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Sean Kelly

John James “Sean” Kelly (born 24 May 1956) is an Irish former professional road bicycle racer, one of the most successful road cyclists of the 1980s and one of the finest Classics riders of all time. From turning professional in 1977 until his retirement in 1994, he won 193 professional races, including nine Monument Classics, Paris–Nice a record seven consecutive times, and the inaugural UCI Road World Cup in 1989. Kelly won one Grand Tour, the 1988 Vuelta a España, and claimed four green jerseys in the Tour de France. He achieved multiple victories in the Giro di Lombardia, Milan–San Remo, Paris–Roubaix, and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, as well as three runner-up finishes in the only Monument he did not win, the Tour of Flanders. Other notable victories include the Grand Prix des Nations and stage races such as the Critérium International, Tour de Suisse, Tour of the Basque Country, and Volta a Catalunya.

Kelly twice earned bronze medals (1982 and 1989) in the Road World Championships Elite Men’s Road Race and finished fifth in 1987, the year compatriot Stephen Roche won gold. When the FICP rankings were introduced in March 1984, Kelly was the first cyclist to be ranked World No. 1, a position he held for a record five consecutive years. In the 1984 season alone, he achieved 33 victories.

Flandria was a Belgian cycling team sponsored by a Belgian company, Flandria, which manufactured bicycles, mopeds, and scooters. Guillaume Driessens was the directeur sportif of the Flandria team, one of the world’s best, with riders such as Freddy Maertens, Marc Demeyer, and Michel Pollentier among their ranks. Flandria required a French squad to expand its commercial interests in France, so they hired Jean de Gribaldy to assemble and direct a new team. The French squad competed predominantly in smaller French races.  The Belgian team based in Belgium contained the strongest and most experienced riders. Good performances meant promotion from de Gribaldy’s French squad to the Belgian team. 

On 7 February 1977, Kelly participated in his first professional race, the first stage of the six-day stage race Étoile de Bessèges. He made an impressive debut, finishing tenth in the opening stage and third in the final overall general classification. On 19 February 1977, in the first stage of the Tour Méditerranéen, Kelly was denied his first professional victory. Without the benefit of a photo finish, the judge at the finish line deemed Jan Raas the winner in a sprint finish, with Kelly given second place. Several years later, a photographer who had captured a photo at the finish line that day met Kelly in southern France, showing him the image which provided emphatic evidence that Kelly was the winner of the stage.

On 6 March 1977, in a six-man sprint finish, Kelly recorded his first professional win, the pro-am Grand Prix de Lugano in Switzerland. Kelly’s early impressive displays caught the attention of Guillaume Driessens and the Belgian Flandria squad, resulting in Kelly being promoted and selected to compete with their team at the 1977 Paris–Nice as a domestique for Freddy Maertens. Maertens won the opening prologue and defended his leader’s jersey throughout the entire race, winning overall.

On 19 March 1977, Kelly participated in his first Monument Classic, the Milan–San Remo. On 11 May 1977, competing with the French squad, Kelly won the first stage of the Tour de Romandie in Switzerland and finished tenth overall in the final general classification. On 25 May 1977, Kelly won the French one-day race Circuit de l’Indre, outsprinting Eddy Merckx into second place. In October 1977, Kelly recorded his fourth win of the season, outsprinting Frenchman Serge Périn in the fourth stage of the Étoile des Espoirs. 

Kelly stayed with de Gribaldy in 1978. In 1978, he started in the Tour de France, in which he also won a stage. Michel Pollentier was disqualified from the 1978 Tour de France after cheating a drug test on the afternoon that he took the race lead. He left the team at the end of the season and started his own, with a new backer, Splendor. Both Maertens and Pollentier wanted Kelly. Pollentier and Splendor offered Kelly more and made him a team leader. Kelly and Pollentier often shared hotel rooms. But Splendor was new, and logistical problems became obvious. The bikes were in such a poor state that Splendor decided not to ride Paris–Roubaix, and the manager, Robert Lauwers, was replaced. Kelly rose above it and rode for himself.

By now, Kelly had a reputation as a sprinter who could not win stage races, although he did finish fourth in the 1980 Vuelta a España. De Gribaldy employed him as unambiguous team leader, someone he believed could win stage races and not just stages. To this end, de Gribaldy encouraged Kelly to lose weight, convincing the latter that he could target the overall win at Paris–Nice. Kelly went on to win the “Race to the Sun” and four of its stages. On the last of those, a time-trial to the Col d’Èze, he beat Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle and pushed him out of the lead. Years later, Kelly admitted that his countryman Roche’s emergence during his neo-pro season in 1981, during which he had also won Paris–Nice, was one of the factors that motivated him to adjust his focus to becoming a more all-round rider. However, the spring classics season proved a disappointment, with Kelly’s best result being a 12th place in Paris–Roubaix after suffering multiple punctures. Despite that, that season he went on to win another of the objectives set by de Gribaldy: the points classification of the Tour de France, where he took five second places on flat stages before winning a reduced bunch sprint in Pau after climbing the Col d’Aubisque. His points total was nearly three times that of the points classification runner-up, the yellow jersey winner Bernard Hinault.  He won bronze in the 1982 Road World Championships Elite Men’s Road Race in Goodwood, West Sussex, England, the first world medal for an Irish rider since Shay Elliott’s silver in 1962. At the end of the year, Kelly married his girlfriend, Linda Grant, the daughter of a local cycling club official. Carrick-on-Suir named the town square “Sean Kelly Square” in tribute to his achievements in the 1982 Tour de France and his bronze medal at the 1982 World Championships. The following year, 1983, Kelly won Paris–Nice for the second time, the first of three Critérium International victories, his first Tour de Suisse, and the points classification in the Tour de France for the second consecutive year. Kelly wore the yellow jersey in the 1983 Tour de France for one day, during the mountainous Stage 10 from Pau to Bagnères-de-Luchon, which included the Pyrenean climbs of the Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin, and Peyresourde. It was the only time he would wear the “maillot jaune” (English: yellow jersey) at the Tour.

Kelly confirmed his potential in autumn 1983. A leading group of 18 entered Como in the Giro di Lombardia after a battle over the Intelvi and Schignano passes. Kelly won the sprint to take his first Monument by the narrowest margin, less than half a wheel separating the first four, against cycling greats including Francesco Moser, Adri van der Poel, Hennie Kuiper, and World Champion Greg LeMond.

Kelly dominated the following spring. He won Paris–Nice for the third successive time, beating Roche as well as the Tour de France winner, Bernard Hinault, who was returning after a knee injury. Kelly finished second in Milan–San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, but was unbeatable in Paris–Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The day after Paris–Roubaix, the French daily sports paper L’Équipe pictured Kelly cycling the cobbles with mud on his face and had the heading “Insatiable Kelly!” referring to his appetite for winning that spring. He won all three stages in the Critérium International: the bunch sprint on stage 1, a solo victory in the mountain stage, and beating Roche in the final time trial. Kelly achieved 33 victories in 1984. He was becoming a contender in the Grand Tours, as seen by finishing fifth in the Tour de France. This may have caused him to lose his grip on the points classification in that year’s Tour. Kelly was wearing it as the Tour was finishing on the Champs-Élysées, but lost it in the bunch finish to the Belgian, Frank Hoste, who finished ahead of Kelly, gaining points to take the jersey off Kelly’s shoulders.

He won Paris–Nice in 1985, again beating Roche. He also took three stage wins at the Vuelta a España, but suffered a frustrating spring classics season, taking a third place at Paris–Roubaix and fourth at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, but losing out on wins through poor tactical decisions, such as at Milan–San Remo where he and rival Eric Vanderaerden marked each other out of contention. He won the points classification for the third time. He finished fourth overall in the 1985 Tour de France, where his rivalry with Vanderaerden boiled over at the finish of the sixth stage in Reims: the latter veered to prevent Kelly from coming past in the final sprint, leading Kelly to push Vanderarden, and the Belgian pulling the Irishman’s jersey in response. The race saw him battle for the last step on the GC podium with Stephen Roche. Although Roche finished the Tour in third position overall, the duo’s performances saw interest in the race expanding gradually in the Irish press. Kelly won the first Nissan International Classic, beating Adri van der Poel. At the end of the season, he won the Giro di Lombardia.

He won Milan–San Remo in 1986, following his victory at Paris–Nice. In Milan–San Remo, Kelly was being marked closely by Vanderaerden in the closing stages of the race. Mario Beccia attacked on the race’s final climb of the Poggio di San Remo and was followed by Greg LeMond. To shake Vanderaerden, Kelly feigned a mechanical problem before sprinting away to join the lead group, and drove hard on the front to prevent Niki Rüttimann, LeMond’s team-mate, who had followed Kelly, from linking up with the front group: Kelly won the three-up sprint at the finish. He also took stage wins at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Critérium International, and Three Days of De Panne. He finished second in the Tour of Flanders and won Paris–Roubaix again. According to his autobiography Hunger, Kelly gave his support to Van der Poel in the latter’s bid to win Flanders in exchange for the Dutchman’s help in the French cobbled Classic.
In Flanders, Kelly rode on the front of the leading four man group in the closing stages of the race, which also included Van der Poel, Jean-Philippe Vandenbrande and Steve Bauer: regarding the final sprint, Kelly wrote that “I started my sprint early, and I knew Van der Poel was probably in my wheel as well, but I certainly gave it 100 percent.” After Flanders, he flew to Spain to compete in the Tour of the Basque Country, which he won, before flying north to participate in Paris–Roubaix. Roles were reversed as Kelly followed Van der Poel in latching onto an attack from Ferdi Van Den Haute on a late cobbled secteur to form another four-man group along with Rudy Dhaenens. Van Den Haute attacked again a kilometre from the race finish, which was located away from Roubaix Velodrome for the first time since 1943, and once again Van der Poel led Kelly out in the sprint, enabling the latter to cross the line first. To date, Kelly is one of only four riders to win the double of Milan–San Remo and Paris–Roubaix in the same year, along with Cyrille van Hauwaert in 1908, John Degenkolb in 2015, and Mathieu van der Poel in 2023. Kelly was engaged in an intense racing schedule, even by contemporary standards, having competed 34 times from the beginning of the season to 1986. He later explained this as partly due to the influence of Jean de Gribaldy, who reasoned that he might as well race if he was going to have to train on his bike if he didn’t compete, and because of new sponsor Kas, a Spanish soft drink manufacturer, who were primarily concerned with success in Spain, and uninterested in winning the Classics, meaning Kelly had to compete in both types of races. He finished on a podium in a Grand Tour for the first time when he finished third in the 1986 Vuelta a España, winning two stages along the way. As a result of serious injuries sustained in a crash during the final stage of the 1986 Tour de Suisse, in which he went over a wall on a descent, Kelly missed the 1986 Tour de France.  He returned to Ireland and won the Nissan Classic for a second time. His second win in the Nissan came after a duel with Steve Bauer, who took the yellow jersey after Kelly crashed numerous times. Kelly went into the final stage three seconds behind Bauer and took the jersey when he finished third on the stage and won bonus seconds. Kelly took more than 30 victories in total across the 1986 season.

Kelly won Paris–Nice in 1987 on the last day after Roche, the leader, punctured. Later, leading the Vuelta a España with three days to go, he retired with an extremely painful saddle sore. His bad luck continued in the Tour de France, where he retired after fracturing his collarbone in a crash. After the 1987 Road World Championships Elite Men’s Road Race, in which he finished fifth behind Roche, Kelly returned to Ireland to win the Nissan Classic for the third consecutive time.

Kelly won his seventh consecutive Paris–Nice in the spring of 1988, a record. He won Gent–Wevelgem several weeks later.

Kelly returned to the 1988 Vuelta a España in April, which started on the rugged, mountainous island of Tenerife. His team struggled in the second stage, losing the influential rider Thomas Wegmüller to dysentery and further time in the time trial around Las Palmas. However, on the Spanish mainland, Kelly concentrated on winning sprint time bonuses, battling with sprinter Manuel Jorge Domínguez, the BH teammate of the leader, Laudelino Cubino.

After regaining a minute in four days, the race reached the mountains where Kelly relied on help from Robert Millar of team Fagor–MBK to stay within two minutes of Cubino after the mountain trial to Alto Oviedo. He then finished fourth behind stage-winner Fabio Parra and Anselmo Fuerte on stage 13 to the ski-station at Cerler, cutting a minute and a half into Cubino’s lead. From this stage, Fuerte had moved into second overall and later took the jersey from Cubino on the 16th stage to Albacete when the leader got caught on the wrong side of a split caused by cross-winds.

Kelly maintained the gap between himself and Fuerte and started the time trial on the second-to-last day, 21 seconds behind. Confident that he could overtake the leader, he “put it in a big gear and gave it everything.” He took the leader’s “maillot amarillo” (yellow jersey), beating Fuerte by almost two minutes. The following day, Kelly won his only Grand Tour, over West German Raimund Dietzen, and also won the points competition. After his Vuelta win, Kelly returned to Carrick-on-Suir, where a parade was held in his honour.

Kelly finished 46th overall in the 1988 Tour de France, just over an hour behind winner, Spaniard Pedro Delgado, and later admitted he was no longer a contender for overall victory. He finished third behind the German, Rolf Gölz, in the 1988 Nissan Classic. In 1989, Kelly switched to the Dutch PDM–Ultima–Concorde team and stayed there for three years until the end of the 1991 season. He achieved his first major victory with PDM in 1989, winning the Liège–Bastogne–Liège for the second time. The same year, he won the points classification in the Tour de France for the fourth time and the inaugural UCI Road World Cup championship. He won bronze in the sprint finish at the rainy 1989 Road World Championships Elite Men’s Road Race in Chambéry, France, behind Dimitri Konyshev and winner Greg LeMond.

Kelly won the Tour de Suisse in 1990 for the second time. In March 1991, while competing in the Paris–Nice, he broke his right collarbone. During the 1991 Tour de France, the entire PDM team, including Kelly, abandoned the race, citing illness, which later became known as the “Intralipid Affair.” In August 1991, Kelly abandoned his racing schedule to participate in the Tour of Galicia after his brother Joe was tragically killed in the Comeragh 100 near Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He came back to win his fourth Nissan Classic by four seconds over Sean Yates and went on to win the Giro di Lombardia at the end of the season.

Kelly won the Giro di Lombardia for a third time in 1991, but was regarded as past his prime at the start of 1992. He moved to Lotus–Festina in 1992 and prepared for Milan–San Remo. Race favourite Moreno Argentin attacked from the leading group on the final climb, the Poggio. He broke clear after several attempts and reached the top eight seconds before the rest. It seemed he was on his way to a solo victory as the peloton descended the Poggio, where Maurizio Fondriest led, marked by Argentin’s teammate Rolf Sørensen. Kelly was behind these two in third position. Kelly attacked with three kilometres of descending on the left. Sorensen could not hold his acceleration, and Kelly got away. He caught Argentin with a kilometre to go. Both stalled, the chasers closing fast, Argentin gesturing to Kelly to take the front. Kelly stayed on Argentin’s wheel. The two moved again, preparing for a sprint; Kelly launched himself and in the final 200m came past Argentin to win his final Classic.

Kelly’s first appearance and sole participation in the Giro d’Italia was in 1992. His team, Lotus–Festina, was offered a wild-card entry under the condition that Kelly was included in their starting team. He pulled out of the race after stage 16, from Palazzolo sull’Oglio to Sondrio, later admitting that his intention was not to complete the Giro and that he had agreed with his directeur sportif to withdraw at some stage.

In 1992, Kelly travelled to Colombia for the Clásico RCN, where he won the second stage. His former PDM teammate, Martin Earley, pushed him into second place at the 1994 Irish National Road Championships.

Kelly’s last year as a professional was 1994, when he rode for Catavana. He returned to Carrick-on-Suir at the end of the season to ride the annual Hamper race. That was Kelly’s last race as a professional. Eddy Merckx, Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault, Roger De Vlaeminck, Claude Criquielion, Stephen Roche, Martin Earley, Acácio da Silva, and Paul Kimmage were among 1,200 cyclists present. The President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, attended a civic presentation to Kelly the day before the race. Kelly won in a sprint against Roche. Kelly won this race again six years later.

Kelly’s career spanned the eras of several legends of the Tour de France, from Eddy Merckx through to Miguel Induráin. His first Tour was also the first for Bernard Hinault, and the two battled in the sprint of stage 15. Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon emerged in the early eighties and challenged Kelly in the Classics as well as in the Tour, and Kelly witnessed the rise of Miguel Induráin and the early career of Lance Armstrong. Kelly’s career coincided with Stephen Roche as well as Classics specialists including Francesco Moser, Claude Criquielion, Moreno Argentin, and Eric Vanderaerden. Evidence of Kelly’s dominance can be seen from his three victories in the season-long Super Prestige Pernod International competition (predecessor to the World Cup). Kelly competed throughout the season, from Paris–Nice in March to the Giro di Lombardia in October, winning both in 1983 and 1985.

While some sprinters remain sheltered in the peloton until the final few hundred metres, Kelly could instigate breaks and climb well, proving this by winning the Vuelta a España in 1988, as well as winning a stage of Paris–Nice on the climb of Mont Ventoux. His victories in Paris–Roubaix (1984, 1986) demonstrated his ability to excel in poor weather and on pavé sections, while he could stay with the climbing specialists in the mountains during the Tour de France. He was also a formidable descender, clocking a career top race speed of 124 km/h (77 mi/h) while descending from Col de Joux Plane to Morzine on stage 19 of the Tour in 1984. He finished fourth in the Tour in 1985 and won the points classification in 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1989, the first to win four times, a feat he repeated in the Vuelta a España. Kelly won five stages in the Tour de France and 16 in the Vuelta a España.

Kelly was also an outstanding time trialist. In the inaugural 1985 Nissan Classic, Kelly, wearing a skinsuit, racing a Vitus Plus Carbone road bike with drop handlebars and a rear Mavic disc wheel, produced a magnificent performance in the stage 3a, 21 km (13.04 mi) individual time trial from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel. His winning time of 24:09 was 49 seconds quicker than second-placed Stephen Roche. Kelly’s winning average speed of 52.173 km/h (32.419 mi/h) was faster than any individual had ever accomplished in a time trial, by more than 20 km. It took another four years to surpass this record when American Greg LeMond averaged 54.545 km/h (33.893 mi/h) in the historical 24.5 km (15.22 mi) individual time trial from Versailles to Paris at the 1989 Tour de France.

Excerpt from Wikipedia. Read the full article by clicking HERE