A moment in time Stephen Roche secures the double

The 1987 Tour started in Berlin, and saw Stephen Roche become only the fifth man to secure the Giro/Tour double

- GILES BELBIN

It was in October 1985 that the organisers of the Tour de France announced that the 1987 race start would take place in West Berlin. Still divided by its famous wall at the time, Berlin would be marking the 750th anniversary of its official founding that year and the western part of the city wanted the Grand Départ as part of the celebrations. Felix Levitan, then co-director of the race, said he hoped the move would encourage teams from the Eastern Bloc to enter the Tour and promote ‘understanding between peoples’, although it turned out that no such teams made it to the 1987 start line.

Among the teams that did make the start was the Carrera squad of Stephen Roche. Just weeks earlier the Irishman had won the Giro d’Italia in controversial circumstances after getting himself into a break in the Dolomites and taking the pink jersey from his teammate and nominated leader Roberto Visentini. His team managers were furious, as were the tifosi, who spat rice and wine at him in the days that followed. Journalists repeatedly asked when he was going to leave the race but Roche hung around and won by more than three minutes while Visentini, who fell away, abandoned before the final stage with a broken wrist.

‘If you were to describe this scenario to me now and ask me how I would react, I would say that I’d be on the first plane home,’ Roche said in 2016. ‘But there I was, in that real-life experience, and I’m saying do what you want, I’m not going home.’