Eddy Merckx and his hip without peace. Although it sounds like a title from the Indiana Jones saga, it's the reality the Cannibal is experiencing right now.

According to the daily newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, the eighty-year-old champion has been hospitalized and will have to undergo a third hip prosthesis surgery within seven months.

In December 2024, Merckx underwent the first hip prosthesis surgery, but at the end of March, during a check-up, doctors discovered that the prosthesis had never attached to the bone. "It was simply loose. I walked with it for three months and twelve days," Merckx told HLN.

Immediately, a second prosthesis was inserted, "this time cemented, which is better," Merckx had explained, who was already able to load the operated limb the next day and begin rehabilitation.

But the satisfaction was short-lived: Merckx developed a skin bacteria that required strong antibiotic therapy. And now doctors have established that a new hip prosthesis is the best solution compared to antibiotic treatments, and so here comes the third operation...