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Eddy Merckx and his 445 pro wins
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| Dusen |
Posted on 07-02-2015 21:56
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Hey there.
After Tour of Dubai i just went in and had a look at Cavendish, to see his achievements. 123 wins, quite impressive 
BUT. When compared to Eddy Merckx who won 445 pro wins in only 12 years it's peanuts.
The thing is. I simple can't understand how you can win this many races in so few years, and there is no where on the internet, were all those victories are listed.
445 wins is an average of 37 victories a season. Crazy!!
I know he was the champion of champions, so no reason to lesson me about his greatness, but i am interested in knowing more about his winnings.
- Did races on the track count as a pro win?
- How big did the race have to be, to become a "pro race"?
- Was the attendence in the small races limited since he could win so many?
Does anyone have any info on this ? |
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 07-02-2015 21:58
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Wikipedia is a good start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...ddy_Merckx. Lists all GT and Major wins.
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| Ad Bot |
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| Dusen |
Posted on 07-02-2015 21:59
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I know. But it's not even near those 445 wins. |
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 07-02-2015 22:02
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I assume it includes various Kermis/Criterium (poor spelling) races as well as Professional races. And that will include Track, like 6 Day events, which were much bigger back then.
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| Dusen |
Posted on 07-02-2015 22:08
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TheManxMissile wrote:
I assume it includes various Kermis/Criterium (poor spelling) races as well as Professional races. And that will include Track, like 6 Day events, which were much bigger back then.
It would make better sense. On Procyclingstats he has 103 pro wins.
They could have missed a few, but it could be that most of those 445 wins were smaller criteriums and track races(6 days with patrick sercu)
Ofc. those are still races, but it would just seem crazy to me, if he had won 37 pro races every season (now a days standards of pro races). |
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| CountArach |
Posted on 08-02-2015 01:38
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Dusen wrote:
TheManxMissile wrote:
I assume it includes various Kermis/Criterium (poor spelling) races as well as Professional races. And that will include Track, like 6 Day events, which were much bigger back then.
It would make better sense. On Procyclingstats he has 103 pro wins.
They could have missed a few, but it could be that most of those 445 wins were smaller criteriums and track races(6 days with patrick sercu)
Ofc. those are still races, but it would just seem crazy to me, if he had won 37 pro races every season (now a days standards of pro races).
Not just that but lots of races have gone out of business in the decades since then.
I think the main part of it is that cycling has just changed so much since then. We are in the age of specialisation - every single rider trains to be good on one sort of terrain. Merckx and almost all of the other riders of his generation had to be good at everything - they had to climb, sprint and time trial. There was on a very basic sense of control over the race - it was less about a handful of sprinter teams getting on the front for 14/21 stages in a GT to set up for one man and instead the more aggressive big names like Merckx would attack from further out and on far more types of stages. So this meant that despite being (on paper) a stage racer, he could get stage wins on all different types of terrain.
Not only that but people would race far more often throughout the year. These days most guys wouldn't race more than 70-80 days in the year but back then this was actually fairly common. This is before what Le Mond started with poeple 'targetting' certain races (like the TDF) and instead you would turn up at Paris-Nice, MSR, the Ardennes, maybe the Giro/Vuelta and finally on to the TDF before a long post-TDF season with criteria and more races. So part of the key was that Merckx clearly just had more stamina than most of these guys and so his hard work in March would be affecting him less by the time the TDF rolled around compared to some of his challengers who had a similar race schedule.
Hopefully this explains a few things. I'd be interested to see how many of those are just Belgian criteria though, because I wouldn't be surprised if most of them are, as this is how people used to earn enough money to live early in their careers.
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 08-02-2015 09:38
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While this is true, that he won a lot of smaller criteria, that's also a credit to his sportmanship. He'd always race for the win, wherever he started, how big or how little.
Also, maybe you could say: a lot of those are really shit small races. But on the other hand, from those 445 races are 7 Milan - San Remo, 5 LBL, 2 Rondes, 34 Tour de France stages (8 in one edition, even, without being a sprinter - or even the best climber), three World Titles and so much more. So it's still crazy as hell  |
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| Dusen |
Posted on 08-02-2015 16:05
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He is the best in the history of cycling, no doubt about that |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 08-02-2015 20:09
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I think the quote from Noël Vantyghem says it all: "Eddy Merckx and me, together we won all races. I won Paris-Tours and he won everything else."
Also in '72, he had won Giro, Tour, San Remo, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Lombardia, and he still was pissed all winter because he had been beaten in the Slutingsprijs Putte-Kapellen. That's how much of a winner he was.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 08-02-2015 20:54
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The exposition on him lists 525 victories. I'm going there soon so I'll try to see what they count and what not  |
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| Dusen |
Posted on 13-02-2015 11:19
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Ian Butler wrote:
The exposition on him lists 525 victories. I'm going there soon so I'll try to see what they count and what not
Would love to hear, what you learn |
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 17-04-2015 20:28
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So I went to the expo and it is indeed 525 victories. Not including track.
They were all listed at the expo. Fantastic number 
32 classics, 3 World Titles (and another one with the amateurs), 11 Grand Tours. |
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| udoi |
Posted on 17-04-2015 21:19
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In total in his career he won 525 races (445 pro+80 amateur) in 1800 which he participated, and one in four.
Numbers of legend for "the Cannibal". The palmares of Merckx is impressive: stage races, world championships, great classics, hour record, nothing has escaped. Powerful in plain, strong uphill, fast sprint, Merckx is a complete rider, which does not leave his opponents even minor goals. |
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| Ton1Mart1n |
Posted on 17-04-2015 22:34
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Well there is a reason why he is called the Cannibal
Most impressive was his abilities to win in all kind of terrain.
He is so good Cyanide needed to downgrade all riders in the game by 10 pct if he was riding today.
“When it’s hurting you, that’s when you can make a difference”
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| Jesleyh |
Posted on 17-04-2015 22:35
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Would argue that, much more specialisation nowadays.
I mean obviously he was amazing, but wouldn't have to put the others too far down in PcM
Edited by Jesleyh on 17-04-2015 22:36
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| Ton1Mart1n |
Posted on 17-04-2015 22:37
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Jesleyh wrote:
Would argue that, much more specialisation nowadays.
The day you present a rider who can win all competitions in a single grand tour, you can arc that
“When it’s hurting you, that’s when you can make a difference”
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| Jesleyh |
Posted on 17-04-2015 22:54
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Yeah but I am unsure if he would be the best climber nowadays, for example.
I don't know much about cycling history though so it's difficult to judge for me.
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 17-04-2015 23:17
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I hate to raise this but how many did he win whilst clean from drugs !!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...in_cycling |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 17-04-2015 23:21
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Do you mean when the Giro organisation gave him a questionable positive test, 2 days after he refused their demands to give the GC to an Italian?
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 17-04-2015 23:26
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Jesleyh wrote:
Yeah but I am unsure if he would be the best climber nowadays, for example.
I don't know much about cycling history though so it's difficult to judge for me.
Tbh he wasn't the best climber back then. Certainly we've had better climbers, sprinters, time trialists and cobblers before and since Merckx. I do think he's the best Rouler/Puncher though and his all-round skills made him such a threat in any race at the time.
Certianly he was also helped by being on some of the strongest teams who had many of the strongest riders all working to support him, mostly. Plus there's the whole did he/didn't he dope thing but you kind of assume most riders did.
To put him into PCM is tricky. Slotting him into a 2015 DB, for example, do we take his entire career or just a couple of years and if so which years? In an all-time DB it guess it's a bit easier and he would be the best overall rider but would have some serious challengers on all terrains. And obviously for DB's of his active years it's easy to stat him.
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![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
