Tour organisers asked Merckx not to start in 1973

[Bumeington]

I was wondering if anyone had any more info about Merckx's non start in the 1973 tour. Specifically, when did the tour organisers ask him not to start. It's one of the most impressive feats in cycling ever to win the vuelta followed by the giro 5 days later (seriously he must have been so far above the competition to be able to do that), but I'm interested as to whether he did this with a view to then taking on the tour in july? Maybe the 70s tour organisers are the only reason there hasn't been a grand tour treble to date...

 

[forty four]

wait did the vuelta use to start 5 days after the giro it certainly does not now more like 5 months am i missing something here? not being sarcastic were dates changed i cant see how there was ever a time when two grand tours were within 5 days of each other does not make monetary sense.

 

[Anonymous]

wait did the vuelta use to start 5 days after the giro it certainly does not now more like 5 months am i missing something here? not being sarcastic were dates changed i cant see how there was ever a time when two grand tours were within 5 days of each other does not make monetary sense.

Wow, a fanboy with no knowledge of cycling history, whoda thunk?

 

[Big Doopie]

it is hard to imagine anyone pulling off that particular double largely because of the clinic related reasons we have known the past 20 years.

btw, the following year merckx won the giro, shortly followed by the tour de suisse, followed by the tour (nursing a very bad saddle sore) -- no one has done that either.

however, merckx would never have won the 1973 tour. ocana would have destroyed him that year.

 

[JRTinMA]

wait did the vuelta use to start 5 days after the giro it certainly does not now more like 5 months am i missing something here? not being sarcastic were dates changed i cant see how there was ever a time when two grand tours were within 5 days of each other does not make monetary sense.

Ignore TFF he is what is commonly called a menace or a troll. In the mid nineties the tour of Spain, the second best country in the world and the best bike race switched from a spring start to a september start. So yes what you read is possible. The greatest star of the Vuelta is Tony Rominger, he is the best quite simply put. Some will say Roberto Heras was as good but he is a proven doper so that claim should be taken with a grain of salt. TR was the last clean winner of Vuelta with the possible exception of Mr. Menchov, That cat rocks too. Now you know all the pertinent data of the tour or as least as much as TTF which is very little.

 

[For The World]

wait did the vuelta use to start 5 days after the giro it certainly does not now more like 5 months am i missing something here? not being sarcastic were dates changed i cant see how there was ever a time when two grand tours were within 5 days of each other does not make monetary sense.

The Vuelta sometimes suffered from a lackluster field due to its proximity to the Giro and the Tour. To attract more of the big names to the race, they've changed the date to September (which from memory was in the mid 90s i believe - just checked some old Cycle Sport UK mags and yes - it changed in 1995).

I have a 4 DVD set that documents a number of great riders in the Tour (Anquetil, Polidour, Thevent, Hinault, Merckx, Lemond, Pantani & Armstrong) and the story there was they didn't want him to start the 73 Tour because they wanted someone else to win. Which makes sense - he probably would have won.

 

[icefire]

The Vuelta was raced before 1995 in late April - early May, finishing the weekend before the Giro start.

Mercks chose to do the Vuelta in 1973 after he had been asked not to do the Tour. He beat Ocaña and Thevenet in that Vuelta.

After Merckx, only Battaglin has done a Vuelta-Giro double with both races in Spring.

As for the question on having 2 GTs so close? Cycling wasn't a global sport then. They were mostly local races, with local riders and sponsors.

 

[Vonn Brinkman]

I think these days it would be impossible to do that Vuelta - Giro double, nobody would be able to do it.
That proves just once again that Merckx was the greatest cyclist of all times...

 

[Mich78BEL]

however, merckx would never have won the 1973 tour. ocana would have destroyed him that year.

ocana was second to merckx in the 1973 vuelta where merckx dominated

 

[hrotha]

ocana was second to merckx in the 1973 vuelta where merckx dominated

And Ocaña destroyed Merckx in the 1971 Tour until he had to abandon after a crash, so why not.

 

[El Pistolero]

Yes, but in 1972 that destroying part wasn't as big as in 1971 before Ocana dropped out again. I'd say it would have been a pretty cool duel again. Not sure who would've won.

 

[Big Doopie]

ocana was second to merckx in the 1973 vuelta where merckx dominated

i don't remember if merckx dominated that vuelta. ocana was 3 or so minutes back. thevenet 4. in those days that was not dominating. please note that thevenet (who finished second at the tour) was not just a minute back of ocana then but...16!!!

i watched the 1973 tour live on tv and ocana dominated it thoroughly, TTs and particularly in the mountains where he was in 1971 form and destroyed everyone. fuente (the pantani of that time) couldn't touch him. meanwhile thevenet lost 8 minutes on one huge mountain stage (even though he finished 3rd that day). I don't remember exactly but the time differences in GC were comparable to Merckx's 1969 win. In fact, people often point to Merckx's 1969 win as the last time that there were differences like in Coppi's time. But check out the results of the 1973 tour:

1. Ocana
2. Thevenet 15'51"
3. Fuente 17'15"
4. Zoetemelk 26'22"
5. Van Impe 30'20"

merckx never beat zoetemelk by anywhere near that amount that I recall.

had merckx shown up in 1973, ocana would have finished off the job he started in 1971.

ocana is the only rider who -- on a good day -- could literally dominate merckx in his best years. it is why i would list him in my top ten of all time.

btw -- i was a huge merckx fan at the time. less so now because of his (lack of) public stance on the elements that are destroying the sport.

 

[El Pistolero]

Ocana was just way too inconsistent. He lost a lot of Grand Tours, not only to the likes of Merckx, but also to other cyclists that couldn't even stand in the shadow of Merckx.

The only race Ocana was ever better then Merckx was in the 1971 Tour. Merckx was better in the 1970 Tour, 1972 Tour, 1973 Vuelta, 1975 Tour and even in the 1977 Tour.

 

[icefire]

People should keep in mind that the Vuelta before 1979 did not have high mountain stages. Big climbs were non existent or far away from the stage finish. This should be taken into account when assessing time splits between contenders and comparing them to those in the Tour or the Giro.

There was a stage in 1979 where they climbed Puerto de La Morcuera (Cat 1 slightly easier than Navacerrada) for the first time and the stage finish was just 31km from the summit and the Spanish riders tried to neutralise the stage because the climb was too hard and too close to the finish.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Ignore TFF he is what is commonly called a menace or a troll. In the mid nineties the tour of Spain, the second best country in the world and the best bike race switched from a spring start to a september start. So yes what you read is possible. The greatest star of the Vuelta is Tony Rominger, he is the best quite simply put. Some will say Roberto Heras was as good but he is a proven doper so that claim should be taken with a grain of salt. TR was the last clean winner of Vuelta with the possible exception of Mr. Menchov, That cat rocks too. Now you know all the pertinent data of the tour or as least as much as TTF which is very little.

Not to drag this off topic and into the clinic, but do you really thing Rominger, a Ferrari customer was clean? Awfully sceptical of the Menchov claim as well.

 

[Mich78BEL]

i don't remember if merckx dominated that vuelta. ocana was 3 or so minutes back. thevenet 4. in those days that was not dominating. please note that thevenet (who finished second at the tour) was not just a minute back of ocana then but...16!!!

i watched the 1973 tour live on tv and ocana dominated it thoroughly, TTs and particularly in the mountains where he was in 1971 form and destroyed everyone. fuente (the pantani of that time) couldn't touch him. meanwhile thevenet lost 8 minutes on one huge mountain stage (even though he finished 3rd that day). I don't remember exactly but the time differences in GC were comparable to Merckx's 1969 win. In fact, people often point to Merckx's 1969 win as the last time that there were differences like in Coppi's time. But check out the results of the 1973 tour:

1. Ocana
2. Thevenet 15'51"
3. Fuente 17'15"
4. Zoetemelk 26'22"
5. Van Impe 30'20"

merckx never beat zoetemelk by anywhere near that amount that I recall.

had merckx shown up in 1973, ocana would have finished off the job he started in 1971.

ocana is the only rider who -- on a good day -- could literally dominate merckx in his best years. it is why i would list him in my top ten of all time.

btw -- i was a huge merckx fan at the time. less so now because of his (lack of) public stance on the elements that are destroying the sport.

i'd say winning the GC, the points classifications, and 6 stages is quite dominant

and yes ocana's 1973 win is somewhat close to merckx in '69, (merckx won that one with almost 18 minutes before the 2e)

imo, there's no way of telling what would have happened if both would have done the tour that year, in the 1972 tour ocana wasn't much of a factor for example

 

[issoisso]

Now, I don't know what exactly prompted Merckx to not take part, but take note that this was the first half of the 70s, when the popularity of the Tour was at its lowest.

Also,1973 was the year that a number of top riders publicly refused to ride the Tour as the organizers, who for years had ignored the constant complaints from riders about enormous transfers and double and triple stage days, instead went overboard with even longer transfers and more multi-stage days.

So, it's entirely possible he simply chose not to ride.

Not to drag this off topic and into the clinic, but do you really thing Rominger, a Ferrari customer was clean? Awfully sceptical of the Menchov claim as well.

Some people just have no sense of reality.
He managed to make me laugh, though

 

[JRTinMA]

Not to drag this off topic and into the clinic, but do you really thing Rominger, a Ferrari customer was clean? Awfully sceptical of the Menchov claim as well.

Rominger was my first cycling hero. It would be hard to be a fan if I had to stay away from everybody with a "connection". I hear you though and his clients have sure had some issues.

 

[Big Doopie]

Ocana was just way too inconsistent. He lost a lot of Grand Tours, not only to the likes of Merckx, but also to other cyclists that couldn't even stand in the shadow of Merckx.

The only race Ocana was ever better then Merckx was in the 1971 Tour. Merckx was better in the 1970 Tour, 1972 Tour, 1973 Vuelta, 1975 Tour and even in the 1977 Tour.

iust to clarify -- i'm not saying that ocana was better than merckx. and, i agree, very inconsistent -- actually often ill. but he was the only one to literally crush merckx when the latter was at his best -- and by 8 minutes on the way to orcieres.

by 1973, merckx was no longer climbing like in 1969 -- in fact not since the blois accident. he would have had to have been to beat ocana in 1971 (had ocana not fallen) or 1973 -- that's all i'm saying.

 

[Echoes]

So, it's entirely possible he simply chose not to ride.

He DID choose not to ride. He has stated it time and again for 37 years.

There's a long chapter that deals with that in Mes 50 victoires en 1973**(his diary from the 1973). On a first note the journalist René Jacob (editor of Les Sports, who made his timetable for the Hour record) reminds us that the Molteni team was one of the smallest team in number in 1973: 18 riders, some were very young. This means that for the whole season substitutions could hardly be possible. The spring classics + Vuelta + Giro, that's a span of 4 months. It was unthinkable to ride another GT. Merckx could have done it. His team mates, NO ! And I heard him say that again around 30 years later when commenting a race on TV.

So why did he choose to ride the Giro? Again according to what he reminds in the book that Mr Pietro Molteni was Italian. He chose to ride Midi Libre and Dauphiné libéré in 1971 skipping the Giro, which Mr Molteni accepted without any problem but he didn't dare to skip it again.

About the Vuelta he said that the first time its organizers asked for his participation was in Mulhouse 1971. He could already have done it in 1972. But in the meantime, Ocaña fell and the journalists (the French ones, mainly, as usual) badly wanted a revenge for 365 days. So Merckx did not want to be regarded as someone who avoids duels and accepted to give Ocaña a second chance. As he destroyed him in July 1972 he was now free to make the programme that he wanted and chose for the Vuelta.

And another think that we should bare in mind is that Merckx was NOT interested in records. He's not Federer. He's not Indurain. Even this year I have again heard him say "The only record that really matters is the Hour record".

What he however was interested in was diversity and winning as much different races as possible. In 1973 he raced and won the GP des Nations because he never won it before. He raced and won Paris Brussels because he never won it before since it hadn't been held since 1966. In 1974 he decided to race the Tour of Switzerland and won it. He had never won it before. Etc etc etc.

**Coincidence: I've just bought the book last Saturday. The salesman told me: "And I think we can say that he was the greatest, can't we. I don't know if someone is ever gonna match him" My response: "No one will ever match him"

 

[zastomito]

Was it the '71 TdF where Mercx crashed into Ocana causing him to abandon the race?

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

I don't hope to dampen the merckx hype much but it is commonly known that he was caught on doping at least twice in his career officially right? Although he was no doubt a superman in that day and age.

 

[issoisso]

Was it the '71 TdF where Mercx crashed into Ocana causing him to abandon the race?

Not exactly.

Merckx was a brilliant descender. Ocaña was not. Ocaña's director de Muer warned Ocaña to under no circumstances follow Merckx on the slippery technical descent of the Col de Menté during a hailstorm. Ocaña never cared for anyone's advice, so he followed Merckx.

Halfway down the mountain they both went wide and crashed. Ocaña needed a new wheel and waited for his service car. When he was being serviced, Zoetemelk came down the mountain, swerved to avoid the car and slammed right into Ocaña.