Stephen Roche - Cycling Professor
Cycling Legends Media
Stephen Roche was a professor of cycling. He studied and perfected every aspect of it from aerodynamics, as you can see from this shot of him in the final time trial of the 1987 Tour de France, to the psychology of competition. This time trial decided the 1987 Tour.
It was the penultimate stage; Roche was 2nd overall, 21 seconds behind Pedro Delgado at the start. He’d been 39 seconds behind the previous day, still a manageable gap to close against the clock because he was better than Delgado, but a bit of insurance wouldn’t hurt.
“I attacked on the descent of the last climb of the Tour into Morzine to put Delgado under pressure. I wanted to take a few seconds from him before the time trial. He chased desperately but finished 18 seconds behind me. They were important as they reduced my deficit, which was psychologically very important to me,” Roche says.
It was a psychological blow to Delgado as well. His back was against the wall now, just as Roche’s had been on the slopes of La Plagne, when Delgado attacked and Roche had to go so deep to minimise his gains he collapsed at the finish. Now though, although his Spanish rival wasn’t a bad time triallist, Roche was a lot more than 21 seconds better. Delgado put up a good fight, but Roche inexorably gained on him. The eventual victory margin was just over a minute, Roche had taken back the yellow jersey, although he was second on the stage. The winner was Jean-Francois Bernard, who clocked over 44 km/h for the 38km twisty route around Dijon, thereby securing the third slot on the Paris podium.
Roche was first, the first and only Irishman to win the Tour de France. The talent that for so long was frustrated by injury had finally blossomed. He was the fifth rider ever to do the Giro-Tour double, and later in 1987 Roche joined Eddy Merckx by winning the world title, the second man to win cycling’s triple crown. Tadej Pogačar has joined them since.
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