This post was inspired by David Rebellin who today did something that is simply incredible. Not only did he win Fleche Wallonne (a brutal, one-day cycling classic) but in so doing he earned a hat trick and proved that at 37 he is in no way down for the count.

Then, as the mind so often does, mine began to wonder and I started thinking about all the different levels there are in any sport. In cycling you've got your local talent, your national talent, your domestic pro, your continental (meaning European) pro, your quality domestique and finally the few guys that can actually think about winning a race.

Occasionally an athlete comes along that simply defies this scale or progression.

"There are few sports people who have competed that, no matter how great the introduction, it is still a disservice to their career. Eddy Merckx is one such athlete."

Other than 1971, 1972 was arguably THE year that epitomized his career. In this year he won - among many others - the following races:

• Milan-Sanremo
• Fleche Wallonne
• Liege-Bastogne-Liege
• Tour de France
• Giro d'Italia
• Giro d'Lombardia

And if that was not enough, proving that he could carry his form all the way from April through September; Eddy Merckx, 27-years-old at the time, laid down 49.431 kilometers over an hour (on a normal bike) in a record which stood for just under 12 years until Francesco Moser came along and broke it riding what could only be called a bike from another universe that sported cow horn bars and dual disk wheels. That was in October.

ASIDE - in 1997 the UCI banned (read: revoked) records that had been set on bikes with 'technological advantages' over those used in 1972. This meant that under the new rules Merckx's record stood until 1993 when it was broken for the second time by the incredible Graeme Obree. Besides, in 1999 Moser admitted to having doped specifically to get that hour record…

Merckx won his last major classic at the age of 30 and retired at the age of 32. THIRTY TWO. Since he won his first major race at the age of 20, this means he amassed all his victories in the span of one decade.

Most other cyclists are happy to cement their career with ONE major classic win or ONE grand tour stage victory. Eddy won no less than 11 grand tours accumulating dozens of stage victories in the process, loads of lesser tours and of course more one-day classics than any other rider of his era or any that came before or after.

Superlatives fail me.