Eddy Merckx, the 1969 Tour de France and the day a Belgian legend was born

As ‘La Grande Boucle’ returns to Belgium on the 50th anniversary of Eddy Merckx’s first Tour triumph, Philip Malcolm remembers a glorious, transcendent moment of sport

Easy rider: Merckx takes a breather as he leads the pack during stage 8 of the 1969 Tour (Getty)

Eddy Merckx’s victory in the 1969 Tour de France was one of those defining moments where an athlete exceeds what is thought possible in their sport. The 24-year-old Bruxellois rode with a combination of youthful abandon, the certainty of superiority and righteous fury. He was Usain Bolt running 9.69 in Beijing, Muhammad Ali toppling Sonny Liston, he was Maradona slaloming through the heart of the England defence in Mexico City.

To look back on it now, knowing what we know about Merckx’s career, it is easy to characterise it as just another step on the ladder towards the plinth he occupies as a statue: The Greatest Cyclist of All Time. If we look purely at the statistics, the Tour de France would simply be the next logical step in a career which, since turning professional in 1965, had garnered five monuments, a world championship and, answering those who had him down as a “merely” a one-day rider, the Giro d’Italia of 1968.

It is easy, with the filter of 50 years of familiarity with the rest of Merck’s palmarès, to become a little overfamiliar, a little jaded with the achievement. So indulge me as I reduce the 1969 Tour de France to a single sentence. Eddy Merckx, at the age of 24, won his first Tour by over 17 minutes.