Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx, known as Eddy Merckx, is a Belgian former professional road and track cyclist racer who is the most successful rider in the history of competitive cycling. His victories include an unequalled eleven Grand Tours, all five Monuments, setting the hour record, three World Championships, every major one-day race other than Paris–Tours, and extensive victories on the track.
Axel Eddy Lucien Jonkheer Merckx is a Belgian former professional road bicycle racer and the son of five-time Tour de France champion Eddy Merckx. He is team director of UCI Continental team Hagens Berman Jayco.
Viatcheslav Vladimirovich Ekimov, nicknamed Eki, is a Russian former professional racing cyclist. A triple Olympic gold medalist, he was awarded the title of Russian Cyclist of the Century in 2001.
Christopher Miles Boardman, is an English former racing cyclist. A time trial and prologue specialist, Boardman won the inaugural men's World time trial championship in 1994, won the individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics, broke the world hour record three times, and won three prologue stages at the Tour de France.
Hendrik "Erik" Dekker is a retired Dutch professional road racing cyclist active from 1992 until 2006. He was a member of the Rabobank cycling team from 1992 till 2006. From 2007 to 2015 he was one of Rabobank's team managers.
Roger De Vlaeminck is a Belgian former professional racing cyclist. He was described by Rik Van Looy as "The most talented and the only real classics rider of his generation". Nicknamed "The Gypsy" because he was born into a family of traveling clothiers, he is known for exploits in the cobbled classic Paris–Roubaix race, but his performances in other "Monument" races gave him a record that few can match. His record in Paris–Roubaix earned him another nickname, "Monsieur Paris–Roubaix".
The Brussels Cycling Classic is a semi classic European bicycle race, one of the oldest races on the international calendar.
The UCI Road World Cup was a season-long road cycling competition held from 1989 until 2004 and comprising ten one-day events.
Paris–Tours is a French one-day classic road cycling race held every October from the outskirts of Paris to the cathedral city of Tours. It is a predominantly flat course through the Chevreuse and Loire valleys; the highest point is 200 m, at Le Gault-du-Perche. It is known as a "Sprinters' Classic" because it frequently ends in a bunch sprint at the finish, in Tours. For several decades the race arrived on the 2.7 km long Avenue de Grammont, one of cycling's best-known finishing straits, particularly renowned among sprinters. Since 2011 the finish was moved to a different location because a new tram line was built on the Avenue de Grammont.
Patrick Sercu was a Belgian cyclist who was active on the road and track between 1961 and 1983. On track, he won the gold medal in the 1 km time trial at the 1964 Summer Olympics, as well as three world titles in the sprint in 1963, 1967 and 1969. On the road, he earned the green jersey in the 1974 Tour de France. Sercu is the record holder for the number of six-day track race victories, having won 88 events out of 223 starts between 1961 and 1983; several of these wins were with cycling great Eddy Merckx. He also won six stages at the Tour de France and eleven stages at the Giro d'Italia.
Alfons ("Fons") De Wolf is a retired Belgian road race cyclist, a professional from 1979 to 1990. He represented his country at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada.
Marc Wauters is a Belgian former cyclist who was professional from 1991 until 2006. The 2004 Olympian, nicknamed The Soldier was a member of the Rabobank cycling team of the UCI ProTour since 1998 and had to end his career several weeks short because of a broken collarbone which he suffered during a training on 20 September 2006.
Leif Hoste is a retired Belgian professional road racing cyclist, who last rode for UCI Professional Continental Team team Accent.jobs–Willems Veranda's. Born in Kortrijk, Hoste's career highlights included winning two stages and the overall title at the 2006 Three Days of De Panne, the 2001, 2006 and 2007 Belgian national time trial championships, and a second-place finish at the 2004, 2006 and 2007 one-day classic Tour of Flanders.
Ferdinand Bracke is a Belgian former professional road and track cyclist who is most famous for holding the World Hour Record (48.093 km) and winning the overall title at the 1971 Vuelta a España in front of Wilfried David of Belgium and Luis Ocaña of Spain. He also became world pursuit champion on the track in 1964 and 1969.
László Bodrogi is a former Hungarian and French professional road bicycle racer, specializing in the individual time trial.
Franciscus ("Frans") Albertus Antonius Johannes Maassen is a directeur sportif. He was a professional road racing cyclist between 1987 and 1995. He completed seven Tour de France stage races, including the 1990 Tour de France where he was involved in the Stage 1 breakaway that caused the rest of the race to be the most surprising Tour in over a decade. He was the only one of the four breakaway riders not to wear the maillot jaune, but he won the stage. He twice won the Tour of Belgium, and won the 1994 Tour de Luxembourg.
Sport in Belgium plays a prominent role in the society. As of 2010, Belgium counted around 17,000 sport clubs with approximately 1.35 million members, or about 13% of the Belgian population. Popular sports in Belgium are, among others: football, cycling, tennis, table tennis, athletics, swimming, basketball, badminton, judo, hockey, rowing, motocross, auto racing, volleyball, and running. Belgium has organized the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp as well as the 1972 UEFA European Championship and the 2000 UEFA European Championship along with the Netherlands. The Belgium national football team's best result was a 3rd place at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and a second place of the 1980 UEFA European Championship. Belgian football clubs have won 3 times the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and twice the UEFA Cup, plus 3 times the UEFA Supercup.
Michael Rich is a German former professional road bicycle racer who won the gold medal for his native country in the men's team time trial (100 km) at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. His winning teammates were Christian Meyer, Bernd Dittert and Uwe Peschel.
Cycle racing is a popular sport in Belgium. It is governed by the Royal Belgian Cycling League since 1882, which became a founding member of the International Cycling Association in 1892 and later of the Union Cycliste Internationale in 1900. Since 2002, the Royal Belgian Cycling League is composed of the Wielerbond Vlaanderen (WBV), which governs the cycle racing in Flanders and of the Fédération Cycliste Wallonie-Bruxelles (FCWB), which governs the cycle racing in Wallonia and Brussels. Belgium has been one of the major countries in different categories of cycle racing over the years, including road cycling and cyclo-cross. The best Belgian cyclist of all times, Eddy Merckx, nicknamed the Cannibal, has won all of the three grand tours and all of the five monuments of cycling. He also won the UCI Road World Championships three times and set the hour record, among other achievements.
Victor Campenaerts is a Belgian racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI ProTeam Lotto–Dstny.
Knut Knudsen
Eric Vanderaerden
Chris Boardman
Abraham Olano
Erik Dekker
