In search of the pink panther

Can you name the last Belgian rider to win a grand tour? We won’t blame you if the name doesn't come readily to mind because it's now more than 40 years ago.

Back in 1978, the sun was setting on Eddy Merckx's career and it seemed like a generation of Belgian riders were ready to pedal out of the long shadows cast by the Cannibal. When Johan De Muynck won the 1978 Giro d'Italia few could have imagined it would signal the start of a drought lasting more than four decades.

In this episode, made in 2018, Lionel Birnie travels to Belgium in search of De Muynck, a rider nicknamed the pink panther, and along the way explores the reasons for Belgium's long barren spell. Could it really be that the cobbled classics killed the climbers?

Together with Het Nieuwsblad's cycling correspondent Jan-Pieter de Vlieger, Lionel has a bizarre lunch with the charismatic Roger De Vlaeminck – one of only three men to have won all five single-day monuments but who came up short in the grand tours. De Vlaeminck has an opinion on almost everything but is curiously quiet when it comes to the rivalry that De Muynck's supporters say cost their man the 1976 Giro when the pair were teammates.

Then it's off to meet De Muynck to find out the story of the 1978 Giro d'Italia, the last grand tour won by a Belgian rider...

Series: Friends of the Podcast 2018
Run time: 1 hour 8 minutes