Rik van Looy, one of the greatest cyclists in history, dies aged 90

The Emperor of Herentals, pride and envy, professional from 1954 to 1970, won three World Championships, two Roubaix, two Flanders, one San Remo and stages in the three major

Two days before his 91st birthday, Henri Rik van Looy, Rik II, Emperor of Herentals, died.

A fabulous sprinter and a unique classics rider, Van Looy filled an era in Belgium and the world between two of the greatest, Rik van Steenbergen, Rik I (and it always pained Van Looy not to be the only Rik, and that is why he always chose another glorious name, Emperor of Herentals) and Eddy Merckx, whom he feared and tried to despise before being overthrown.

Uncompromising, dictatorial, proud, envious, bad-tempered, sarcastic, individualistic, unfriendly. And, wrapping it all up, passion. In his sculpted muscled body, with his calves and quadriceps, in his reptilian gaze, sometimes malignant, always vigilant, were all the attributes of a true champion. He was one on the road too. “He was a goalscorer. And in a team there can be three midfielders or four defenders, but there can only be one goalscorer,” explained Walter Godefroot, a great Belgian cyclist always overshadowed by the greatest, to explain why when Merckx turned professional at 19 years old in Van Looy’s Solo-Superia team the reception was not spectacular. “A super champion cannot be a good teammate. He has to be selfish, individualistic. It is not his fault. It is reality.” And at night, at team dinners, Van Looy would get together with his people and tease the young Merckx, driving him crazy when he called him Jack Palance, the bad, really bad actor, Attila from Attila, King of the Huns, the film that filled the theatres.

If the Spanish and Italian cyclists of the time had become tough and resilient, tireless, pedalling in the darkness of the black market, Rik van Looy, born on 20 December 1933 in Grobbendonk, on the outskirts of Herentals, in the north of Belgium, a wasteland then east of Antwerp, began delivering newspapers when Van Steenbergen reigned. His professional career, after having been the best amateur in Belgium, stretched from 1954 to 1970. It began with Van Steenbergen at the top – in the 1950s the first Rik won three World Championships, two Roubaix, two Flanders, one San Remo and stages in the three majors – and ended when the Cannibal Merckx was incontestably the best in history. But Van Looy managed to leave his deep mark. He was the first idol of the masses, of fanatics who never allowed themselves to go over to worship another God. These were the days when children recognised cyclists from the stickers they collected, and looked for them with their mouths open, peering through the windows of hotel dining rooms or at the door. And Van Looy, his way of moving, of acting, fulfilled everyone’s desires.

He turned his team into a battalion of loyal soldiers, mercenaries who refused the chance of glory to serve him. They formed his now legendary Red Guard at Faema, fierce cyclists who dictated their law in the peloton – no one moved without their permission – and supported him until the last metre. They were his creation: the first team with a single command, highly paid gregarious men who put the peloton to sleep, cancelling breakaways; the first train to launch the sprint. They were his achievements: the first cyclist to win the five monuments (Merckx and Roger de Vlaeminck later did it): three Paris-Roubaix, two Flanders, one Liège, one San Remo, one Lombardy, and he also won the Paris-Tours, important at the time, the classic that Merckx never won. His only consolation, sad.

He wore the yellow jersey in the Tour (seven stages) and the Vuelta (18), and the pink jersey in the Giro (12), and he also won two World Championships (1960, in Karl Marx Stadt, a city in eastern Germany that before and after the GDR was called Chemnitz; 1961, in Bern), and he did not win three, which had put him on a par with Van Steenbergen and Merckx, because in 1963 he suffered what is considered the greatest betrayal in the history of the World Championships. The day before the race, in Renaix, he made all the selected riders, most of them members of his red guard, sign a pact: they would only ride for him, their only mission was for him to win. And he, generously, would let them share the prize for victory among themselves. “And if you don’t win, will you pay us too?” Gilbert Desmet, his last champion, dared to ask him. “No, only if I win,” he replied. As the last kilometre came, Benoni Beheyt, who was supposed to be the penultimate thrower, said that his legs hurt and he couldn’t do his job. Desmet then began his throw, but he threw it so hard that Van Looy lost his wheel, was cut off by the wind and saw Beheyt pass him on the left at the last gasp. He tried to close in, but Beheyt pushed him away with a slap. Beheyt won. Van Looy was second. The Belgian press lamented that an “intruder” had stolen the emperor’s glory. Van Looy’s revenge was cold and terrible: with the rainbow Beheyt was only able to win one race, at Versailles, the penultimate stage of a Tour from which Van Looy had retired on the third day. It then prevented him from winning anything. Disconsolate and alone, Beheyt retired two years later, at just 25.

From Herentals, like Van Looy, is Wout van Aert , who could be his heir if it were not for the fact that he has never wanted to. They have barely spoken to each other. And in Herentals, in the magnificent traumatology department of his hospital, ironically, Eddy Merckx, who is already 79 years old, received a metal hip a week ago, an implant to repair a fracture suffered when he fell off his bicycle.