Axel Merckx

Axel Merckx

Personal information
Full name	Axel Merckx
Born	(1972-08-08) 8 August 1972 Uccle, Belgium
Height	1.91 m (6 ft 3 in)
Weight	77 kg (170 lb)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder
Professional team(s)
1993	Motorola
1994	Telekom
1995–1996	Motorola
1997–1998	Polti
1999–2000	Mapei
2001–2002	Domo-Farm Frites
2003–2005	Davitamon-Lotto
2006	Phonak Hearing Systems
2007	T-Mobile
Major wins
Grand Tours Giro d'Italia 1 individual stage (2000) Stage races Tour de l'Ain (2003) One-day races and Classics National Road Race Championships (2000) GP de Wallonie (2001)
Medal record Representing  Belgium Road bicycle racing Olympic Games 2004 Athens Road Race
Infobox last updated on 16 February 2007

Axel Jonkheer Merckx (born 8 August 1972 in Uccle) is a Belgian former professional road bicycle racer and the son of five-time Tour de France champion Eddy Merckx.

In his professional career (1993–2007), he won the Belgian national road race championship in 2000 and a bronze medal in the road race at the 2004 Olympic games in Athens.

Cycling career

Axel Merckx became a professional cyclist in 1993, winning the Belgian national road race championship in 2000. He repeatedly vowed to make his mark by accomplishing feats that had eluded his father Eddy, such as winning a Tour de France stage at Alpe d'Huez and the Paris–Tours classic. He did not succeed, but competed in eight Tours de France and finished as the highest-placed Belgian rider six times.

Merckx won the bronze medal in the road race at the 2004 Games in Athens, breaking free in the final kilometre.

During the 2006 Tour, Merckx announced that he signed a new contract for one extra season with Phonak, later renamed iShares. He stated that this would be his last season as a professional road bicycle racer. However, after Phonak announced that it would stop sponsoring the cycling team, Merckx signed a contract with Team T-Mobile, where he had started his professional career.

Merckx announced his retirement from professional cycling at the end of the 2007 Tour de France.^[1] He won his last race at Lommel, in August 2007.^[2]

He created the Granfondo Axel Merckx National Series, with its inaugural event being the Granfondo Axel Merckx Okanagan on 10 July 2011 in Penticton, British Columbia. His father, Eddy, rode in the inaugural event.

His name was on the list of doping tests published by the French Senate on 24 July 2013 that were collected during the 1998 Tour de France and found suspicious for EPO when retested in 2004.^[3]

Merckx is currently the owner and directeur sportif of the Axeon Cycling Team.^[4]

Personal life

Merckx married Canadian triathlete Jodi Cross in 1997, and currently resides in Kelowna, British Columbia. They have two children, Axana (born 5 May 2001) and Athina Grace (born 29 June 2005).^[5]

Because his father was made a baron—a personal, hereditary title—in Belgium, Axel Merckx has also been ennobled. He is therefore officially referred to as Baron (in French) or Jonkheer (in Flemish) Axel Merckx.^[6][7][8] This honorific title is comparable to the British The Honourable, when the untitled person is the offspring of a baronet, earl or viscount.

Major results

References

External links

• Axel Merckx at Trap-Friis.dk. Archive copy at the Wayback Machine (archived 24 May 2011)
• Video on U23 Team featuring Axel Merckx