final, Eddy Merckx encouraged Monseré to chase the leading cyclists, saying 'if you want to win, you have to go to Gimondi'. Monseré escaped with a small group and eventually won the world championship. He was the second-youngest world champion after another Belgian, Karel Kaers. In 1971, he again became Belgian track champion, this time in the madison discipline. He managed to win the Vuelta a Andalucía in February 1971. On 15 March 1971, Monseré was riding the Grote Jaarmarktprijs in Retie after he had to be convinced by Eric and Roger De Vlaeminck to participate. Monseré eventually considered it as a good training for Milan–San Remo the following weekend. On the road from Lille to Gierle, he and Roger De Vlaeminck agreed they trained enough and they were about to exit the race. However, a car driving onto the course collided frontal with Monseré and he died on the spot. His funeral was attended by more than 20,000 people, including several ministers and cyclists like Eddy Merckx, Roger De Vlaeminck, Patrick Sercu and Joop Zoetemelk. Merckx placed the flowers received after his Milan–San Remo victory on the coffin. In a cruel twist of fate, in 1976 Monseré's seven-year-old son Giovanni died after a collision with a car, while riding his racing bike which was given to him on his first communion by a family friend, another world champion Freddy Maertens. Like his father, the little boy was also wearing a rainbow jersey. Aftermath Later research of the accident showed blunders of both the local law enforcement forces and the race organization. As it was a small local race, the gendarmerie refused to cooperate while the police did not find it necessary to stop traffic on the course. Moreover, outside a car driving in front, there were no other signs to warn that a race was going on. The driver of the car, a woman in her twenties, was not blamed. Following the accident, regulations and obligations related to cycling races of all levels were tightened. In a documentary years later, Roger De Vlaeminck stated that "Merckx would have had a lot of trouble with him. Monseré was better than him, I think. He was more of an all-rounder. He could sprint and climb very well. He rode … also more reasoned than Merckx and me. In my view, he had to do less to achieve the same results." Jean-Pierre