Top 95 Quotes & Sayings by Eddy Merckx - Page 2

If you think back to the days of Phil Anderson, when there were very few Australians to now when you have a Tour de France winner in Cadel Evans, a professional team in GreenEDGE, and classics winners in Stuart O'Grady and Matt Goss - the sport is bigger and bigger in Australia.

I do not want to continue cycling until I am 35. I want to make something else out of my life, too. There are other things besides a bike and racing.

It's always the first Tour that is the most difficult to win.

I always rode for myself.

I've made up my mind. Lugano was my last World Championships as a coach.

The sport will benefit when star riders start races.

No sport is 100 per cent clean - I think 95 per cent of the cyclists are clean. In the normal world, not everybody is clean.

After his success in the Tour of Italy and Tour de France in the same year, Pantani certainly made mistakes - but he was targeted by Italian justice who never let him go. I believe it was that that destroyed him.

Riders are not criminals.

I really worked hard and overcame mental barriers to achieve those records.

I always had and I still have that special desire in me to be the best.

Absolutely, in stage races, Froome is better than Eddy Merckx. Maybe he can win five, six Tours de France, but my focus wasn't only on the Tour de France. I was riding all year.

The Tour is the No. 1 event in cycling.

I do not plan to go on cycling until I am completely tired and finished.

Even when I was a kid I wanted to win everything: a game of Monopoly, a game of cards, dominoes.

No doctor is going to tell me I can't finish the Tour. I will never give up.

I have decided to give up competition. I cannot train properly for the Tour de France which I had hoped to ride for the last time as apotheosis to my career. Doctors are forbidding me to ride anymore in high level competition and I bow to them.

I agree it is the most important, but cycling is not only about Tour. If everybody thinks like Armstrong, there will be only one race.

Fear never left me during the tour - the fear of a spill, fear for accidents, for mishaps, for the unexpected which might ruin everything at the end.

We ate at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, before the race. First a small breakfast with the cheese and the ham and then steaks. It was horrible, but you know, you had to eat steaks to be strong. It was absolutely crazy.

It's a shame to mix sports and politics.

When the terrible accident occurred, at least I escaped with my life. I was the lucky one, that was my reaction.

When I won my first Tour, the second-placed rider was some 18 minutes behind.

I hated losing. Being defeated made me sick, I couldn't stand it.

What wears you out is the competing, not the training.

If you win once, you want more. You are not satisfied.

I always had a strong lieutenant to help me, but Hinault doesn't need one.

India is a big country. Here people are talented, they are motivated. If they train properly, I see no reason why India won't produce world class cyclists in 10 years.

In my time it was different. When I knew the wind was strong, I attacked myself to make the race as hard as possible.

Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades.

Cyclists live with pain. If you can't handle it you will win nothing

Sometimes it's strange being me. I travel the world meeting people, I'm surrounded with friends and my life is full, but all the time I am confronted by a young man I have nothing in common with. He is me, but he is not me now. In fact I have been me now for longer than I was him, but no one wants to know about me.

I won! I won! I don't have to go to school anymore.

There are too many factors you have to take into account that you have no control over...The most important factor you can keep in your own hands is yourself. I always placed the greatest emphasis on that.

I've won. Hurray! I don't have to go to school any more.