Roche junior rides tour
By Gerard Cromwell August 10
 Since
it’s inception in 1978 the Junior Tour of Ireland, a six-day race for 17 and
18 year olds, has gained a reputation for unmasking future cycling champions.
That year’s first edition was won by a skinny,
young, bespectacled Dubliner named Martin Earley. Earley later went on to become
a very successful professional rider, winning stages in both the Tour of Italy
and the Tour De France.
Later winners and stage winners include the likes
of Dutchman Richard Groenendaal who later turned his hand to cyclo-cross and
became world champion twice. Last year’s winner of the Tour De France
prologue, David Miller of Scotland first showed his time- trialling skills on
the roads of Meath, when he won a stage as a member of the all-conquering Great
Britain team in 1995. Miller is now one of the world’s top pros and held the
yellow jersey of race leader in last years Tour for almost a week.
Sligo’s Mark Scanlon became the first cyclist to
lead the race from start to finish when winning in 1998. Scanlon showed his
sheer class when lapping the whole field while wearing the yellow jersey on the
final day criterium. On his eighteenth birthday later that year he became
Ireland’s first ever Junior World Champion in Valkenberg in Holland and
despite the collapse of his first professional team, the Linda McCartney outfit,
at the beginning of this year, seems destined for a promising professional
career.
One man who has never ridden the Junior Tour is
Irelands only Tour De France winner and cycling legend Stephen Roche. The chirpy
Dubliner became a household name and the houswive’s favourite in 1987 as he
battled against Pedro Delgado and the worlds top riders to take the final yellow
jersey on the Champs Elysees in Paris.
This week the affable Dundrum man, now based in
France, can be spotted in the race cavalcade, behind the steering wheel of the
Cote D’Azur team car, sunglasses perched on his head, keeping an eye on
another of the Roche dynasty, his son Nicolas as he rides the race for the first
time.
“Unfortunately, the junior Tour only came along
after I had left the junior ranks.” says a trim looking Roche as he stands in
the damp evening air at the stage finish in Skerries, Co. Dublin. “It’s good
to see somebody put a bit of time into Junior racing in Ireland. Unfortunately
the weather wasn’t great this evening but the racing itself has been
excellent. So many junior riders from years ago became prominent amateurs and
prominent professionals that it would be a shame to let this race go”
Roche’s seventeen-year-old son, Nicolas changes
out of his wet racing gear nearby. The youngster has the look of his father,
both on and off the bike. He chats away fluently to his French companions in
their native tongue and then without so much as a blink switches to English to
converse with the numerous well-wishers that stop at the car. “It’s the
first time in two years that I’ve raced in Ireland, so I decided to start with
the Junior Tour and get ready for the National Championships.” says the
affable youngster with the blue eyes and cherubic smile that cycling fans will
be asking themselves where they have seen before. “The speed has been very
fast, the course is very good, except for the muck and rain today.”
Nicolas rides for a club in Antibes in France now
and even though he was born in Paris, is quite adamant that he is Irish. “Of
course I’m Irish.” He smiles. “This week I’m hoping for a place on the
podium, a top three would be brilliant. I’m staying the whole month in Ireland
now. I’m missing some of the big races in France but I want to do my best to
get on the Irish team for the World Championships later on in the year. That’s
basically what I came over to do and I’m going to try my best.”
Roche junior finished best of the Irish in the
opening time trial up Howth Hill on Tuesday. He finished fourth, at just seven
seconds behind Scottish winner Alex Coutts and now wears the white jersey of
best first-year-junior in the race.
“Nicolas rode well yesterday in the time-trial up
Howth Hill.” says Roche senior. “He’s looking forward to riding well
overall and is also trying to use the Junior Tour as training for the National
Championships later on. I must say he’s very highly motivated. He hasn’t
ridden with the lads, his friends over here for two years, so he’s really
looking forward to it.”
As for his chances of victory in the race? “For
me, once he stays upright and enjoys it, it’s okay. Hopefully, for him, he is
aiming to win it or hoping to finish in the first two or three. It will be
difficult for him because he only has one team-mate in the peleton, but once he
enjoys the race that’s the most important thing, you know.”
Roche has been busying himself since moving to
France a couple of years back with the rest of the Roche clan, wife Lydia and
daughter Cristal. He now owns a hotel on the beach in Nice, which he has
renovated and is now up and running. The former world champion also runs his
Stephen Roche cycling training camps in Majorca and hopes to start a new project
for next summer which will see him operate cycling holidays from the foot of the
Pyrenees next June. “I’ve put on three kilos during the Tour De France” he
laughs. “Living in the South of France, it’s too warm now to train, but
hopefully my business things will settle down a bit at the end of August and I’ll
get back out on the bike again.”
The Junior Tour takes in a 96 kilometre mountain
stage in Roundwood on Saturday before finishing with a 98km stage on Sunday in
Cookstown.
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