He is a champion that young people of twenty years old cannot know, but who nevertheless marked the history of cycling. Walter Godefroot, former great rival of Eddy Merckx and ex-sports director, notably from the German Jan Ullrich, died on Monday at the age of 82, the Belga agency reported.
The Belgian, carried away by Parkinson’s disease, leaves behind a strong winner of thirteen stages victories in the Grand Tours, including ten on the Tour de France, a series started in 1967. In 1975, he was thus the first to win on the Champs-Elysées, his last success during the Grande Boucle.
The native of Ghent won the Tour of Flanders twice, in 1968 and 1978, as well as Paris-Roubaix (1969), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1967) and Bordeaux-Paris (1969 and 1976). He also won two victories of stages at the Spanish Tour, one on the Giro in Italy, as well as the online race of the Belgian Championships in 1965 and 1972.
Merckx’s tribute
After his runner career, the Flandrian was the sports director of several teams until 2007, notably from the Telekom training where he led the German Jan Ullrich, winner of the 1997 Tour de France before having recognized ten years later having doped during part of his career. Godefroot has never admitted doping in the teams he led.
The death of his former rival “deeply touched” Eddy Merckx, who has just celebrated his 80th birthday, praised one of his greatest rivals on the road to AFP. “The performances of Walter Godefroot have been largely underestimated,” told Belga the one who still has the most beautiful list of cycling to date. With Roger de Vlaeminck, I still sometimes visited Walter. He was already sick at the time. During our last visit, Walter was already very weak and was no longer very well. He was a very correct man. If you made an appointment with him, he came. »»
