Eddy Merckx returns to professional racing

Tells somebody he doesn't need a team

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon and in an article published on Weekly World News, Eddy Merckx announced that he will return to professional road racing in 2009, including making a run at winning a sixth Tour de France.

“I am happy to announce that after talking with my children, my grandchildren, my grand grandchildren, and especially with my son Axel --himself retired from pro racing in 2007--, I have decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of... err... well, I´m returning for my own glory, what the heck," Merckx said in a statement released Tuesday.

Merckx had an interview with Weekly World News, apparently the only publication who would print this information. He will hold a news conference Sept. 24 in the village of Meensel-Kiezegem, Belgium, to which reporters from around the world are still figuring out how to arrive.

In the Weekly World News article, Merckx also says that he’s “one hundred and four percent” going to compete in the Tour de France next summer and that his age — he is 63 — will not be a factor.

“Look at other athletes," Merckx told the newspaper. "There's that guy... errr... I forgot his name. He´s like, 50, and he won the pétanque gold medal again last year. The woman who won the World Snooker Championships this year was 43. I´m just a couple of years older. Older athletes are performing very well. Ask serious sports physiologists and they’ll tell you that age is bullsh**.”

Merckx has spent the last few years fooling around with singers and other starlets, and hanging out with the stars in the French Riviera.

The now-toothless Cannibal told the newspaper that he decided to return to racing after training and coming in second behind "some dude" at his village training race last month.

Merckx told Weekly World News his return to racing would be with a team run by and composed of exclusively himself. "I don't need no stinkin' managers." His old teammates at Molteni, now in their 60´s and 70´s, excluded themselves from a hypothetical Merckx team saying that they "didn´t think they had another Tour in their legs."

This is a parody of this VeloNews article.