Stephen Roche leads Sean Kelly in their hey day, but Roche picks some races long before he was famous as the ones that changed his life. Photo by Cor Vos, homepage photo by Phil O'Connor
Stephen Roche, along with Sean Kelly, put Ireland on the map of top tier pro cycling in the 1980s after Shay Elliott had first blazed the trail. Roche won races, apparently effortlessly and at will, as an amateur, claiming the overall at his first Rás Tailteann - the Health Race as it was then - back in 1979.
A stint with ACBB in France followed. And, though the Olympics in Moscow proved a dud for him, and he should have won more races as an amateur in Europe that year, he did enough to secure a pro contract with Peugeot. He joined Australian Phil Anderson and Scottish rider Robert Millar, now Pippa Yorke, on that team and the rest, as they say, is history.
In his first season as a pro, aged 20, he won the final general classification at Paris-Nice, by taking victory on the Col d'éze TT. He had taken his first two pro wins the previous week; a stage and the overall at Tour de Corse, beating the great Bernard Hinault in the process. Roche claimed 10 races that year, including the GC at four stage races and the TT stage at Tour de l'Avenir.
In 13 seasons as a pro, he won 49 races, including the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and World Championships. In this piece, Roche looks back with stickybottle - in some cases way, way back - on the races that changed his life.
Rás Tailteann | 1979
On the final stage in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in '79 chatting to the RTÉ camera crew about looking forward to "steak and ice cream" when he got home to his mother's house and "the girls in work" the following day
Winning the Rás as a teenager in 1979 was a big turning point for me. It gave me the confidence for stage racing. It showed me I was able to be strong. I won the time trial on the second last day and I was doing a normal day's work at the time. I was an apprentice fitter at the Merville Dairy in Finglas and I was going to night tech in Bolton Street College.
I would have only ridden maybe for three days in races before that Rás. It was my first year as a senior, it was a nine-day race and I won it. So it gave me a better perspective about where I could go.
On one of the stages, I had a bit of a pre-run, with Alan McCormack, of what would become my encounter with Roberto Visentini in the Giro years later. Alan was on my team, and he went up the road. He was four minutes up. I was race leader, but he still went up the road. So I took off out of the bunch and caught him.
That was maybe a sign of things to come, and I'd say a sign of character. I wasn't just going to let that happen. And then I won a stage into Westport. I won the sprint, I think it was from Denis Brennan.
I always remember on the last day of the Rás, Michael O'Carroll from RTÉ came to my room and I was lying there in my yellow jersey. And Michael said to me 'well Stephen, people are saying you're a good bike rider with a lot of potential, what do you think?'
And I'm saying 'well, you know Michael, yeah I'd really love to leave my mark on cycling'. I'm thinking now it's a good job I went on to have a cycling career otherwise I'd seem very pretentious. But definitely, that race did a lot for me. It gave me a platform. It gave me confidence while I was young.
Amateur Paris Roubaix | 1980
In 1980 my job back in Dublin had given me a six-month leave of absence. And I had to tell them by June 1st if I was coming back after the Olympics. Paris-Roubaix was on June 1st. I'd just finished 2d in Route de France and we were driving back to Paris and I said to my team boss 'look, I have to give an answer to my job if I'm going back'. So I was saying 'can you please tell me, do I have any chance of becoming a pro?'
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And he said 'well, it's not with seconds and thirds you'll become a pro'. I'd placed in a lot of races that season, but I just hadn't got the big win. But then the following day I won Paris Roubaix. And I called my boss back in Dublin immediately and I said 'I'm after winning the biggest amateur race in France, so I think I should get a pro contract by the end of the year'.
That race was a big deal, Dirk Demol was 2nd, it was a much bigger race than it is today, at the amateur level. I got away with a guy called Michel Larpe, a French guy who was part of their Olympic squad, and Demol. Michel was from the area, he was classed as the favourite. But he punctured with about 10k to go to the velodrome.
When we came into the velodrome, Dirk was sitting on my wheel and he wouldn't come off it. I'd never seen a velodrome in my life apart from Sundrive Road. So I'm thinking 'what do I do now?' But I was able to hold him off in the sprint.
Then I called the boss back in Dublin and said 'look I'm gonna get a contract now' and I thought I was on for a medal at the Olympics. So I told him I should be OK for a job. I went on to the Olympics and that didn't work out. I was sitting there with Barry McGuigan at the Olympic Park. He’d just missed a medal in the boxing, it hadn’t worked out for me and I’d also just quit my job.
But I ended up getting an offer from Peugeot to go pro. I said to myself 'if I got the same money as I was getting in the factory I'll turn pro'. I was getting about £400 a month in the dairy. And I got five thousand French Francs from Peugeot which was the equivalent of about £500. So I signed.
Tour de France | 1987
In the iconic Tour de France yellow jersey, leading Marino Lejarreta of Caja Rural, during the 1987 edition. Photo: Cor Vos
The Tour de France, of course, has to be the one, out of all the races I rode or I won. No matter what you say, no matter what you win, that has the most value. There's some brilliant riders who have won classics and have won Giros and Vueltas. And still people will say 'well, yes, but he never won the Tour'.
There are riders who were much better than me and they haven't won the Tour. The one that I won was also the longest and the most mountainous after the war, with 26 stages and over 4,200km.
The Tour is always the opener of the conversation for me and then people will go on and talk about other events. They especially talk about La Plagne or my first Paris-Nice win. The specialists will relate to the Worlds. With the general public, it's all about the Tour.
I was told when I was coming home back to Dublin that I was going to get a civic reception and an open top bus from the airport into Dublin. I was thinking 'I'm going to look bloody stupid here because I'm gonna get off this plane and there'll be nobody there to meet me'. I thought all the hardcore Irish fans would still be in Paris ‘so how are they going to get home… I'm going to look stupid, I'll have nobody around'.
But when the plane taxied across the runway and over towards the VIP terminal, I could see all these big banners and thousands of people. I got off the plane last and people were jumping the barriers and they invaded the tarmac. I still have amazing. hair-raising, images in my mind about that.
I remember these two kids on a bus shelter and they had this sign saying 'Welcome Home Stephen Our Hero'. Ten hours later we arrived in Dundrum and the same kids were standing up on another bus shelter. And these guys were only 10 or 12 years of age.
I remember my parents were overwhelmed and, a bit like me, I suppose they didn't really realise how the achievement had gone down in Ireland. I really only realised years and years later. My parents would have watched me, followed everything I did. My mam came to the World Championships every year, she'd be on the start-finish line for hours with our flag - 'Roche-Kelly'.
But to experience the whole Tour de France, and then when they made me the free man of Dublin.... They set up a podium at the Bank of Ireland on College Green. And as far as you could see, in every direction, it was full of people. Overwhelming, overwhelming, I'd love to go back and do it all again.
