Will There Ever Be Another Merckx?

Fans of cycling are lucky in a way.

Sure, the sport can be tough to root for, as races come and go and traditions evolve. At any given moment older fans can say that the sport doesn’t “look like it used to.” Apart from a few institutions, teams are as ephemeral as a cool desert stream. And even the most ardent fan, outside of western Europe at least, has friends who ask why they wear tight shorts and who taunt cycling for its doping scandals, as their own pet sports bury their skeletons. It’s annoying, at various turns, to be a Cycling fan.

But in addition to its obvious merits, Cycling is pretty unique in that it can say without hesitation who its all-time greatest hero is: Eddy Merckx. For reasons I’ll get into shortly, he doesn’t face any real argument against his overarching legend status, as compared to riders past or present. When we get super excited about an up-and-coming rider, we will say “he’s the next Merckx,” but almost nobody actually means that, and virtually everyone hears this as just “he’s a really glittering talent.” Actually trying to make that argument, or the career comp, will cost you your standing among your cycling fan peers. For a rider to address the subject out loud is well-known heresy. Eddy Merckx is the sport’s sun, and if you try to approach it, you can guarantee that your wings will melt, like a bunch sprinter’s resolve as the race hits the lower slopes of the Passo del Mortirolo.

Do you realize how unique this is? In all of the major ball sports, there are arguments to be had as to the greatest performer. I could go through them all (insert angry how can you say Messi is better than Pele? content) but for brevity’s sake, most ball sports have different jobs, to go along with the typical evolution of the athletes, such that no one person can define the sport in any significant way. Even trying to identify someone who comes closest will yield too many choices. Individual sports are different in that you can often point to records which seem unreachable, until they aren’t, but more often than not you will get bogged down in arguments about sports science and cheating and the like.

Photo by Daily Mirror – Library/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix…