Roger De Vlaeminck

Roger De Vlaeminck, born 24 August 1947 in Eeklo in East Flanders, is a Belgian former professional racing cyclist nicknamed The Gypsy because he was born into a family of traveling clothiers, and Monsieur Paris-Roubaix for his four wins in that cobbled classic in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1977. He began with football but followed his elder brother Erik into cycling, and the two rode cyclo-cross together each winter. In Luxembourg in 1968 Roger became amateur cyclo-cross world champion on the day Erik won the professional title, and he took the professional world title himself in 1975. He rode the road race at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico and finished 18th. After turning professional in 1969 with Flandria-Declerck he raced Eddy Merckx throughout his career. With Merckx and Rik Van Looy he is one of only three riders to have won all five Monuments, eleven Monument wins in total. He also won stages in the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, won Tirreno-Adriatico six times, and was inducted into the UCI Hall of Fame in 2002.