Rik Van Looy, Belgian cyclist, has died at the age of 90. In his professional career, from 1953 to 1970, he was a two-time professional road racing world champion. He achieved 367 road wins in his career, behind only fellow Belgian Eddy Merckx.
Despite his impressive statistics, he has never won a Grand Tour. He won 7 individual stages in the Tour de France, 12 stages in the Giro d’Italia and 18 in the Vuelta a España. But he is perhaps best remembered as the first, and only one of three people, to win the five “Monuments”, the five classic Cycling races considered the toughest and longest.
These races, with distances ranging from 240 to 300 km, are Milan-Sanremo in Italy, the Tour of Flanders in Belgium, Paris-Roubaix in France, Liège-Bastogne-Liège in Belgium and the Tour of Lombardy in Italy . Van Looy won all five, including the Tour of Flanders twice and Paris-Roubaix three times.
Eddy Merckx, now 79, was his friend, teammate and they both started during the last years of Van Looy’s life. Merckx (the most decorated cyclist of all time) shared his condolences to Gazet van Antwerpen: “At the beginning of my career I had to be a formidable competitor with him and I had to fight very hard to beat him. I’m happy that I was able to compete against a champion like that.”
“About fourteen days ago I received the news that Rik was no longer well. He would have been 91 at the end of this week, but it didn’t happen. His death hurts.”
