Former pro rider turned author and journalist, Paul Kimmage, has described Irish cycling legend, Shay Elliott, as the "great adventurer" who blazed the trail followed by all of the other Irish riders who have since followed their dreams to Continental Europe.
Elliott was commemorated by Dublin City Council, on the 60th anniversary of his Tour de France stage win into Roubaix, when he also took the yellow jersey at the French Grand Tour. A plaque was unveiled by the council at the house in Crumlin, Dublin, where Elliott grew up, and from where he set out for his adventure in cycling.
“In January of 1955, Shay Elliott left his home on Old County Road in Crumlin and boarded the ferry to Holyhead," Kimmage said recalling Elliott's first steps towards the European racing scene. "He caught a train to London, a boat to France, and several trains to Monte Carlo for a training camp with some of the best amateur racing cyclists in Europe. This was how it started. Base camp.
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"He would become the first Irishman to ride the Tour de France, the first to win a stage and the first to wear the coveted ‘maillot jaune’. That doesn’t make him Edmund Hillary, and he was not Tom Crean, but that’s how I think of him. The pioneer. Our great adventurer. The man who planted the flag on the summit of our dreams."
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Kimmage was the star turn at the plaque unveiling at 96 Old County Road in Crumlin, where Elliott became the latest historically significant figure to be remember with a council plaque. Speaking at the event, Cllr Carolynn Moore, deputising for the Lord Mayor, said Elliott, had "blazed a trail for Irish cyclists" when he turned professional aged 21 years.
"His determination and abilities as a cyclist were matched by his sense of loyalty as a teammate, and his unfortunate death cannot overshadow all he achieved in his relatively short career," she said of his passing, from a suspect self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1971.
