Behind every great man there’s a great woman, and vice versa, in the case of Rik Van Looy, the other 4-time winner of today’s E3 Saxo Classic with Tom Boonen, winning came naturally but was haphazard until he met his wife, Nina Marien.
She was the daughter of Hugo Marien, a famous Belgian sports director, and brought up on cycling. They married in February 1955, and Nina encouraged Rik to take his career more seriously.
With her in his corner, and father-in-law as manager, he became a formidable opponent in any race. “Nina knew what cyclists should eat, how they should train and conduct their business affairs,” Rik said in an interview in our book about the great Belgian cobbled classics riders, Cycling Legends 04 Flandriens, cult heroes of the cobbles.
Van Looy raced year-round, with six-day races on the track in winter. He trained hard too, but he soon realized, with help from Nina, he was doing too much: “To win the biggest road races consistently you need some of the winter to rest. Then re-build on the road, lots of kilometres, so you start racing rested and can keep going all summer.
“I limited my six-day races after the first few years, but I was winning bigger road races so I got paid more. I also quickly realized that training in Belgium in winter wasn’t the best way. I started going to Lake Garda in Italy, alone at first but then with my whole team. I was one of the first from Belgium to do that.”
Van Looy’s career took off – he won 20 races in 1956, 34 in 1957, 26 in 1958, 43 in 1959 and 30 in 1960. They were top quality too: Milan-San Remo in 1958, and the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Tours in 1959. Then he won the 1960 professional road race world title and was victorious again the following year.
Not only did Rik Van Looy become the first of 3 riders to win all the monuments, but he also won some more than once. He was the best single-day racer of his day, and a master of cobblestones, winning the Tour of Flanders twice and Paris-Roubaix 3 times.
Read all about Rik in Cycling Legends 04 Flandriens, cult heroes of the cobbles. Find out more here
