When Eddy Merckx recently commented on his being called the greatest cyclist of all time, he played down the description in typical “modest Eddy” fashion. “Comparisons between one generation and another don’t mean anything,” he told Vélo Magazine. “For me, the most important is to be the best of your generation.”

Merckx, no question, was the best of his generation. And after he retired in 1978 there was a void waiting to be filled, just as there is today on the retirement of Lance Armstrong. The après-Merckx years were marked by some fierce competition for “best in class.”

The first candidate was clearly Frenchman Bernard Hinault, who, like Merckx, was able to dominate grand tours and also win legendary classics. Then there were the Italians Francesco Moser and Giuseppe Saronni, who waged repeated battles at the classics and Giro d’Italia. Also emerging in the early-1980s were riders like Laurent Fignon of France and Hennie Kuiper of the Netherlands, and what can be called “Generation Anglo” — Ireland’s Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche, Australia’s Phil Anderson and America’s Greg LeMond.

LeMond had yet to finish a grand tour when, at age 22, he won the world championship in 1983. That was a year when the Anglo’s made a true breakthrough into the European consciousness.

A measure of “best in class” was the Super Prestige Pernod competition, the equivalent of today’s UCI ProTour. With just one race to go in the 1983 Super Prestige series, the standings were:1. LeMond, 205 points2. Saronni and Jan Raas, 1754. Kelly, 160Any of the four could still win, as the final event, the Tour of Lombardy, gave 60 points to the winner.

It was perhaps the closest-ever Pernod, and two of its protagonists, Kelly and LeMond, fought out one of the most dramatic finishes in Lombardia history.

There’s something very special about Italy’s Tour of Lombardy classic. In the first five decades of its existence, the list of winners was a who’s who of Italian campionissimi: Girardengo, Binda, Guerra, Bartali, Coppi…. Fausto Coppi remains the all-time Lombardia champion, with five victories between 1946 and 1954.

As cycling became more international, the list of Lombardy winners reflected the sport’s hierarchy. A string of world champions found success on the hilly roads of the autumnal Italian classic. In the years preceding 1983, that list included Saronni, Kuiper, Hinault. Moser, Felice Gimondi and Merckx.

One reason that riders capable of winning the world’s (or a grand tour) did well at Lombardia is the terrain. The race, like this year’s edition, encircles beautiful Lake Como, a Y-shaped body of water surrounded by jutting peaks. This weekend, the ProTour riders will race around the lake in a clockwise direction, starting with the difficult Passo d’Intelvi in the opening hour.

Twenty-two years ago, the Super Prestige Pernod field tackled the course in the opposite, counterclockwise direction, climbing the Intelvi in the final hour. But the last 8km loop out-and-back from Como, over the San Fermo della Battaglia hill, and the finish along by the lake, are common to both editions.

With its several long climbs, some as tough as a Cat. 1 or Cat. 2 at the Tour de France, the Tour of Lombardy is always a race of attrition. In 1983, from a field of 151 starters, only 46 finished, and only half of those were still in contention after climbing the gnarly Intelvi climb. That’s where Saronni lost contact, while Raas had already quit, leaving Kelly and LeMond to duke out the Pernod title.

Two climbers, Pedro Muñoz of Spain and Claude Criquielion of Belgium, exploded the peloton on the Intelvi, which ascends almost 2000 feet from the lakeside village of Argegno. LeMond was not one of the strongest here and he had to work hard to catch the leaders after the sharp descent.

The American was also in a spot of bother on the narrow, winding 3km-long San Fermo della Battaglia, where Muñoz again put the hammer down, this time with Italian veteran Alfredo Chinetti. At the same time, Kelly was focusing on an eventual sprint finish, knowing he was probably the fastest sprinter still riding.

Kelly, 27, was on the French team Sem-France-Loire, while his younger compatriot, Roche, raced for Peugeot. Blood was stronger than sponsors on this occasion. Neither had ever won a classic, and so it would be a huge coup if one of the Irishmen could succeed — preferably Kelly as he also might take the Pernod trophy. Roche did a brilliant job leading on the descent and the long run-in, keeping the pace too high for anyone in the 18-strong lead group to escape.

Into the final, flat 500 meters, Moser, 32, tried one of his long power sprints, but he couldn’t match an even stronger burst by Kuiper, 34, who had won Paris-Roubaix that spring. Kuiper’s new Dutch rival, Van der Poel, who had medaled at the world’s, was moving up fast, Then came Kelly in the last 100 meters — with LeMond, in his rainbow jersey, coming through with a desperate late charge.

In the very last seconds of the six-and-a-half-hour race, Kuiper, Van der Poel, Kelly and LeMond seemed to be level, each sprinting on a clear trajectory toward the finish. As they flashed across the line, no one raised an arm. From head on, it looked too close to call. But the camera brought the verdict:1. Kelly2. LeMond3. Van der Poel4. Kuiper5.Moser

Kelly had made his classics break-though, but it wasn’t quite enough to clinch the Super Prestige. That went to the gritty LeMond (245 points), with Kelly leaping over Saronni and Raas to claim second place (220). The Anglo’s had come of age. But could either Kelly or LeMond become, like Hinault and Merckx, the best in their generation. That’s a story that would develop through the 1980s.

As Sean Kelly would say, “I respected Greg a lot. We had some real ding-dong battles — especially in that 1983 Tour of Lombardy…. The finish was so close.”

SUPER PRESTIGE PERNOD WINNERSJacques Anquetil (F), 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966Jo de Roo (Nl), 1962Raymond Poulidor (F), 1964Jan Janssen (Nl), 1967Herman van Springel (B), 1968Eddy Merckx (B), 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975Freddy Maertens (B), 1976, 1977Francesco Moser (I), 1978Bernard Hinault (F), 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982Greg LeMond (USA), 1983Sean Kelly (Irl), 1984, 1985, 1986Stephen Roche (Irl), 1987UCI PROTOURDanilo Di Luca (I), 2005