Few cyclists identify with the “total rider” that Sean Kelly was
People, stand up, today we bring an all-time great, a guy called Sean Kelly, one of those cyclists that those of my generation can only hold in our hearts.
Irish, in the midst of no cycling tradition, in the green and rainy country, it was clear that if one had to stand out from there one had to be tough, solitary, rude and tenacious.
All of that was Sean Kelly, as opposed to his “green alter ego”, Stephen Roche, much less awarded, but with a unique luminosity, like the one that gives you a chain of seasons that we have not seen again, like that of 1987.
But back to Sean Kelly, We speak in the total and detailed calculation of all the races of a season of the second best cyclist in history.
Only surpassed by Eddy Merckx, and ahead of Moser, Hinault, De Vlaeminck and Valverde.
Take that.
I have taken the dubious liberty of summarizing those memories of my first cycling in five traits.
Humble and hardworking origins
Sean Kelly did not usually wear gloves, his bare hands were the mirror of a transparent and clear soul, a kind of self-made cyclist who learned the trade by throwing Freddy Maertens in his early years and then sheltered by the legendary Jean de Gribaldy .
His roots prevailed throughout his careerwinning a lot and good, but never offending, always loved and admired by the public and rivals in a rare balance only within the reach of the always greats.
late explosion
Sean Kelly has a few monuments to his credit, but it took a while for his career to be so fruitful, because He did not win Lombardy, his first success in this chapter, until he was 27 years old.
That day a gap was opened in the history written in the handwriting of a magical Irishman who added two Paris-Roubaix, three Giros de Lombardia and Milan-San Remo and Liege-Bastogne-Liege paths.
Lammerts, Van der Poel Sr. and Criquielion prevented me from joining De Ronde to this list.
The big ones did not resist
With that classic track record, he never lost sight of the three weeks.
Winner of the 1988 Vueltawas in the top ten of the Spanish major and the Tour de France several times, where he won the green jersey three times.
His best results in grand tours were based on great times and resisting with everything in the mountains, at a time when he dealt with great specialists.
Nobody will match him in Paris-Nice
The photo that illustrates this article is of Sean Kelly, winner of the Paris-Nice, when he was wearing the best white.
He managed to dominate it seven times, all in a row being Miguel Indurain who put an end to the cycle.
But his blow was not only limited to the race towards the sun, his achievements include Itzulia and Volta, among others.
A race? Milan-San Remo 1992
It is not the first time that we talk about that race in this poorly ringed notebook, but it is symbolic for several reasons.
The most important, perhaps: that it was his last monument at the age of 35.
He is followed by the rival he had to beat, Coconut Moreno Argentinaescaped in the Poggio but sentenced in his descent.
And it was here, on the descent, where Kelly taught mastery, with an action eternal in memory, hunting and overcoming a rival as complicated as the old Italian fox.
2024-02-10 23:01:08
#Class #work #category #surrounded #Abraham #Olanos #cycling
