Power Of Three

In the 30th anniversary year of his 1987 Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and World Championship treble, Ireland’s Stephen Roche tells Cyclist about his annus mirabilis, getting punched by Italians, and why his Triple Crown. might never be repeated

- Mark Bailey

Stephen Roche is relaxing on a sofa in a hotel by the Thames, a short walk from the bustle of the London Bike Show. At the nearby cycling mecca everything is dazzling and new, but on the table in front of Roche lie three faded but elegant relics: the maillot jaune of the Tour de France, the maglia rosa of the Giro d’Italia and the rainbow-striped jersey of the World Road Race Championships. These are the holy trinity of cycling jerseys, but to Roche they are personal time capsules that evoke the glory, pain, drama and controversy of 1987, the year this humble son of an Irish milkman etched his name into the annals of cycling folklore by winning all three jerseys within the space of 13 weeks.

‘You can thank my daughter Christel for remembering those jerseys,’ he says with a half-smile. ‘I would have forgotten them.’ The 57-year-old’s manner is polite and his conversation playful, but in his analysis of the art of winning there are enough glints of inner steel to remind you that even affable cyclists need to be gladiators too.

The ultimatum

Roche’s historic Triple Crown – something only he and Eddy Merckx (in 1974) have achieved – couldn’t have been predicted. A knee injury in 1986 meant he spent the year in searing pain and could manage only 48th place at the Tour de France.