Sports Poets Society

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...

Stephen Roche pictured with sons Florian and Alexis  during the time when Florian was suffering from leukemia https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160478/Stephen-Roche-The-family-trauma-proved-gruelling-races.html Stephen Roche about the family trauma that proved as gruelling as any of his races By JASON O'TOOLE Published: 01:34 GMT, 17 June 2012 | Updated: 14:16 GMT, 17 June 2012 View comments For 13 years, he earned his bread travelling at up to 60mph on inch-wide tyres, wearing nothing more protective than shorts and T-shirt, often with less than the width of a bicycle between him and his equally foolhardy rivals. It was a recipe for pain – and Stephen Roche endured his share. There was the shattered knee in 1986 that meant he rode in agony for the rest of his career; the kicking, spitting and punching he took from an angry Italian mob when he dared to beat their favourite in the 1987 Giro d’Italia; the emergency oxygen he received when he literally pushed himself to un...