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

respectively among the best one-day and stage-race riders in the world?
    No, if Vincenzo Giacotto, another of professional cycling’s
bon viveurs
, wanted Merckx, he could have him for his new Faema team in 1968. Before Plaud packed him off to Italy for good, he would send him to Treviglio, near Milan, for the beginning of his first major tour, the 1967 Giro d’Italia…
    One Wednesday afternoon in October 2011, Walter Godefroot sits forward in his chair and shakes his head, probably much like he did when it dawned in April 1967 that some members of the Belgian press believed the real story from Liège–Bastogne–Liège was another stellar performance from Eddy Merckx.
    ‘We were too immersed in our own careers to see what was going on,’ he murmurs by way of an apology. ‘To an extent, we only realised that had happened when it was too late…’
    As the 1967 season wore on, it was coming to resemble a series of auditions, on a bigger scale and with higher stakes than Merckx’s in front of a judging panel of Nino Defilippis, Vincenzo Giacotto and Teofilo Sanson at Cervinia in April. Most sports thrive on duality, rivalry, and cycling was no different, but there was also something inherent in what racing represented that compelled its followers to look for one superior being, a clear champion, and which somehow made them most comfortable in one’s presence. Thus, the periods most clearly defined in the collective memory were those which were also synonymous with just one rider: in France, the Louison Bobet or Anquetil eras; or in Italy, those associated with Costante Girardengo, Alfredo Binda and Fausto Coppi, for all that Coppi’s battles with Gino Bartali had promoted Coppi’s deification. By contrast, times of transition, as one regime petered out and another readied itself to elect a leader, often gave rise to the most exciting racing but also a sense of general unease. In the early 1960s, there had been two rulers, Jacques Anquetil in major tours and Rik Van Looy in the Classics. By 1967 that pair was going but not yet gone – and wouldn’t until someone truly stood up and stood out from the crowd.
    Merckx was one pretender among many, although no one really believed that he could compete with the best in the mountains of Italy. That taster session at Cervinia led him and those watching to believe that his horizons may yet be broader than just the Classics, but three Italians he had beaten at Milan–San Remo, just for instance, had far greater pedigree on climbs much harder than what he had faced that day.
    Had he needed it, a fourth Italian, Italo Zilioli, could also have told Merckx all about the fickle plight of the great white hope. Barely ten days in, it had already been a miserable Giro in an annus horribilis for Zilioli. Having burst on to the scene with a series of prestigious wins in 1963 Zilioli’s career had been stuttering ever since. Now attacking through the sleet two kilometres from the top of the Blockhaus climb, he thought he had saved his Giro and was homing in on a prestigious stage win. Then had come a noise,
that
noise, a glimpse of Merckx bearing down, a frantic and fudged attempt to change gear, a look up, and the final realisation that his predator had come and gone. Merckx’s ability to hold off a chasing peloton on the flat had caught Zilioli’s eye three months earlier at Paris–Nice. Never, though, did the Italian think him capable of the same thing 2,000 metres above sea level. Once, Zilioli’s team manager had asked him why he always brought the same book,
Letters of Condemned Italian Resistance Fighters
, with him to races. Zilioli had replied, ‘Because in moments when I feel desperate, when I feel the unluckiest person alive, I read a few pages and it helps me to understand what desperation really feels like.’
    Zilioli can’t remember what he read that night, but will never forget the headline in the following day’s
Gazzetta dello Sport
: ‘Italian disappointment: