Rik Van Looy, Belgian cyclist, has died aged 90. In his professional career, from 1953 to 1970, he was twice world professional road race champion. He had 367 professional road victories in his career, only behind Belgian compatriot Eddy Merckx.
Despite his impressive stats, he never won a Grand Tour. He did win 7 individual stages in Tour de France, 12 stages in Giro d'Italia and 18 in 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 cycle races considered to be the hardest and longest.
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Those races, with distances ranging 240 to 300 km, are the Milan-San Remo in Italy, Tour of Flanders in Belgium, Paris-Roubaix in France, Liége-Bastogne-Liége in Belgium and Giro di Lombardia in Italy. Van Looy won all five of those, including twice the Tour of Flanders and three times Paris-Roubaix.
Eddy Merckx, now 79 years old, was his friend, teammamte and both coindided during Van Looy's final years. Merckx (the most awarded ciclist of all time) has shared his condolences in 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 am happy to have been able to compete against such a champion".
"About fourteen days ago I received the news that Rik was no longer well. He was going to turn 91 at the end of this week, but it didn't happen. His death hurts".