Sean Kelly and Eric Vanderaerden on their rivalry, coming to blows
The two legends discuss their often bitter rivalry during their careers and how they feel about each other now.
By Brian Canty
The An Post-ChainReaction team is long back in action in 2017 and on its roster of young guns is a familiar name in world cycling; Vanderaerden.
Yes, Massimo Vanderaerden (22) is the son of the legendary Belgian sprinter and classics rider Eric.
And according to the latter, they’re impossible to compare.
“You cannot compare me to him,” says Eric, filling the chair in the lobby of the Diamanté Beach Hotel in Calpe when stickybottle caught up with him.
His shoulders are broad and he rests both his enormous forearms on the table.
In the background, the rail-thin and slightly shy Massimo mingles with his teammates from Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
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“I was very young winning all the things,” continued Eric of his own career.
“I won the Tour de Flanders at 23. I was very young but at the top level.
“I think Massimo will be at his best when he is 23, 24, maybe 25. He needs a few more years than me.”
Also milling about, fulfilling media duties and posing for photos is the ageless Sean Kelly.
Two decades ago when in their pomp, Vanderaerden and Kelly were sworn enemies. They had a rivalry as bitter as anything that went before or has come since.
After one particular race Kelly is on record as saying he would punch Eric in the face if he saw him.
He was angry at the manner in which his Belgian rival conducted himself in the sprint.
“Big stars never like each other,” smiles Vanderaerden when asked about his relationship with Kelly.
“It’s the same with the sprinters now; Cav, Kittel, Greipel, they don’t like each other. After the race yes but never in the race… that’s simple.”
Kelly agrees. And while there does not seem to be a strong bond between the two now, years later, they is not bitterness.
“There’s always coolness; but that’s always there. I’ve met him many times over the years at the Tour because he works with Lotto and we’ve spoken many times.
“We had our battles on the road, big time. We had some big scraps on the bike and off the bike.
“Sometimes we were trying to punch each other at the finish but that’s the business you’re in as a sprinter.
“You come up against those guys. Back in the day you could do that (barging) more because you hadn’t the TV cameras as much and you could get away with it.”
The exact start of what was a bitter rivalry at the time is hard to pinpoint.
Vanderaerden came on the scene in the early 80s when Kelly was already a star.
Vanderaerden won a stage of the Tour in 1983 while Kelly had won a few stages three years before.
“I never had any fear. I had fear of nobody,” says Vanderaerden of his approach to facing Kelly.
“Sean was quite another type of rider to me because he could race on climbs. He was a lot better than me on the climbs.
“But he was also a big man in the Classics, every race. I was very good in the Classics only.”
Kelly and Vanderaerden both beat each other many of times of course, though the Irishman’s career reach much higher peaks.
But Sean Kelly adds he always saw Eric Vanderaerden as a massive threat, in more ways than one.
“We were always there fighting against each other for Roubaix and Milan-San Remo and Flanders; those races in the sprints.
“And in the Grand Tours as well we came up against each other,” adds the Carrick-on-Suir man.
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“We were together in a lot of events and when you get to that level of racing, things get hot and heavy in the race.”
Crashing is part and parcel of the sport and it’s one of the more painful occupational hazards associated with it.
When we suggest to Vanderaerden that he was sometimes reckless he pauses for a moment.
“Sometimes, yes. I didn’t need to be but it was my character. If I was in the lead and I felt something come by me I tried to stop him in any race.”
He believed Kelly was cut from the same cloth; with the same hunger to win.
“In the sprints we were very similar but when neither of us give up,” says Vanderaerden.
“Then you have a battle and in that period of our careers it was quite normal to battle.
“If you do it now it’s not nice to see but in those years, 20 years ago, it was quite normal to battle each other.
“You hope nobody saw it but everyone sees it now. That was my character and that was Sean’s character; if he feels something he doesn’t give up either.
“Every race there was a battle. When the race is over you say ‘hello’. But in the race you battle each other. That’s why it’s nice to talk with him now about it.”
Of course 1985 was the year where the relationship between the pair was at it’s worst.
The Tour de France that year was won by Bernard Hinault but Kelly and Vanderaerden provided plenty of fireworks in the sprints.
Video footage of the sixth stage to Reims shows some seriously erratic sprinting from Vanderaerden.
And the memory is not lost on Kelly.
“Into Reims, I remember it,” lamented the Irishman of the fierce sprint over three decades ago.
“Vanderaerden was leading and I was in his wheel and I started to come by on the barriers.
“When I started to come by on his right side he was probably three feet from the barriers.
And the moment he smelt me coming he closed the door and he just kept closing.
“I kept pushing and the more I came by the more he pushed more into the barriers.
“I shoved him off and then he started pulling and the two of us were relegated to the back of the bunch. We’d have been sent home straight away if it was today.”
They were both relegated to the back of the bunch that day, which meant Frederic Castaing was declared the winner.
“For us in that moment it was quite normal but looking back it was crazy,” laughed Vanderaerden.
“For me it was quite normal. If you see the sprints now and you see our sprints back then…we were crazy, even without helmets!
“But there is suggestion I caused crashes and got hurt a lot. I made five crashes in the last 200 metres of races in my career and one was caused by Gomez.
“He was not a sprinter and going in the front is a risk, you can fall, it’s sport.
“If you do the sprint, even today it’s a risk and if you don’t want to take the risk stay at home.”
Of his younger rival Kelly said: “A reckless guy will willingly put you in the barriers or give you as they say ‘a huge hoof’.
“He would put you to the barriers and tighten it slowly and not back off.
“He was one of these sprinters who was aggressive when you got into the final.
“He was in that tunnel, thinking of getting to the line first and taking a lot of risk. Sprinters are not afraid and Eric certainly was not afraid.”
Nowadays the pair have more sense than to “battle”, though they’re not exactly best friends either.
“We are not friends but we have good respect,” Vanderaerden confirms to stickybottle.
“He lives in Ireland, I live in Belgium and maybe we will see each other more now with Massimo in his team.
“I have a lot of respect for Sean. He had a big career but he’s normal now.
“He doesn’t have a big neck as we say in Belgium. He’s doing normal things and he’s a normal person.”
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