'They are still looking for the next Eddy, but they’ll never find one': Eight riders have been called 'The Next Merckx', but none have achieved as much

Eddy Merckx.

Edwig Van Hooydonck said it first. After winning the Tour of Flanders aged just 22 in 1989, the Belgian pleaded with the press. “Please don’t call me the new Merckx,” he cried. 

Twenty-nine years later, it was the turn of Remco Evenepoel. After becoming junior time trial world champion, and capping off a truly outstanding junior career, the Belgian was defiant when facing the media. “Being described as the new Merckx is not something I want to hear,” he said. “Please, just stop it,” he later wrote on social media. “Nobody can be a new version of something he or she has never been and never will be. Stop comparing, please.”