Legendary Eddy Merckx back at home after spending time in hospital for emergency intestinal surgery
Cycling
One of the most legendary figures in the sport of cycling Eddy Merckx is back at home after spending the last few days in hospital following successful intestinal surgery.
The five-time Tour de France and five-time Giro d'Italia winner was rushed to hospital on March 26th according to reports by HLN, where the 78-year-old quickly underwent surgery in the early hours of the 27th and had "a significant part of his intestine removed."
Although no quotes from the great man are posted, HLN report that Merckx informed them how he awoke in such excruciating pain that his wife rushed him to the emergency room at his local hospital with doctors quickly seeing to him and operating.
Thankfully, there was never any life-threatening danger to Merckx and the Belgian can now rest easy at home in order to hopefully make a full recovery.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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StardustDragon13-04-20243
That's a good news
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- More to the point, it isn't his remaining goal.Renz08-11-2026
- lol yeahmij08-11-2026
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
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Eddy Merckx had a successful surgery in the past weeks. The 78-year-old legend had to spend a few days in hospital due to a painful & tilted intestine. The operation went well, Eddy has lost some weight, but he's already been released from hospital and recovering home. (HLN)
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