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A couple of weeks ago, I published my dad’s favorite picture over here. It was a picture I took in 1972 as a young 12-year old kid, of my dad, together with his favorite and greatest cycle racer ever, Eddy Merckx. This picture was published a couple of weeks ago on the website of “Het Nieuwsblad”, a Belgian newspaper that organises the yearly Tour of Flanders for professional cycle racers. Next Sunday, this event is taking place in Belgium, and I will be there, in order to spend the whole afternoon in front of the television, together with some friends and family.

A couple of years later, I started cycle racing as well. I especially loved racing on the track, and during one or the other race meeting in the fall of 1977, Eddy Merckx was racing on the Ghent track (’t Kuipke). I was participating in a couple of races that same afternoon for youngsters, but during warming up, I had especially asked my dad to keep his camera ready, as I wanted a picture of Eddy Merckx himself, together with me next to him. This picture as well was published a couple of days ago on the website of nieuwsblad.be. So here it is…

I also remember one specific morning just before Christmas of 1977. I had finished a pretty serious examination at school, and had to wait a couple of hours in order to catch a train back home. I wanted to spend that time pretty activily, so my idea was to go training on the Ghent track for a couple of hours. I had asked permission to the director of the track, as during morning sessions, only professional cycle racers were allowed on the track. To my big surprise, I was not the only cyclist on the track. Yes indeed, Eddy Merckx had come all the way from Brussels to intensively train as well, together with a friend of his… Jacqui Ickx, the most famous Belgian car racer, and ex Formula 1 driver.

My “racing career” was pretty short though, as I found it more important to be a good student than a good racers. And I also must admit that some of my racing friends like Eddy Planckaert, the late Rudy D’haenens, and other guys like Rudy Matthys or Patrick Versluys (who all became pretty successful professional cyclists later on) were racing a bit too fast for me…

But I still remember how proud I was to have been able to train together with those two great champions, Eddy Merckx and Jacqui Ickx…

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