Stephen Roche: what it takes to win a Triple Crown, the holy grail of cycling

The Triple Crown: Stephen Roche displays his Tour, Giro and World jerseys
The Triple Crown: Stephen Roche displays his Tour, Giro and World Championships jerseys Credit: Rex

Chris Froome is chasing a historic treble in Norway today as he seeks to become the first rider to win a world championship time trial in the same year as winning the Tour de France and Vuelta a España.

Stephen Roche – one of only two cyclists, alongside Eddy Merckx, to have won the prestigious Tour, Giro d’Italia and world road race Triple Crown – tells The Telegraph how he sealed his own cycling hat-track 30 years ago this month.

1. ALWAYS SHOOT FOR THE MOON

“I was at a big dinner event in the UK and the MC introduced me as a special guest. He said to the guests: ‘Before I tell you who our special guest is, if Bradley Wiggins walked in here after winning the Tour de France, how would you welcome him?’ Everybody cheered. He then said: ‘If Bradley Wiggins came in here after winning the Giro and the Tour, how would you welcome him?’ They cheered even louder. He then said: ‘If Bradley Wiggins came in here after winning the Giro, the Tour and the World Championships in the same year, how would you welcome him?’ And the people cheered even louder. He waited and said: ‘Well Bradley hasn’t but our next guest has…’

Little moments like that really remind you how special it is to win three big races in a calendar year. It means you have achieved something very few people have ever done.”

2. FOCUS ON NUMBER ONE

“Going into the Giro - the first of the three big races I won in 1987 – I thought it was myself and my teammate Roberto Visentini co-leading the team. But I soon realised things weren’t that clear and Roberto was seen by some in the team as the number one. He hadn’t done anything to help me. Nobody was congratulating me. So I knew I had to take my chances.

People still talk about stage 15 (a 224km mountain stage from Lipo di Jesolo to Sappada), when I rode with a group and put almost seven minutes into Visentini, as the key day in the race. It was a hard stage. But there are days in life when everything goes right and this was one of them. When I got out in front, my director came up in the car and said: ‘Roberto is panicking.’ So I said: ‘Tell him to be prepared to ride because I’m not stopping.’ When we got caught on the final climb I was totally wasted. Visentini lost six minutes in the final 10km and at the end of the day I was in the pink jersey.

I was having dinner with my teammates that night and Massimo Ghirotto turned round and said: ‘Stephano, pourquoi?’ I went back to my room. I knew I had to focus on myself to get through it.”

3. BLOCK OUT THE HATERS

“When we finished in Sappada, I stood on the podium and got my flowers, and Visentini arrived and shouted: ‘Somebody is going home tonight!’ There is photo of me looking down on him and shushing him with my finger. The team didn’t want me speaking to the press so they put me in my hotel room and told me to stay quiet. One of my teammates said to me: ‘Those guys could be saying anything about you, so maybe you should be telling your story.’ I looked out the window and saw Angelo Zomegnan, an Italian journalist who later became the Giro director, and shouted: ‘Come here, I will give you my side of the story.’ When we had finished he said: ‘That’s really interesting. But there is one problem. All the articles have gone to print. But if you survive tomorrow it will be published.’

The next morning at the start line people were holding banners saying ‘Roche bastardo’ and ‘Roche go home.’ During the stage some Italian fans were spitting rice and wine at me. People were punching at me. It was a very hard day but I got through it.”

4. TECHNOLOGY ISN’T ALWAYS BEST

“In the Giro time trial down the Poggio to San Remo I rode a normal bike. Everyone else was using low-profile bikes but nobody was looking at the usage of it, where it might be beneficial and where you might lose time. My view was that I had been riding a normal bike so I was used to it – a time-trial bike is harder to get used to. There would be no benefit in the first kilometres up and on the descent a low-profile bike would be harder to manage on corners. If your wheels slip on any bumps it would put you off on the next corner. There was only one place it might suit you and that was the final kilometre to the finish. It wasn’t worth it. I just rode a normal bike and got the pink jersey.”

5. PUT YOUR FEET UP IN BETWEEN RACES

“There was only three weeks between the Giro and the Tour de France. That is nowhere near enough time to recover. So I felt I had to make a choice. I knew it was the longest Tour in history with 26 stages and 4,500km so if I continued training there was no way I was going to be able to finish. I needed a mental break too. And I knew I would just get asked the same questions if I raced before it too. So I stayed off my bike and did hardly anything. The week before the Tour I did some work behind a motorbike but that was all.”

6. DO SOMETHING HEROIC

“The TV commentator Phil Liggett made me famous with his commentary on stage 21 of the Tour (a 185km mountain route from Le Bourg-d’Oisans to La Plagne, taking in the Galibier, Telegraphe and Madeleine). That day the Colombians hit the foot and started attacking. We got over the Telegraphe and the Galibier and realised the Colombians would give us a nightmare if we let them rule the roost all day so we went flat out in the valley. I saw my rival for the yellow jersey Pedro Delgado was isolated without many teammates so I thought it could be a good time to get away in a group.

But I recently heard Liggett’s commentary – I had never heard it before – and he says: ‘This is either suicidal or calculated.’ Really it was suicidal. We went up the Madeleine and dragged a few other guys over but we were caught. Delgado realised I wasn’t great so he attacked straight away. He got about 80 seconds ahead and people thought I was finished.

But I accelerated a bit then realised he wasn’t getting further away so either he was happy to be 1 minute 20 seconds up or maybe he couldn’t lift it any more. So I started to attack and gave it everything I had. I buried myself and I finished only four seconds down.

I just saw a You Tube video of it the other day. Phil Liggett was just in total shock at what happened. The TV cameras were not filming me. It was foggy. He thought I was still halfway down the mountain and had lost the Tour. So the commentary has become very famous.”

7. NEVER SHOW ANY WEAKNESS

“At the finish I was on oxygen and looked in a pretty bad way, lying on the floor, with medics around me. After the race my masseur suggested he bring my dinner to my room. But I said: ‘No, if I don’t come to dinner, my rival Pedro Delgado will be having champagne.’ So I walked in with my head up and shoulders back – even though I was feeling awful.”

8. IT’S OKAY TO HAVE SOME FISH AND CHIPS

“I had no real hope of winning the Worlds (a 276km course for the World Championships in Villach, Austria, in September). I knew I had a chance of doing well at the Giro and the Tour but going into the Worlds everybody had said it was a course for the sprinters and not for a fatigued Tour rider like me. Most of the guys in our team – Martin Earley, Paul Kimmage, Alan McCormack – rode three days of Criteriums in Dublin, Wexford and Cork ten days before and there was a lot of bonding between friends. I can remember being at a hotel and we sat around eating fish and chips and having a beer and laughing and joking. So I was very relaxed going into the Worlds and it was nothing like a big plan.”

9. DON’T WORRY ABOUT BAD WEATHER

“To be only the second rider in history to win the triple was a big motivation but that motivation was not enough to win. The forecast at the Worlds was for a really hot and sunny day which would have killed me. But it rained all day and that really helped me. I loved it. If it had stayed sunny I don’t think I would have won because it would have drained me. Because it was cooler I was ready for the sprint at the finish. I decided to keep my rain coat on and stay out of trouble so I could be there in the final moments – and that’s exactly how I won it.”

10. DO IT FOR YOUR COUNTRY

“When I came back to Dublin after the Tour people got onto the tarmac at the airport and they were pulling at me while the police got me through. It was amazing. I had an open-top bus tour. They had to announce I wasn’t staying at my home but at a hotel because so many people were gathering outside. In the Irish Times you had to go seven pages back to find the first bit of bad news. So it was nice to provide this kind of bowl of oxygen for the Irish people. Only later did I realise what victories meant to people. We were a small country but seeing us go out and beat the big world made other people think they could do it in business and life too. That’s what happens when you make a bit of history.”

Join Stephen Roche for a training camp in Majorca at stephenrochecycling.com

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