50 years ago Eddy Merckx and Patrick Sercu won the Six-Days of Ghent for the first time. “As pros, we did not earn much," Eddy Merckx told Sporza. "We were obliged to race much. We did the Six-Days to earn some nice money.”

Eddy Merckx remembers his first victory in the Six-Days of Ghent (1965) like if it had happened yesterdat. "It was a difficult challenge," Merckx recalled. "We had to constantly chase the duo Tom Simpson-Peter Post. But eventually we made it.”

"As pros, we didn’t earn much and we were forced to ride many races," said Merckx.

"We did Six-Days to earn some nice money. In Ghent, I mainly rode with Patrick Sercu."

Sercu who is now the director of the Belgian race, enjoyed their partnership. "Eddy and I complemented each other extremely well in terms of athletic abilities and character.”

"I have won 88 Six-Days and that is because of Eddy," said Sercu. "If he had done 200 races like me, we would definitely have won 150 Six-Days as a pair.”