Sports Poets Society

Vincenzo Nibali has won all three grand tours, along with two monuments - San Remo and Lombardia. But in 2019 he’ll take on the ambitious target of the Giro-Tour double. Can his aggressive riding and experience bring him his greatest achievement yet?  Writer Barry Ryan Procycling UK, ISSUE 252 / FEBRUARY 2019 The double take. Vincenzo Nibali gets it a lot, on his travels abroad, and especially among his own people in Italy. The morning after Il Lombardia last October was no different. At the Bahrain-Merida hotel, an elderly woman approached with widening eyes. “It’s Nibali,” she said. The previous afternoon, Nibali had stalked Thibaut Pinot all the way to Como but fell short of a third win in the season-ending monument. Given the circumstances, both the result and the performance were remarkable. Barely two months earlier, Nibali had undergone a percutaneous vertebroplasty procedure after fracturing a vertebra when a spectator caused him to crash on Alpe d’Huez at...

Nibali has built one of the most wide-ranging palmarès in the sport’s record  books. We look at the qualities that have allowed him to do so Writer Sam Dansie Procycling UK, ISSUE 252 / FEBRUARY 2019 It’s a matter of orthodoxy that Vincenzo Nibali is the most versatile rider in the current peloton. The bald ledger of his palmarès brooks no argument. He is one of two active riders to have won all three grand tours and the only one to extend that breadth further with a monument – in fact, he has three: Milan-San Remo and two editions of Il Lombardia. He’s finished second at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and, in 2013, fourth at the road Worlds despite a bad crash with two laps to go. He was 24th on his debut at the Tour of Flanders. Nibali’s record doesn’t just stand up as the most complete right now, it’s one of the most complete of all time: one of only seven to win all the grand tours; one of just five to win all the grand tours and a monument. Nibali’s former directeur spor...

by EDWARD PICKERING Procycling UK, ISSUE 252 / FEBRUARY 2019 Can you imagine a peloton without Team Sky? No, me neither. It’s only January, so there is a lot of 2019 left for things to change, but from the moment Team Sky announced that this season would be the last under the current sponsorship, cycling has been indulging in a parlour game of possible outcomes, including the nuclear option: the end of the team. Finding £30 million, or thereabouts, is possibly going to be David Brailsford’s hardest ever challenge, but I’ve been following the Team Sky principal for enough time to know that until official confirmation is published that the team will end, it would be better not to assume that the task is beyond him. Whatever happens, this has suddenly become the big narrative of the 2019 season, and as I write, the riders have barely raced yet. But Sky is not the only story of the year as we begin the new season. We’ve looked at some of the other likely narratives in th...

Mai tornare dove si è stati felici. Thierry Henry ha voluto provarci lo stesso, a costo di scottarsi se non proprio bruciarsi, sulla sua prima panchina da capoallenatore. E' durata 104 giorni, più veloce delle volate in campo aperto che l'hanno reso celebre. Più a Montecarlo e a Londra-nord sponda gunners  che a Torino, Barcellona e New York. Lo doveva, forse, al club del Principato che l'ha scoperto e lanciato dopo la non facile adoelscenza con un padre-padrone alla Agassi e l'alienante fabbrica di talenti di Clairefontaine. Lì al Monaco, il futuro Titì ancora crossava da ala destra per il gemello Trezeguet. Insieme nel 97 vinsero titolo e supercoppa di Francia. E da ala floppò alla Juve prima di diventare l'uomo-gol dei record all'Arsenal di Wenger. Lo stesso alsaziano che al Monaco allenava la prima squadra quando Henry era all'ultimo anno nelle giovanili. Dopo tre anni da super talent di Sky Sports UK come risposta, per ruolo e carisma, a...

https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/the-day-the-sky-fell-in-26553384.html Susan Daly July 25, 2009 The lavender plants lining the path to Lydia Roche's home in the south of France send up clouds of butterflies and fragrance as the visitor brushes past. From the shady terrace of her airy apartment, she takes in a view that sweeps down the rolling hillside to the town of Antibes and, beyond that, the sparkling azure sea where wealthy playboys anchor their yachts. Even on this beautiful day, a cloud passes over Lydia's face as she describes the moment two years ago when "the sky fell in". Her youngest son, Florian, then just seven years old, was diagnosed with the most severe form of leukaemia. He had complained of a tummy ache while on holiday in Ireland with his father Stephen Roche, the former cycling champion and Lydia's ex-husband. "When he came back I thought he was a bit skinny, very pale, but I think of the travelling -- I never thi...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/jun/04/tour-de-france-stephen-roche It is 25 years since the Irish cyclist's spectacular triple crown win, but he still cannot escape accusations of doping Donald McRae @donaldgmcrae The Guardian, Mon 4 Jun 2012  Stephen Roche ranks winning the 1987 Tour de France as his greatest achievement. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian If someone described the scenario to me now I'd be out of there," Stephen Roche says as he takes off his shirt. Naked from the waist up, Roche begins to detail the ordeal he endured when winning cycling's triple crown of the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the world road race in the space of a few brutal months in 1987. Roche is already an hour late for his own party, and the launch of a revealing book which celebrates the 25th anniversary of that iconic achievement, but he is bruised on the inside. Earlier in the day he helped bury his mentor, Claude Escalon, th...

https://www.tuttobiciweb.it/article/2017/07/04/102817/roche-froome-impresa-visentini-carrera-1987-giro-tour-e-mondiale Sono passati 30 anni da una delle più grandi imprese nella storia del ciclismo. Nel 1987 infatti Stephen Roche, irlandese di Dublino oggi 57enne, conquistò Giro d'Italia, Tour de France e poi anche il Mondiale, che in quella stagione si disputò a Villach, in Austria. Una tripletta riuscita in precedenza solo al Cannibale belga Eddy Merckx nel 1974 e mai più ripetuta in seguito. Roche, professionista dal 1981 al 1993, è anche uno dei 7 ciclisti di sempre ad aver vinto Giro e Tour nello stesso anno dopo Coppi, Merckx, Anquetil, Hinault e prima di Indurain e Pantani. Dunque un campione che segue ancora il ciclismo anche perché Nicolas, uno dei suoi figli, è nella Bmc e sta correndo il Tour in aiuto a Porte. E Maria, la sorella di Roche, è la mamma di Daniel Martin, anche lui nella Grande Boucle, con la Quick Step di Kittel. - Roche, ama ancora il ciclismo...

https://www.podiumcafe.com/2011/3/2/2025003/ParisNiceKellyRoche Paris-Nice - the Irish years. By Feargal McKay @fmk_RoI   Mar 2, 2011 For eight years in the eighties , Paris-Nice was an Irish race. Between Stephen Roche's win in 1981 and Sean Kelly 's last visit to the top step of the podium in 1988 , no other nation took victory in la course au soleil. An impressive enough stat. Made even more impressive when you look at the history of the race: it's never happened before. The story of Paris-Nice's Irish years is very much the story of Ireland's two stars of the era , of who they were, where they came from and how they came to make the impression on European cycling that they did. And that story begins with the man from Carrick-on-Suir, Sean Kelly. When Kelly turned pro and joined Flandria in 1977 the team was split into two squads. The main one - DS'ed by Guillaume (Lomme) Driessens - was based in Belgium and was headed by Freddy Ma...