Over 1 million cycling fans are expected to overcrowd the city center of Brussels today. All Thalys trains are almost sold out, the Belgian railway puts in service 40 extra trains and all MIVB/STIB public transport in Brussels is totally free: "Le Tour de France" dominates the city this weekend. For the second time since 1958, when Brussels held the world expo, the Belgian capital hosts the 'Grand Départ' again. But ... how does a French cycling event end up starting in another country? And what does it have to do with a yellow vest?
If you happened to be in Belgium these days, and went on Instagram, you've likely already been spammed by ads of Visit.Brussels. It advertises itself as Europe's main cycling city, which it becomes for exactly 1 day. While car is king is the de facto European capital, cars will be screwed today in Brussels. "Leave your car home and use public transport to reach the city", is what you see when you click on the advertisement.
Brussels, Home of Eddy Merckx
The Tour of this year honors cycling legend Eddy Merckx, who's considered to be the greatest cyclist of all times and won his first Tour de France exactly 50 years ago. He won 11 times a 'Grand Tour', of which 5 times the famous Tour de France. Together with his 5 Giro victories, he's still the leader in both tours. He personally opened the tour festivities that started Thursday.
Merckx, who's raised in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe (a commune of Brussels), won his very first race as an amateur racer back in 1961. Four years later, he signed a contract with the Belgian cycling team of Solo-Superia, launching his professional career. His first major victory came in the Milan–San Remo a year later, after switching to the French Peugeot–BP–Michelin. After the 1967 season, Merckx moved to Faema and took his first Grand Tour victory: Il Giro. From then on, he won almost every race and got the surname 'Cannibal', as he would let no one else win. In 1671, he moved a last time to the Italian cycling team of Molteni. Merckx brought the team most of its victories and the Molteni brand got famous worldwide. The cycling legend achieved 525 victories over his eighteen-year career.
The Yellow Jersey takes over
Not only the 50th birthday of Merckx' first Tour victory is celebrated, also the birthday of the 'Yellow Jersey' is present in Brussels. The so-called 'Maillot June' was introduced in 1919 by Henri Desgrange, founder of the Tour de France and chief editor of the sport journal L'Auto (now called L'Equipe). He was looking for a way to recognize the leader of the General classification of the tour, when he came up with the idea to give him a special outfit. It would be yellow, as the journal was printed on yellow paper back in the days.
Other cycling events followed his example and introduced their own leader shirt: The Italian Giro came up with a Pink Jersey, as the sponsoring and giro founding journal (Gazetta dello Sport), used pink colored paper. Eddy Merckx is the absolute master of the Yellow Jersey. He wore his first in 1969, when he immediately won the whole Tour. In the following 5 Tours he claimed the jersey for 96 days.
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