Axel Merckx (48) has good news about the cancer rehabilitation of his teenage daughter Athina and the budget of his cycling team for next year. But the former cyclist also has a warning in store for Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. “They have to be careful that they don’t end up like Marianne Vos”, he writes in his column in La Dernière Heure.
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Athina on the right track
First things first: the health of Athina, Axel’s teenage daughter, seems to be going in the right direction. At the end of 2019, it became known that she had to undergo chemotherapy for two years, 78 sessions in total, after a tumor was discovered on the back of her knee. “A scan of two weeks ago shows that the tumor continues to shrink. In consultation with the doctors, it has been decided to take a break of three to four months in her treatment, ”says the relieved father. Athina’s treatment had been going on for a year, but now people want to wait and see how her body will react to the break.
Budget for Hagens Berman Axeon
Axel Merckx, as manager of Hagens Berman Axeon, also received good news professionally: “I and my team still needed 300,000 euros for my budget for 2021 and have now more or less found half. As a result, we will be able to run a normal season with a nice program in Europe. ”
Concerns about the Van Aert and Van der Poel program
The son of cycling legend Eddy, who himself was a more than decent professional cyclist and now lives in Canada, is still closely following the race in Belgium. “That Wout van Aert is already back in the field seems to me very soon,” he recalls in his column. “His road season had only just ended. He has also been out for a while with an injury, the energy it took to get back from that should not be underestimated. In the meantime, he hasn’t had a real break in three years. Just like Mathieu van der Poel, I am a bit worried about that. ”
Merckx makes the comparison with the Dutch Marianne Vos. “She has done and won everything for years: the road, time trial, track, cyclocross. But one day her body said stop, got sick and never returned to her old level, except for a few flashes. (…) I hope that Wout and Mathieu will think about this with their trainers and entourage. ”
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