stylistic:tone, stylistic:style_transfer
Personal life

Merckx officially began dating Claudine Acou in April 1965. Acou was a 21-year-old teacher and daughter of the trainer of the national amateur team. Merckx asked her father for permission to marry her between track races. On 5 December 1967 Merckx married Acou after four years of courtship. She would often handle the press for her husband, who was shy. Acou gave birth to their first child, Sabrina, on 14 February 1970. Merckx skipped a team training camp to be with his wife for Sabrina's birth. Acou later gave birth to a son, Axel, who also became a professional cyclist. Merckx was brought up speaking Flemish, but was taught French in school.

In 1996 Albert II of Belgium, King of the Belgians, gave him the title of baron. In Italy, Merckx was given the title of Cavaliere. In 2011, he was named Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur by then French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. Merckx has become an ambassador for the Damien The Leper Society, a foundation named after a Catholic priest, which battles leprosy and other diseases in developing countries. He was blessed by Pope John Paul II in Brussels in the 1990s. Merckx is an art lover and stated that his favorite artist is René Magritte, a surrealist. Salvador Dalí is another of his favorites.

Before starting the third stage of the 1968 Giro d'Italia, Merckx was found to have a heart condition. A cardiologist, Giancarlo Lavezzaro, found that Merckx had non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that has killed several young athletes. In 2013, Merckx was given a pacemaker to help correct a heart rhythm issue. The surgery was performed in Genk on the 21st of March of that year as a preventative measure. Merckx stated that he never had any heart issues while racing, despite the fact that several men in his family died young of heart-related problems. In May 2004, he had an esophagus operation to cure stomachaches that had plagued him since he was young. In August, he reported that he lost nearly 30 kg after the procedure. On 13 October 2019, Merckx was hospitalised after a cycling accident, having suffered a haemorrhage and falling unconscious for a while. He was released a week later.