Axel Merckx retires on Sunday

iainf72

Not doing the rest of the season then. Or knows the team is going.

Or is just fed up.

Farewell Axel, took some guts going into cycling with your name.

Moose11

Yeah he's had a real solid career with a name that instantly had people watching him and expecting. I hear he's retiring to live in Canada.

RichN95.

I was hoping he'd ride on and win Paris-Tours, the only big race his dad never won. At least he got an Olympic medal, which Eddy didn't (I don't think he ever competed for one though)

andyp

I hope he enjoys his retirement. As Iain said, it took an awful lot of guts to take up the sport given who his father was.

His stage win at the Giro in, if memory serves, 2000 was a brave and battling ride.

dave_1

Have mixed feelings about the guy...I remember suffering like hell on his and Mattan's wheels at the Tour of Region Wallonia 1993...with the evidence coming out, II am more convinced I was among an amatuer peleton full of determined dopers. He did very little in the way of results to land a pro contract in 1994..others should have been given the chance. I think his career amounts to little but he's done nicely off the family name

Anonymous

Dave_1 wrote:

Have mixed feelings about the guy...I remember suffering like hell on his and Mattan's wheels at the Tour of Region Wallonia 1993...with the evidence coming out, II am more convinced I was among an amatuer peleton full of determined dopers. He did very little in the way of results to land a pro contract in 1994..others should have been given the chance. I think his career amounts to little but he's done nicely off the family name

Yea I remember that too :roll:

timoid.

Dave_1 wrote:

Have mixed feelings about the guy...I remember suffering like hell on his and Mattan's wheels at the Tour of Region Wallonia 1993...with the evidence coming out, II am more convinced I was among an amatuer peleton full of determined dopers. He did very little in the way of results to land a pro contract in 1994..others should have been given the chance. I think his career amounts to little but he's done nicely off the family name

He tended to bring nice bike contracts with him though.

I've always liked him as I've thought that it was a burden rather than a help to have the name of the greatest to shoulder.

dave_1

Nicolo wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

Have mixed feelings about the guy...I remember suffering like hell on his and Mattan's wheels at the Tour of Region Wallonia 1993...with the evidence coming out, II am more convinced I was among an amatuer peleton full of determined dopers. He did very little in the way of results to land a pro contract in 1994..others should have been given the chance. I think his career amounts to little but he's done nicely off the family name

Yea I remember that too :roll:

Depends how you look on him , i feel other Brits were just as deserving of pro contracts at the time he turned pro. For example, Mathew Stephens , Conor Henry. But as you say, he had one heck of a lot to live up to and he's got through 13 years without a single positive control too...going by the the law of probability then he has been clean as there's a high chance he'd have been caught given the length of his career

K Blackwell

RichN95 wrote:

I was hoping he'd ride on and win Paris-Tours, the only big race his dad never won. At least he got an Olympic medal, which Eddy didn't (I don't think he ever competed for one though)

Dad won the Amateur Worlds in 64 and then rode the Olympic RR in Tokyo the same year. From memory I think he finished 12th. It ended up in a big bunch gallop.