Sean Kelly is one of the biggest figures in the history of world cycling and behind Eddy Merckx the Irishman is in a fight for second best of all time with a small number of others.
Riders like Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond won multiple
Tours and the world title, both of which are missing from Kelly’s palmares.
But King Kelly was so prolific for so long during his career
that, on versatility and consistency grounds, he perhaps exceeds all of the men
who won the Tour and/or Worlds.
If you think of Wout van Aert doing for the next 10 years what he’s done over the last two seasons – and also throw in a Grand Tour win and four Tour de France green jerseys – that’s effectively Sean Kelly’s career.
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But one all-time record that Kelly holds looks set to be
broken by Peter Sagan very soon – the number of days a rider has held the
points classification jersey at Grand Tours.
That record is a measure of how consistent, year after
year, the best riders were in the hardest races on all terrains. And only the
legends of the sport make the top 10.
Kelly is top of that all-time list right now, with 151
days in the points jersey at Grand Tours – all at the Tour and Vuelta. He only
rode the Giro once, in 1992.
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His presence on the Giro that year was effectively forced
on him as the organisers only agreed to let his Lotus Festina team ride if
Kelly started the race, which he did before abandoning.
Peter Sagan, who currently leads the points classification at the Giro, will have 149 days leading Grand Tour points classifications if he holds it all the way to Milan tomorrow, as expected.
He would then need just three days in the green jersey at the Tour de France this year to surpass Kelly’s record, though Sam Bennett will be out to stop him in that competition.
No other current rider is anywhere close to Kelly and
Sagan. German sprinter Erik Zabel is 3rd on the all-time list with 141 days spent
leading Grand Tour points classifications.
He is followed by Laurent Jalabert on 103 days, Freddy
Maertens on 102 days, Eddy Merckx on 91, Roger De Vlaeminck on 80, Giuseppe
Saronni on 76, Djamolidine Abduzhaparov on 73 and Robbie McEwen in 10th on 69
days.
Kelly’s 11-year run of holding the Grand Tour points
classification jersey began in 1979 and lasted until 1989. Sagan is also in his
11th season since first taking a points classification jersey at a Grand Tour.
Kelly won his first points classification at a Grand Tour in the Vuelta in 1980, when he claimed victory in a whopping six stages. He won the first of his four Tour green jerseys in 1982, when he won stage 12 of that race, and also won the intermediate sprints jersey, now defunct.
He won the Vuelta points classification in 1980, 1985, 1986 and 1988; the latter when he also won overall, claimed the combination classification and won two stages. He claimed the Tour points classification in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1989.
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