Felice Gimondi’s cycling career is remembered for his remarkable ability to compete at the highest level during the same era as the legendary Eddy Merckx, widely regarded as one of the greatest cyclists of all time. Despite Merckx's dominance, Gimondi achieved numerous significant victories, including all three Grand Tours—Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta a España—making him one of the select few riders to win each of these prestigious races. However, Gimondi stands out even more for being one of the very few cyclists to have also claimed a World Championship title, elevating his status in the sport.

It might be an interesting aspect that when this picture was taken, Gimondi was already a Tour de France winner (1965), he collected also a Paris-Roubaix victory (1966), meanwhile Merckx was still ahead of  his greatest successes