“They are still looking for the next Eddy Merckx, but they’ll never find one” - Alfons De Wolf on Belgian obsession with finding a successor 'De Kannibaal'
CyclingMonday, 15 January 2024 at 18:58
The palmares of the great Eddy Merckx reads like no one else's in the history of cycling. Ever since his retirement in 1978 however, Belgian cycling has been waiting for a successor.
One of the men first touted as 'the next Eddy Merckx' was Alfons De Wolf. Ultimately it was a pressure he couldn't live with. “The press started it as soon as Eddy retired,” De Wolf tells Cycling Weekly. “Every journalist was talking about finding a new Eddy, but the pressure was too high."
Remco Evenepoel, the latest star of Belgian cycling has also felt the pressures of such a label. After he became junior time-trial world champion, Evenepoel made a public plea for the comparisons to stop. “Being described as the new Merckx is not something I want to hear. Please, just stop it,” he said at the time and on social media. “Nobody can be a new version of something he or she has never been and never will be. Stop comparing, please.”
“They are still looking for the next Eddy, but they’ll never find one,” De Wolf continues sadly. “Just like they’ll never find the next Pelé in football.”
“The press tried to put pressure on me, but I was clever enough to know I wasn’t as good as Eddy. I could do a few good races, two or three months a season at a high level, but not a whole year. I knew what I could and couldn’t do,” he concludes. “It was strange. I would go into a shop and everyone would know me. There were many requests from sponsors and even some people asking me to go into politics, but none of this interested me."
TRIO DE CHOC !
— TeamZOETEMELK (@team_zoetemelk) January 9, 2024
Joop ZOETEMELK, Eddy MERCKX, Lucien Van IMPE#TDF1971 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/FGkduqGD9E
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3 Comments
Among the reasons they will never find another Mercxx is that the competition is far, far too deep today. The same is true in just about every sport; as the money and notoriety of sports have grown, more athletes employing better training, nutrition, equipement, etc., have gotten involved. The result is stronger, faster, more skilled athletes, and more of them, in all sports. Mercxx is rightly understood as THE all-time great cyclist, but even if he were born today and could benefit from all the advances since his day, there is no chance he would dominate the sport like he did 50 years ago. Just too many great competitors for that.
Imagine Pogacar switching from Slovenia🇸🇮 to Belgium🇧🇪... Would that be a shock?
They could give Belgian citizenship to Pogacar. He is the closest
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