfine talent of the best, as well as an extraordinary determination. He won a lot, a lot, Eddy Merckx, every time he could, because that was what he raced for: to be the first, the best, to enjoy the feeling of crossing the finish line before everyone else. He won the Tour de France five times, the Giro d'Italia five times , the Vuelta a España once (the only time he raced it), all the Monument Classics (seven Milan-San Remo, five Liège-Bastogne-Liège, three Paris-Roubaix, twice the Tour of Flanders and the Tour of Lombardy), three World Championships (plus one in the Amateurs). In total 445 victories in the approximately 1,800 races he contested.

And he tried to fulfill this desire of his both when the road went up and when it went down, on the plain and in the mountains, on the asphalt as well as on the stones, in races lasting three weeks and in those of just one day. Even in a sprint if he couldn't stay alone.

They could have called him “The Universal”, it would have been perfect, in his image and likeness. He was and remained “The Cannibal”, because, after all, he was evocative and impactful . Moreover, the Kindu massacre was still fresh in the memory of Italians with all that intriguing mix of exotic and esoteric that had followed in its wake from the journalistic reports. Only a few years earlier, in 1961, thirteen Italian soldiers who were in Congo on a UN mission, were kidnapped, tortured and killed by Congolese militiamen (and cannibalized, but on this subject it has never been understood where reality ended and legend began), perhaps because they were mistaken for Belgian mercenaries.

For decades, Eddy Merckx was untouchable. He existed in the memories of those who saw him race and those who didn't. His name and surname were a seal of guarantee: the best ever. The rider in whose presence even the strongest of the moment paled. He was a point of comparison and every comparison was a losing one, it ended up looking like a joke. And yet, they tried to create several Merckxes again. Even Bernard Hinault had been labeled that way. The French champion took off from that comparison, went out on his own, became a model to compare someone to. He said resolutely that he didn't even want to hear certain things, that he was fine with being Bernard Hinault and that was it, that cycling is certainly a present tied to the past, but that he didn't care much about the past. Riders always care just enough, that is, very little, about what has happened. They ride in the present, at most they think about the future. The bicycle is an excellent means, the best, to delve into some long-range thinking, to imagine what will be, perhaps to think back to what has been, but only for a moment. Endorphins can help memory, of course, but above all they stimulate pleasure, regulate mood, increase the ability to imagine. And imagination always pushes towards the future.

At eighty (he turns eighty on June 17), Eddy Merckx is still pedaling , and for the first time he said he saw a rider of his lineage: Tadej Pogacar . One capable of being “Universal” in his own way. It had never happened to him. He said he felt a sense of satisfaction in seeing him pedal, that he saw in him much of what he felt when he raced.

There are many celebrations that cycling has dedicated to Eddy Merckx. And throughout Europe, because Eddy Merckx is a shared cycling heritage. Also in Italy of course: from May 3 (and until September 30, 2025) the Ghisallo Museum hosts the exhibition “Eddy Merckx, the eighty years of a legend” . A tribute in 3 rooms, and 5 Faema panels, 25 jerseys, 60 texts, many photographs, several bicycles.

There is another occasion during this period, however. And much less welcome.

In the first days of June fifty years ago, for the first time since he began racing among the professionals, Eddy Merckx's invincibility wavered. It was at the 1975 Tour of the Dauphiné, towards Grenoble, on the Col d'Izoard, that the eyes of the Belgian champion became aquatic, his gaze began to wander in the nothingness of fatigue. A few hundred meters later, he saw the silhouettes of Bernard Thévenet and Lucien van Impe gradually getting smaller, before disappearing among the hairpin bends of the Alpine climb. It was not Eddy Merckx's first crisis , it was the one that ended an era, his.

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