Column; In memory of Eric Geboers
With the death of Eric Geboers, Belgium and the entire motocross world loses one of its most iconic riders. Geboers ensured that the former BRT (now VRT with channels such as een and sporza) broadcast the motocross to the general public. With broadcasts of the Grand Prix on the Citadel of Namur, the then VRT became the founder of motorsport. But Geboers was much more than a good rider. Eric was a pioneer, he was the first to hire a trainer to maintain his physical condition. According to insiders, he was the first rider to use a heart rate monitor. He was also a huge spectacle man, hands loose while jumping, for example, also comes from him, but Geboers was above all very driven in everything he did.
Eric Geboers was born on August 5, 1962, the youngest in a family of seven children, in Balen (Belgium). An afterthought, he already asked which path he wanted to follow, namely to follow in the footsteps of his 17 year older brother Sylvain, multiple vice world motocross champion. However, there was one big problem! Too small and too thin, it sounded here and there (barely 1,68 m tall). But that was without counting Eric's incredible perseverance, his trademark throughout his career. He wanted and would make it happen so that they would be proud of them. And so it happened…
Geboers makes his World Championship debut in the GP 125cc in Hechtel, Belgium, on April 20, 1980. With a fourth and fifth place in the heats, the teenager amazed the entire motocross world. It became clear one week later that this was no coincidence. In Verdun, France, it was an immediate hit, at just 17 years and 8 months Geboers was the youngest GP winner ever at the time! In his Grand Prix debut year he immediately finished third in the world championship. Newspapers worldwide had headlines like… “A new star is born”. Eric, a small, skinny man who hated to lose, was at the top of his sport as he always dreamed of (that's where his nickname The Kid was born). But his hunger was great, very great indeed. Geboers would remain in the world championship for eleven long years. Eleven fantastic years when you see that his worst result, “barely fifth place in 1984”, is because he broke his knee during the season. In all other ten seasons, Eric consistently finished in the top three of the world championship. Geboers rode a total of 119 Grand Prix races. He won 39 of these and also won 74 GP series. This gave him no fewer than five world titles, 1982, 1983 in the 125cc class on Suzuki, in 1987 he became world champion again in the 250cc on Honda. Geboers moved on to the 500cc and again took the title for Honda in 1988 and 1990. The older among us may still feel the images of Geboers winning his first world title in Jämshög, Sweden. Many people will remember the way he celebrated this in particular. When he came under the checkered flag, he let go of his bike and did a forward somersault from the saddle!! Offering the fans spectacle and fun, that was also Eric. Another memorable moment was in 1988 when he won his first world title in the 500cc. Geboers then wrote history by being the first rider ever to win the world title in all three classes. In addition to The Kid, this earned him a second nickname: “Mister 875”. Something that only Stefan Everts was able to imitate afterwards. But for me the most evocative moment was in 1990 at the mythical Citadel in Namur, where I witnessed the second and last world title in the 500cc. He wins the Grand Prix and literally blends in with the crowd! Eric doesn't show up for the ceremony and the organization puts mother Geboers on stage to receive the trophy. In the meantime, there is still no trace of the new world champion. Until the news on TV, (Eric flies by helicopter to the BRT in Brussels), where Geboers announced on August 5, his birthday and as the brand new world champion, that he would immediately stop motocross. He was only 28 years young when he made this decision, which no one knew about, even the family and the team knew nothing about his retirement!
But Geboers was much more than a top rider on a motorcycle. Together with the late Georges Jobé (who died of leukemia in 2012), they were THE pioneers in the field of training work in motocross. Eric will certainly go down in history as the man who taught the cross-country to train. Training, based on science! When he started his career, training was virtually non-existent. Everyone did something, but it was often the proverbial wet finger work. Grinding laps on your motorcycle until your tongue hung over your handlebars and then pushing a solid piece of meat behind your molars was nothing more than that in those days. Geboers soon realized that things could and had to be done differently. He was one of the first riders to go abroad to ride on different surfaces. As a result, he became even better on the various circuits. In the last years of his active career as a motocross rider, Geboers almost always trained without a motorcycle. Mainly running and strength training, purely physical training. It wasn't until the weekend that he saw the bike and the sight of it always gave him a big adrenaline rush. Those kicks did it for The Kid, excellent preparation is still the best guarantee to keep the body healthy. Evidence of this is that Geboers suffered “only” 13 fractures.
Eric also played a major role in terms of popularity in his sport. While André Malherbe stole the show in Wallonia, Eric Geboers found his way to the media in Flanders. He personally arranged for a TV crew to come to the Grand Prix and for half-hour reports to appear on Flemish television. In other words, Geboers really introduced the Flemish people to motocross on a global level. His fans were also served. If you wrote him a letter in the 80s, you invariably received an answer. After his career, Geboers focused on various activities. But he always came back to his old love, motocross. Eric was also the organizer of the Belgian Grand Prix in first Namur and then Lommel for a long time. He revived the grand prix when it was in danger of disappearing from the calendar. In 2016 he passed the torch to Johan Boonen, but behind the scenes Eric continued to play an important role! From 1993 to December 2015, he joined his older brother Sylvain as team manager at the Suzuki factory team Geboers Racing Promotion with riders such as the Belgians Clément Desalle and Kevin Strijbos. Eric was mainly the man with the good contacts with the big bosses in Japan. Making contacts, lobbying: he was a crack at that. He was also the driving force behind Red De Motorcross, which fights for the survival of motocross in Belgium. Eric was the one who knocked on the ministers' doors, who met with them for hours and hours, who stood up for his sport.
Eric Geboers leaves behind a wife and two children. Good luck Eric, we will miss you as a rider, for many the best of all time, but especially as who you really were, a Geboers through and through….
By: Geert Gelaude
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