Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal by Daniel Friebe Read Free Book Online Page A

quickly we all realised that on the bike he was a brute. I say quickly but it wasn’t straight away. It took a while, a couple of years. We, we didn’t know, we didn’t…’
    For once even Dino Zandegù is lost for words.
    *
    If March had belonged to Merckx, victories for Zandegù in Flanders and the Dutchman Jan Janssen in Paris–Roubaix forestalled hype around the new star that may have followed what, after all, had been only two inspired performances in the space of eleven days in Milan–San Remo and Gent–Wevelgem. Yes, Merckx had won again at Flèche Wallonne at the end of April, this time with a vicious solo attack, but again there was an explanation: the magic sparkle dust named ‘form’, which could come over a rider for a month or six weeks and transform him from good to great, inconspicuous to irresistible. No one was disputing that now Merckx, at 21, had a glittering future; not many either, though, were getting carried away, partly because the last, the hardest and maybe most prestigious of the Classics had opened clear daylight between the two main young pretenders to ‘Emperor’ Rik Van Looy’s throne. Walter Godefroot first, Eddy Merckx second; the line of succession had been determined by the finish line at Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
    Van Looy, it has to be said, had always preferred Godefroot. First and foremost, he was a true Flandrian, like Van Looy. Godefroot’s parents had worked in the textile factories which provided work and bare subsistence for thousands of families in and around Gent. When Godefroot was 13, they scraped together the last Belgian francs that Social Security Services and the Catholic Church wouldn’t cover for Walter to go on holiday to Switzerland. ‘That way, you’ll at least get to go that far once in your life. We never will…’ Godefroot’s mother told him.
    A few years later, in 1964, cycling would take him to Tokyo for the Olympics, where he won a bronze medal, which at the time he felt could have been gold with a little more help from Merckx, and in the three years since he had travelled and won all over Europe. His Liège win had now confirmed him as the best young Classics rider anywhere in the world. Or so Godefroot thought. He glanced at one Flemish daily’s sports pages the following day and flinched. ‘Merckx undone’ said the headline, and beneath it, in smaller writing: ‘Godefroot wins Liège–Bastogne–Liège’. The author went on to espouse Merckx’s view that he had been outsprinted only because he wasn’t familiar with the cinder track at Rocourt in Liège, which had hosted a soggy finish. Godefroot cursed as he read. He had done all the chasing behind Merckx’s Peugeot teammate Ferdinand Bracke, he had repelled every Merckx attack when Bracke was caught, and he had led Merckx into the velodrome. What else did he have to do? Maybe if he lived in the same city as clueless journalists and their newspapers, Brussels, like Merckx…
    But at least Godefroot had bagged a big one. Merckx’s victory two days earlier at Flèche Wallonne now paled. Even Merckx’s Peugeot team manager, the debonair, dickie-bowed Gaston Plaud, seemed to think so. When Merckx told Plaud that he would consider renewing his contract on the condition that Plaud signed two or three Belgian domestiques to help him in the 1968 Classics, the Peugeot chief’s expression glazed over. As usual, Plaud’s mind seemed to be on other things. Food, wine, who he was meeting for dinner. If it didn’t serve up such rich material for mockery, the sound of Plaud’s voice on arriving at the team hotel every night would have driven his riders to distraction. ‘
Bonsoir, Madame. Qu’est-ce que vous avez comme spécialité de la maison?
’
    The truth was that Plaud had his reasons for not trying harder to hold on to Merckx, plus two brilliant and highly marketable leaders: Tom Simpson and Roger Pingeon. Why would he kowtow to Merckx, a Belgian, at the risk of alienating that pair,