Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

The Grand Prix Eddy Merckx (short: GP Eddy Merckx ) was a cycling couple time trial in Brussels, Belgium, named after the cyclist Eddy Merckx .

history

Since the introduction of the UCI ProTour and the associated Continental Circuit, the UCI Europe Tour, at the beginning of the 2005 season, the race has not been held.

It was last classified in the UCI category 1.2 and took place at the end of August. Due to the failure of the race trying to at least maintain the prestigious names in the racing calendar, but an agreement with the organizers of the semi-classic Paris-Brussels , these in Grand Prix Eddy Merckx rename, was rejected.

The race took place as an individual time trial from its first edition in 1980 . This mode was maintained until 1997 when it was converted into a pair time trial for the 19th edition in 1998 . The last individual time trial had a total length of 57 kilometers. The length of the pair time trials tended between 40 and 67.5 kilometers.

Record winners of the event are Knut Knudsen , Eric Vanderaerden and Chris Boardman with two victories each in the individual time trial. Abraham Olano won one edition of the individual time trial and one of the pair time trial, Erik Dekker and Marc Wauters won the pair time trial twice.

Curiosities

An oddity occurred in the 24th edition in 2003. After already half the starting teams were on track to 15:00 through the center of Brussels, the race had to because of a fire in a hardware store in the neighborhood Merchtem be stopped in order to Not to disturb the work of the fire brigade. After a 30-minute break, the organizer closed off an alternative course and the race was completely restarted.