ROCHE & KELLY AT THE 1987 WORLDS

How Stephen Roche won the rain bow jersey in 1987, with a lit tle help from Sean Kelly

Procycling · 8 sett. 2017

WRITER: BARY RYAN

When Sean Kelly first began to earn selection for the Irish national team as an amateur in the mid-1970s, he regularly found himself competing for jerseys with his teammates. Not rainbow ones, mind, but the notoriously ill-fitting garments provided by the Irish Cycling Federation at the time. Alan McCormack, regularly Kelly’s equal in the sprint as a junior, was rather slighter of build than the robust farmer’s son from Carrick-on-Suir, but he was never guaranteed the snuggest jersey on offer.

“They’d be laid out on a bed and Sean would grab my jersey, saying he liked a nice tight fit,” says McCormack. “Jesus, the medium would be like a dress on me, so I used to have to fight him to keep my small jersey. They were pure cotton and they’d sag in the rain.”

Come the 1987 World Championships in Villach, Austria, after a decade climbing inexorably to the summit of professional cy cling, Kelly had long since countered his federation’s sartorial shortcomings by having his own green jerseys made. The internal competition with his Irish teammates, meanwhile, had taken on rather grander dimensions. 

Kelly arrived in Austria that September desperately searching for a rainbow at the end of a summer of stinging disappointment. A saddle sore had forced him out of the Vuelta a España while he led the race and then a seemingly banal fall ended his Tour de France challenge in the opening week. To compound matters, 1987 had snowballed into the year of Stephen Roche.

Having already claimed the Giro d’Italia in June, Roche rode into Paris on the final Sunday of July in yellow, the first Irish man to win the Tour. From a dreary television studio in Brussels, Kelly sat watching with his arm in a sling, try ing to place or der on a riot of emotions. “When you see Roche winning it, I suppose you say to your self, ‘Sh*t, if he can win it, I should be able to win it,’” Kelly says. “There’s a lot of things that go through your head at that time, especially at the end, on the fi nal day.”

Kelly and Roche’s ri valry was a largely un spo ken one. When Roche, a gar ru lous city boy three years Kelly’s ju nior, ar rived in the pro fes sional pelo ton in 1981 and an nounced himself by win ning Paris-Nice, the older man was care ful to pay due def er ence to the neophyte’s fine de but sea son and po ten tial. At year’s end, how ever, Kelly ex pressed himself more frankly in his pre ferred, word less man ner by lap ping Roche at his Car rick Wheelers club’s pre-Christ mas hand i cap event. The fol low ing sea son, Kelly won Paris-Nice for himself, defini tively shak ing off his tag as ‘only’ a sprinter, and be gan to tar get the gen eral classification at the Tour. Or, as Roche puts it: “This Dublin guy came along and started winning stage races so he said, ‘Gee, I’d bet ter get my fin ger out here, oth er wise Roche will be tak ing all the lime light.’”

Through the 1980s, Kelly and Roche would push one an other to greater heights through a mutually ben e fi cial com pe ti tion that was more spirited than ei ther man dared to ad mit at the time, though largely bereft of en mity. Af ter all, they effectively op er ated as a car tel when it came to negotiating fees with organiser Pat McQuaid for appearing on home roads at the nascent Nissan Classic. Once the flag dropped, hostilities resumed. “I suppose I wanted to beat Roche,” Kelly says of his 1985 Nissan victory, and then grins. “If I tell you anything else, I’d be telling you a bloody lie.”

In the spring of 1987, how ever, Kelly and Roche’s on-the-bike competitiveness grew so feisty that it briefly threatened to derail their relationship off it. Roche, under pressure to produce a big win to justify his contract at Carrera, led Paris-Nice into its final day, but Kelly made no concessions to their friendship when Roche punctured on the Col de Vence, ordering his Kas team to up the pace. To Roche’s intense annoyance, Kelly claimed a sixth suc ces sive ti tle that af ter noon. The tension took time to dissipate. “You could feel it when we spoke to each other,” Kelly says. “It was still there for quite a few weeks.”

By September, how ever, with Kelly and Roche first and second in the world rankings, the animosity had abated. Roche, seemingly sated by his Grand Tour double, arrived in Austria insist ing that he would ride in the service of Kelly, who was, along with defending champion Moreno Argentin of Italy, the favourite for Worlds victory. Roche’s du ties as deluxe domestique even extended to serving as a decoy on the afternoon before the race.

As he held court for a ret inue of jour nal ists in the ho tel lobby, re count ing all over again the story of his Giro-Tour dou ble, Kelly en joyed a nap.

ALAN McCORMACK had ini tially fol lowed a sim i lar trail to Kelly in the late 1970s, turning professional with the Old Lord’s-Splendor team and com plet ing the 1978 Vuelta a España, but their paths diverged there after. McCormack re turned to Ire land within six months and dropped back to the am a teur ranks for two years before trying his luck on the professional scene in the United States. It was a propitious decision. Almost unbeknown to the Irish cycling community in that pre-internet era, McCormack established himself as a superstar across the Atlantic, even receiving America’s ultimate sporting accolade of having his image appear on a Wheaties cereal box.

For all that cachet in the United States, McCormack still yearned for some recognition back home. What better way to prove that he was an Irish professional bike rider than by competing at the Worlds for the Irish team? He rode in Mon tello in 1985, when Motta bikes paid his way to Italy and lined out when the Worlds came to his own patch in Colorado Springs in 1986. In 1987, he travelled to Villach at his own expense to compete in the green jersey along side Ireland’s four European professionals, Kelly, Roche, Martin Earley and Paul Kimmage, all of whom had started that year’s Tour. 

McCormack had shared a room in Montello with Kelly, Roche and Earley, who welcomed the returning emigrant by munching through the stash of M&Ms he had brought from across the water. This time around, how ever, while Irish cycling’s Fab Four stayed at the expense of their professional teams in the friendly confines of the Hotel Piber on the out skirts of Villach, the Fifth Beatle was housed with the Irish amateur team in rather less biddable lodgings in the centre of town. “It was hell to get there, I had all these different connecting flights and delays,” McCormack says. “By the time I got to Austria, I was just fried. I barely even made it to the start line.” McCormack’s teammates might scarcely have noticed if he hadn’t. “I’d actually forgotten he was in it because he wasn’t part of the group, not at all,” Kimmage says. “I don’t know if we even said hello to him, which is just mad – and wrong.”

Kimmage, Kelly, Roche and Ear ley, mean while, ar rived in Aus tria hav ing al ready formed some thing of an ad hoc na tional team dur ing a se ries of cri teri ums in Dublin, Wexford and Cork in the build-up to the Worlds. The field in Dublin was made up largely of British-based pro fes sion als, who re buffed Kelly’s sug ges tion that Roche, the local hero, be ‘allowed’ to win, as per the con ven tions of a post-Tour cri terium on the Con ti nent. The trio of city centre ex hi bi tion races in stead played out as full-blooded, com pet i tive af fairs. After Roche won in Dublin and Kelly tri umphed in Wex ford, the vis i tors were des per ate to salvage some thing in Cork, but Kelly claimed a hair-rais ing sprint on Saint Patrick’s Quay, where Mark Wal sham com plained that Roche had deliberately caused a crash on the final corner. Roche de nied the charge and then grin ningly turned to a troupe of local reporters: “Any way, the score is Ire land three, Eng land nil.”

The Irish quartet knocked a kick out of that line as they said their good byes in Cork and went their sep a rate ways be fore team ing up again in Aus tria 10 days later. “That was a fucking great week,” Kim mage says. “There was a great bond there.”

At the Italian ho tel on the night be fore the World Championships, riders vying for team leadership typically pledged a bonus to be shared among their companions in the event of victory. No such arrangements were discussed at the Hotel Piber, nor was any real thought given to tactics. The Irish team had no manager, and their roughly-sketched plan was to ride in support of Kelly. He was best-equipped to triumph on the flattish Villach circuit and Roche had been troubled by knee pain since his fall in Cork.

Besides, they knew there was no point in de vis ing a more de tailed scheme when the 12-man squads from Italy, Bel gium and France would in evitably dic tate the terms of engagement. “You can’t talk tac tics with five guys,” Ear ley says. “I think the idea was just to hang on as long as pos si ble and try to help Kelly.”

Rain was general all over the Gail tal Alps on Septem ber 6, 1987, and for six hours, the World Championships road race was an ex er cise in drudgery. McCor mack lasted 19 laps before he wheeled to a halt and watched the fi nale from the Ir ish tent near the fin ish line. With two laps left, he was joined by Ear ley, who had put in a mam moth turn to peg back a dangerous break fea tur ing Ar gentin and then climbed off, his work for the day done. Kimmage was also prom i nent in a supporting role in what, in hind sight, was the finest out ing of his short ca reer as a pro fes sional cy clist. “A group went away and no body was chas ing it,” Kelly says. “We told Kim mage and Ear ley to ride. Credit where credit is due, they rode really well for Ire land. They closed that break down, or al most closed it down.”

Kelly and Roche were among the 13 rid ers who re mained in con tention in the final lap, where the Ir ish team’s nu mer i cal in fe ri or ity was no longer a press ing is sue. Only the Dutch, with three rid ers, out num bered them. Mean while, Ar gentin no longer had any blue jerseys along side him. With no team able to con trol the group, there was just one viable tactical approach amid the in evitable flurry of late at tacks, and Kelly and Roche took it in turns to mark the moves. “I went at least two or three times with at tacks,” Kelly says. “I’d get a little bit ahead and then I’d be closed down, and then Roche would go with the next one. Roche went with one. They looked at each other be hind, and that was the one.”

Roche, it seemed, could not put a pedal stroke askew in this blessed year. Three kilometres from the fin ish, the rainnow subsided, he ghosted off the front in the imminently beatable company of Teun van Vliet, Rolf Gölz, Rolf Sørensen and Guido Win ter berg. Kelly, by contrast, could not catch a break in this most accursed season. Argentin sat locked on his wheel in the chasing group and the rainbow faded. So it goes.

Mindful of his own weakness in a sprint, Roche looked repeatedly over his shoulder in the final kilometre, scanning the road for a sight of Kelly, but there was a similar deadlock in the group be hind. No body wanted to drag Kelly and Argentin to a sprint finish, and the two favourites were certainly not going to help one an other.

It was up to Roche, who had frittered away Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory from a similar position in April. The lesson was harsh, but lasting. With 400 metres to go, as the road began to kick up towards the line, he anticipated the sprint, squeezing between Sørensen and the left-hand barrier. He would not be caught.

The Kelly group was closing in, but only to contest the medals. The rainbow jersey was Roche’s so long as he could keep his gear turning over. Five metres from the line, he threw his arms into the air. World champion. Instinctively, Kelly flung his arms skywards at the same time. Rather than continue his attempt to battle for a medal, he freewheeled across the line in fifth place, punching the air three times as he did so. “That’s genuine. Absolutely genuine,” Kimmage says. “You can’t fake that.”

“No matter what any body might say, no matter what doubt anybody would have about our relationship, that says it all,” Roche says. “Because if Sean was unhappy for me, or jealous, he wouldn’t have done that. That was spontaneous. That was from the heart: ‘I’m happy for this guy.’”

The image would later come to define Kelly and Roche’s legacies in their home country. Roche sealed his Triple Crown that day, true, but Kelly’s sacrifice, real or imagined, would only copper-fasten his standing as Ireland’s most popular cy clist. By the mid-1990s, Roche had heard tell so of ten of his team-mate’s heroic selflessness in Villach that he felt moved to offer a revision. “It angers me when I hear that. I mean when you see the work I did that day, I did every thing for Sean that day and still had the strength to win,” Roche told the Irish Independent at Kelly’s retirement race, of all places, in Car rick-on-Suir in 1994. Then again, Roche was always better at tactics than tact.

And yet, for all that the 1987 Worlds enshrined his near beatific status, it was a bittersweet occasion for Kelly. As Roche was ush ered towards the podium that af ter noon, Kelly was left to heave his heart into his mouth for the gag gle of Ir ish re porters who had flocked to Villach expect ing him to be crowned world champion. He had been Ireland’s standardbearer for a decade, but in the space of one summer, he watched Roche carry off cycling’s three big gest prizes.

Had the cards fallen differently, the rainbow jersey might have been Kelly’s. “It could have been the other way. It could have been that I was in the move that stuck,” Kelly says now, before quickly laying the thought aside, stoic to the last. “But that’s the way it goes.”