Today’s photo represents the time when a 16-year-old Eddy Merckx convinced everyone, even his sceptical father, he would make it as a cyclist. None of them knew how well he’d make it, except maybe Eddy.
He was a bright kid, good at school but became distracted when he discovered sport. He always was ultra-competitive, and sport became the channel he needed for it.
He played football for Junior White Star, the club that later became Racing White and is now called R.W.D Molenbeek, but cycling was his calling. He followed it on the radio and in newspapers, when no one in his family did. It came from deep inside him, it was something he felt driven to do. He rode unofficial races with friends, then as soon as he was old enough, he took part in his first official race.
It was on July 17th, 1961, one month after his 15th birthday, and he raced in the Belgian debutants category covering the ages of 15 and 16, on a circuit in Laeken, a residential suburb of Brussels that is the official home of the Belgian royal family. Merckx came 5th, 13 races later in October 1961 he won for the first time. His ambition was set in stone.
The following spring Eddy won 4 out of his first 5 races. Then at Easter he told his father he wanted to leave school to train and race to become a professional. That wasn’t what Jules Merckx had planned, but Eddy’s mum worked part-time in their grocery shop, and she was due in hospital for an operation, so Merckx senior needed someone while she recovered.
He gave the job to Eddy, let him train and race around his work; while hoping he would return to school. He never did; he never needed to. Merckx won nearly every race he rode in 1962, often by wide margins, and Jules Merckx watched him.
On July 16th he won his first Belgian title, the debutant’s road race, he’s wearing the jersey here. Eddy’s father gave him his blessing, and so the career of the greatest cyclist ever was launched.
Read more stories about Eddy Merckx and other Flandriens in the fourth edition of our illustrated book collection, Cycling Legends 04: Flandriens here
