There has been some confusion over the past couple of days on social media with posts reporting the passing of classics legend Rik van Looy. There was even a minute’s silence held in his honour prior to a race in Belgium.
However, the 82 year-old Belgian is very much alive and it appears that the confusion arose after an article was posted on the Sporza website announcing his death.
“Very annoying,” a spokesperson for the website told Het Nieuwsblad. “Due to human error, the article was mistakenly put online.”
The headline of the article read “Cycling Legend Rik Van Looy deceased” and it appeared on Sunday evening. Van Looy’s family immediately started receiving text messages, but they knew that Rik was safe and sound.
Sporza admitted that the article had been created in 2013 but should have been offline and unavailable to readers. However, it was retrievable through their search engine.
As news spread on Facebook and Twitter, organisers of a criterium in Lovendegem in East Flanders yesterday decided to pay their respects to the “Emperor of Herentals” and the 27 riders held a minute’s silence before the race start.
Van Looy is one of the best ever Classics riders. He was the first rider to ever win all five monuments – Milan–San Remo (1958), Tour of Flanders (1959, 1962), Paris–Roubaix (1961, 1962, 1965), Liège–Bastogne–Liège (1961)and Giro di Lombardia (1959).
He also won the Road Race World Championships twice (1960, 1961) and the Belgian National Road Race Championship (1958, 1963). In addition, he won a total of 37 stages in the Grand Tours and is second only to Eddy Merckx in the number of career victories.
