Alcohol
Maertens drank champagne during races. And he was for a while salesman for Lanson, a champagne company. Journalists saw crates of champagne at his house and interpreted them as confirmation that he had a drinking problem.
Legend says that on the Friday before the world championship at Goodwood, England, he asked his taxi driver to join him for a pint of beer, "because he sweating so much." Lomme Driessens said: "Too much wine and not enough riding, that's his problem."
Maertens told a reporter, Guy Roger, that the stories were exaggerated. But he acknowledged later that he did have a problem. He attended meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous until word spread that he was there. Now he drinks only non-alcoholic drinks. His body, he said, reacted quickly to alcohol and he could get drunk on a single glass of beer.
Read more about this topic: Freddy Maertens
Famous quotes containing the word alcohol:
“No power on earth or above the bottomless pit has such influence to terrorize and make cowards of men as the liquor power. Satan could not have fallen on a more potent instrument with which to thrall the world. Alcohol is king!”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–c. 1908)
“Some parents feel that if they introduce their children to alcohol gradually in the home environment, the children will learn to use alcohol in moderation. I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. First of all, alcohol is not healthy for the growing child. Second, introducing alcohol to a child suggests that you condone drinking—even to the point where you want to teach your child how to drink.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“[T]ea, that uniquely English meal, that unnecessary collation at which no stimulants—neither alcohol nor meat—are served, that comforting repast of which to partake is as good as second childhood.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)