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Wikipedia / Axel Merckx

Axel Eddy Lucien Jonkheer Merckx (born 8 August 1972) is a Belgian former professional road bicycle racer and the son of five-time Tour de France champion Eddy Merckx. He is team director of UCI Continental team .

In his professional career, 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

Born in Uccle, Axel Merckx became a professional cyclist in 1993, winning the Belgian national road race championship in 2000. He vowed to make his mark by accomplishing feats that had eluded his father, 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. His personal best finish was tenth in the 1998 edition.

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 de France, 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. During the 2006 Tour Merckx was instrumental in forcing the pace of the peloton for teammate Floyd Landis who won the Tour. He was oftentimes the only teammate able to stay with Landis and the group of favorites and he initially finished 31st overall, however it was later discovered that Landis had failed a doping control after stage 17 and the Tour win was revoked.

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

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 then retested in 2004. Merckx was not one of then 18 riders named as testing positive for EPO but was on a list of 12 named riders whose test results were listed as "suspicious".

Merckx is the owner and directeur sportif of the team.

Personal life

Merckx married Canadian triathlete Jodi Cross in 1997, and they lived in Kelowna, British Columbia. They have two children, born 2001 and 2005.

As of April 2024, Merckx was in a relationship with American cyclist Chloe Dygert, with whom he lived in Belgium.

In 2025 he was seen in the company of Lotte Kopecky whom he married in May 2026.

When his father was made a baron—a personal title—in Belgium, he also received the hereditary title Écuyer (in French) or Jonkheer (in Dutch). Thereby Axel Merckx has also been ennobled.

Major results

  1. 1992

  2. 1st Stage 9 Tour de l'Avenir

  3. 1993

  4. 2nd Seraing–Aachen–Seraing

  5. 1994

  6. 9th Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia

  7. 1995

  8. 6th Overall Tour Méditerranéen

  9. 8th Overall Danmark Rundt

  10. 8th Veenendaal–Veenendaal

  11. 9th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

  12. 1996

  13. 3rd Giro di Lombardia

  14. 4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships

  15. 6th Brabantse Pijl

  16. 7th Liège–Bastogne–Liège

  17. 10th Overall Tour DuPont

  18. 1997

  19. 6th Giro di Lombardia

  20. 9th Breitling Grand Prix (with Jörg Jaksche)

  21. 1998

  22. 2nd Overall Bayern Rundfahrt

    1. 1st Stage 3

    2nd Clásica de San Sebastián

  23. 2nd Subida a Urkiola

  24. 6th Trofeo Pantalica

  25. 7th Gran Premio de Primavera de Amorebieta

  26. 7th Breitling Grand Prix (with Jörg Jaksche)

  27. 9th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

  28. 10th Overall Tour de France

  29. 1999

  30. 3rd Road race, National Road Championships

  31. 4th Tour du Haut Var

  32. 9th Overall Tour Méditerranéen

  33. 2000

  34. 1st Road race, National Road Championships

  35. 1st Overall Tour de la Région Wallonne

  36. 1st Stage 8 Giro d'Italia

  37. 3rd Châteauroux Classic

  38. 4th Overall Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt

  39. 5th Liège–Bastogne–Liège

  40. 5th Tour du Haut Var

  41. 7th Overall Tour Méditerranéen

  42. 7th Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme

  43. 9th Overall Volta a Catalunya

  44. 10th La Flèche Wallonne

  45. 2001

  46. 1st Grand Prix de Wallonie

  47. 3rd Brabantse Pijl

  48. 5th Trofeo Laigueglia

  49. 7th Coppa Sabatini

  50. 7th Route Adélie de Vitré

  51. 7th EnBW Grand Prix (with Piotr Wadecki)

  52. 9th Road race, National Road Championships

  53. 2002

  54. 2nd Overall Vuelta a Andalucía

  55. 6th Road race, National Road Championships

  56. 6th La Flèche Wallonne

  57. 2003

  58. 1st Overall Tour de l'Ain

  59. 3rd Overall Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt

  60. 3rd Overall Hessen–Rundfahrt

  61. 4th Overall Tour of Belgium

  62. 10th Luk-Cup Bühl

  63. 2004

  64. 3rd Road race, Olympic Games

  65. 5th Brabantse Pijl

  66. 8th Grand Prix Eddy Merckx

  67. 2005

  68. 1st Stage 5 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré

  69. 3rd Brabantse Pijl

  70. 4th LuK Challenge (with Marc Wauters)

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

References