Eddy Merckx Trivia
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49 free Eddy Merckx trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Eddy Merckx trivia quiz covers the whole career of the man most people call the greatest cyclist ever: the grocer's son from Brussels who won 80 amateur races, turned pro with Rik Van Looy's team in 1965, took Milan-San Remo a year later and then simply did not stop, finishing with 525 wins, eleven Grand Tours, all five Monuments (each at least twice), three world titles and the hour record. It asks about the famous moments: the 1969 Giro doping expulsion, the solo over the Tourmalet that same July, the derny crash at Blois that killed his pacer, the record 5:21 winning margin at Paris-Roubaix, the Mexico City hour, the 1974 Triple Crown, the spectator's punch on the Puy-de-Dome in 1975, and how a teammate's daughter came up with 'the Cannibal'. It ends with the bike company, the barony, the Tour of Qatar and the cameo in Asterix in Belgium. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's article on Merckx and each explanation adds one further fact. Built for cycling fans, Tour de France watchers and quiz nights that want more than 'which Belgian won everything'.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01By what nickname is Eddy Merckx best known?
The Cannibal
The Cannibal. The name stuck because he left rivals nothing: he said he couldn't look at himself in the mirror if he ever started a race without meaning to win it.
Q 02Which British world champion led the French team Merckx joined in 1966?
Tom Simpson
Tom Simpson. He beat his young teammate to the 1967 Paris-Nice title, and when he died later that year Merckx travelled to England for the funeral.
Q 03Whose five Tour wins did Merckx equal in 1974?
Jacques Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil. The Frenchman was first to five, in 1964; Merckx matched him a decade later but never won a sixth, finishing second in 1975 and sixth in 1977.
Q 04Which Slovenian matched Merckx's 1974 Triple Crown fifty years later?
Tadej Pogacar
Tadej Pogacar. He sealed it in Zurich with an attack 100 km from the finish; only Ireland's Stephen Roche, in 1987, had matched Merckx in the fifty years between.
Q 05Faema, which sponsored Merckx's team from 1968 to 1970, is an Italian maker of what?
Espresso machines
Espresso machines. The Milan firm first backed a cycling team in 1955, left the sport in the early 1960s, and came back in 1968 with a squad led by the 22-year-old Merckx.
Q 06What business did Merckx's parents run in the capital's Woluwe-Saint-Pierre district?
A grocery
A grocery. The family left his birth village for the city suburb when Eddy was a baby, and he says his father worked tirelessly to build up the shop.
Q 07Which amateur world title did Merckx win in 1964?
Road race
Road race. His teachers had told him that cycling was not a job; he won this title at 19 and turned professional the following spring.
Q 08Which Belgian star led the Solo-Superia team Merckx joined as a professional in 1965?
Rik Van Looy
Rik Van Looy. Merckx left after one season, saying all he got from the star and his circle was ridicule and not one piece of help or advice.
Q 09Which classic gave Merckx his first major professional victory, in 1966?
Milan-San Remo
Milan-San Remo. It came down to a sprint in San Remo, where he beat Italy's champion Michele Dancelli and edged Adriano Durante on the line.
Q 10Which French marque's name did Merckx's team carry in 1966 and 1967?
Peugeot
Peugeot. He joined the Peugeot-BP squad after one unhappy season as a professional and left for the Italian Faema team at the end of 1967.
Q 11Which major one-day classic did Merckx never win?
Paris-Tours
Paris-Tours. Noel Vantyghem, the Belgian who won it in 1972, joked that between them they had won every classic: he had won Paris-Tours and Merckx had won all the rest.
Q 12Which Grand Tour was Merckx's first, won in 1968 with the Faema team?
The Giro d'Italia
The Giro d'Italia. He took the lead for good with a solo win at the Tre Cime di Lavaredo summit and reached the finish five minutes clear of his own teammate, Vittorio Adorni.
Q 13Why was Merckx thrown out of the 1969 Giro while leading?
A positive drug test
Q 21Which Monument did Merckx finally win in 1971 to complete the set of all five?
Giro di Lombardia
Giro di Lombardia. He rode into Como alone, three and a half minutes ahead of Franco Bitossi, and won the race again the following year.
Q 22Where did Merckx set the world hour record in October 1972?
Mexico City
Mexico City. He chose it for the thin air, which cuts drag, and trained at home in an oxygen mask to prepare; his mark stood for more than eleven years.
Q 23Which Italian finally broke Merckx's hour record in 1984?
Francesco Moser
Francesco Moser. He used an aerodynamic bike with disc wheels, then rode a road version of it to win that year's Giro d'Italia in the final time trial.
A positive drug test. He was expelled at Savona and always insisted he had taken nothing; his month's ban was lifted in time for his first Tour de France, which he won by almost 18 minutes.
Q 14On which climb did Merckx launch his legendary solo attack during stage 17 of the 1969 Tour de France?
Col du Tourmalet
Col du Tourmalet. He already wore yellow with eight minutes in hand, yet he ignored his manager's order to wait and rode on alone for 130 km to win the stage by almost eight more.
Q 15Which feat did Merckx achieve at the 1969 Tour?
Won the general, points and mountains classifications
He won the general, points and mountains classifications together, which nobody had done before, and ended Belgium's thirty-year wait for a Tour winner.
Q 16What happened to Merckx at a track meeting in Blois in September 1969?
A crash that killed his pacer
A crash that killed his pacer. Merckx was thrown head first onto the track and his hips were knocked out of line; he said he could never sit comfortably on a bike again.
Q 17Which classic did Merckx win in 1970 by more than five minutes in heavy rain?
Paris-Roubaix
Paris-Roubaix. The runner-up came in 5 minutes 21 seconds later; he went on to win the race four times himself and earn the nickname 'Monsieur Paris-Roubaix'.
Q 18On which mountain did Merckx win a 1970 Tour stage and then need oxygen in an ambulance?
Mont Ventoux
Mont Ventoux. He dropped the whole field in stifling heat, but his pedalling grew ragged near the top and he was given oxygen afterwards; he still won that Tour by more than twelve minutes.
Q 19Which Italian-sponsored team did Merckx ride for from 1971 to 1976, after Faema folded?
Molteni
Molteni. The Arcore salami maker signed him along with his Belgian teammates and team manager, and from 1971 the squad even raced under a Belgian licence instead of an Italian one.
Q 20Whose crash while leading the 1971 Tour gave Merckx a yellow jersey he refused to wear the next day?
Luis Ocana
Luis Ocana. He led Merckx by more than seven minutes when he fell on a Pyrenean descent in a thunderstorm and was flown to hospital; Merckx considered quitting rather than win that way.
Q 24Which two stage races did Merckx win back to back in 1973?
The Vuelta and the Giro
The Vuelta and the Giro. He skipped the Tour that year, won six stages in Spain, then led the Giro from the first stage to the last, which nobody had managed since Alfredo Binda in 1927.
Q 25What is on display on the platform of the metro station named after Merckx?
His hour-record bike
His hour-record bike. He set off too fast on it in 1972 and had to be carried off it after the hour; it now stands in the station that bears his name.
Q 26What makes up cycling's Triple Crown?
Giro, Tour and world road race in one year
Giro, Tour and world road race in one year. Merckx nearly missed it in 1974: his Giro lead shrank to twelve seconds over Gianbattista Baronchelli before he won the other two.
Q 27Whom did Merckx outsprint for the 1974 world title?
Raymond Poulidor
Raymond Poulidor. France's Eternal Second, who never wore the Tour's yellow jersey, was runner-up again, two seconds behind.
Q 28What did a spectator do to Merckx near the top of the Puy de Dome in the 1975 Tour?
Punched him
Punched him. Merckx was climbing to the summit finish in the yellow jersey; he blamed the painkillers and blood thinners he then needed for his collapse on the next mountain stage.
Q 29Who beat Merckx to win the 1975 Tour de France, his first defeat in the race?
Bernard Thevenet
Bernard Thevenet. He took the yellow jersey when Merckx cracked on the climb to Pra Loup; Merckx then broke a cheekbone in a crash, could take only liquids, and still reached Paris in second.
Q 30Which sprinter broke Merckx's record of 34 Tour stage wins?
Mark Cavendish
Mark Cavendish. His 35th came in a bunch sprint in 2024, in his fifteenth Tour; Merckx had won his 34 in only seven.