Eddy Merckx told RTBF what happened in Montreal in 1974, the year of his third world title. The Frenchman Bernard Thévenet had broken away alone for a hundred kilometres, before being caught seven kilometres from the line. Merckx then beat Raymond Poulidor in the sprint.
Fifty-two years later, Merckx is back in the same city to hand out his predictions. He reckons Belgium has around a 50% chance of taking gold on Sunday, and sees the absence of Tadej Pogačar as good news for the Belgian colours: had the Slovenian been there, he says, Belgium would have been fighting for silver. His two key assets are Remco Evenepoel, freshly crowned world time trial champion last Sunday after a road title in 2022 and a runner-up finish the year before, and Wout van Aert, runner-up at the Worlds road race in Imola in 2020 and recent winner of two stages and the points classification at the Vuelta. Merckx also names three dangers for Belgium: Mathieu van der Poel, Paul Seixas and Isaac del Toro, the recent winner of the Grand Prix de Montréal.
He draws a lesson for Sunday: if a Belgian ends up in a breakaway, he should not work, to leave every chance to Evenepoel and Van Aert. “If the breakaway then gets a lot of time, they’ll be hard to pull back,” he added.
A hundred kilometres alone, caught seven kilometres from the line. That’s the gruppetto being right, like always: up front, it wears you down. A Belgian in Sunday’s breakaway, if he doesn’t work, he’s doing exactly what we do at the back: we watch the clock, we don’t push, and we let the others tire themselves out. Fifty per cent, Merckx says. At the front, I couldn’t tell you the odds, I’ve never seen them. But I know a move that doesn’t hold for a hundred kilometres when I see one, and I know an office that waits always ends up eating the breakaway. At the front, I don’t know what will happen on Sunday. At the back, I can tell you how it usually ends: with a catch, and with a coffee.
It’s true, we checked: Cyclingnews.
