Sports Poets Society

Stephen Roche hushes the crowd from the podium after Stage 15 of the 1987 Giro d’Italia.  Scotland’s Robert Millar, who gave Roche support, is alongside him in the green jersey.  Photograph: Graham Watson  Irishman had to overcome Italian team-mate and defy the baying home crowd https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/somebody-is-going-home-tonight-roche-v-visentini-at-the-giro-revisited-1.4558528 Ian O'Riordan Sat May 8 2021 - 06:00 It was on the third Sunday and the beginning of the final week when the maglia rosa, among the most sacred of cycling jerseys, finished stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia spattered with spittle of stale red wine mixed with half-chewed pieces of rice , and that was before the rider took it off to discover some mild bruising underneath. That rider was Stephen Roche. It was the chapter somewhere among the many great volumes of Italian cycling history they still call the Marmolada Massacre . Even with their innate tendency for drama and exaggera...

Eddy Schepers hands Stephen Roche a bidon at the 1987 Giro d'Italia (Image credit: Bettini Photo) https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/gotta-serve-somebody-eddy-schepers-and-the-domestiques-calling/ Caught between Roche and Visentini at the 1987 Giro d'Italia By Barry Ryan   cyclingnews.com - April 01, 2020 Most domestiques were once future champions. Eddy Schepers certainly was. In his final year as an amateur in 1977 , he started the summer with victory at the prestigious Giro delle Regioni and finished it by beating Johan van der Velde and Roberto Visentini to become the first Belgian winner of the Tour de l'Avenir . In doing so, Schepers became the first man to achieve a Franco-Italian double , only ever replicated by Sergei Sukhoruchenkov – the Soviet rider heralded as the Eddy Merckx of the Eastern Bloc. The following season, Schepers had a brief chance to measure himself against 'The Cannibal' in person, turning professional at C&A, where Merckx spent ...

di CHRISTIAN GIORDANO © in esclusiva per RAINBOW SPORTS BOOKS © «In Belgio il gregariato, così come lo si intende in Italia, non esiste. Una squadra ha venti dipendenti, e tutti si fanno la forca per cercare di intascare quanto più possono» - Gianni Mura (1968) «Costui - e non la famiglia, la società, i vicini, le cattive compagnie o "n'importe que" - è individualmente e totalmente responsabile dei propri atti e se ne assume tutte le conseguenze davanti alla comunità in cui vive, senza esitazioni, senza piagnucolamenti, senza autocommiserazioni e autogiustificazioni. Senza scuse. Senza sconti, perché quello che ha assunto è un impegno con se stesso e verso se stesso. Questo tipo d'uomo è il Ribelle». - Massimo Fini, Il Ribelle  (2006) Dalle Ande alle Fiandre. Per arrivare al Ribelle, al secolo Eddy Schepers (si pronuncia "Skìpers"), fidatissimo gregario del “Giuda” Stephen Roche e terzo polo nella “trinità del Male” col piccolo “Diav...