Van Looy's Career: All the Victories of the Emperor of Herentals

Rome, 18 December 2024 – He didn't have time to celebrate his first birthday by just two days. 91 years of life: Rik Van Looy passed away this morning after a short illness in his Herentals, a place for which he had been 'awarded' the Platonic title of 'Emperor', and he did so by leaving a very deep mark in the history of cycling, both on the road and on the track.

Van Looy's career

The name of the former Belgian champion, a professional since 1954 al 1970, is often associated with Classics and in particular to Monument, all won as only managed so far by Eddy Merckx e Roger De Vlaeminck. In the bag of Van Looy, to be precise, there are 3 editions of Paris-Roubaix (in 1961, in 1962 and in 1965), 1 of Milan-Sanremo (in 1958), 2 of the Tour of Flanders (in 1959 and in 1962) to 1 respectively of Tour of Lombardy (in 1959) and of Liège-Bastogne-Liège (in 1961). There is however a distinction compared to his compatriots: among them, and in general in the history of cycling, Van Looy he is the only one to have won, in addition to Classical Monument, Vallone Arrow, Paris-Brussels , Paris-Tours, with this last race missing from the loot of Merckx e From Vlaeminck. Not only the most prestigious one-day races: the 1933 class, among his 379 victories total on the road, a record that would later be shattered, for a change, by Cannibal and his 426 hits (the third in this ranking is Francesco Moser, at altitude 273), he also wrote his name on the roll of honour of World Cup, among other things by scoring a never banal double in 1960 and in 1961, to which we can add the second places achieved in 1956 and in 1963. Van Looy he also won 37 stages in Grand Tours, a harvest that is worth him the ninth place in the ranking under examination: speaking of placings, the best were achieved at Return (two third places since 1959, the year in which he arrived room al Giro d'Italia, is in the 1965), a testimony to a runner capable of performing well even over the course of three weeks. In addition to his immense talent, Hendrik at the registry office but for everyone at the time 'Rick II' to distinguish him from the more experienced Rik Van Steenbergen (born in 1924 and died in 2003), was famous for the great leadership he gained within the group in the context of a cycling in which rivalries were even more heated than in our days, those of farewell: always in December, but in 2022, it was the turn of the last farewell to Vittorio Adorni, just to stay within the realm of former champions.

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