A young race, the Amstel Gold Race struggled to find its place on the international calendar between the much older cobbled classics and the Ardennes classics and had problems attracting the best riders. For several years, cycling great Eddy Merckx did not participate because organizers could not pay his starting fee. In 1973 race director Herman Krott agreed to pay a considerable sum to Merckx' team, provided that he would win the race. Merckx started and won the Amstel Gold Race more than three minutes ahead of the second-place finisher. Two years later, he was the first rider to win a second time.