KING KELLY REIGNS IN SPAIN

Sean Kelly recounts the story of Ireland’s first-ever win in the Vuelta a España to James Shrubsall

- James Shrubsall

Ten top-fives; six podiums and two stages. In 1988 this was all the work of one man, in one Grand Tour — the rider being Sean Kelly and the race being the Vuelta a España. Perhaps most impressively, Kelly finished every single stage in the top 10, on his way to becoming the first Irishman – and the first English speaker – to win the Vuelta.

The previous year, 1987, the 30-year-old Irishman from Carrick-on-Suir had come heartbreakingly close to becoming the first Irishman to win a Grand Tour. Having taken the leader’s jersey in the final time trial on stage 18, Kelly was forced to abandon the following day thanks to a painful saddle sore.

“To have to pull out was a huge disappointment, so 1988 was important for me,” says Kelly of his return when, he says, he definitely felt the pull of unfinished business – not to mention the intent of his Spanish team sponsor Kas. “When I went to the Kas team, the big boss at the first team meeting said, ‘I want to win a Vuelta — that’s the most important thing for me and my company.’

“And so the pressure was on from the beginning, that was the objective. From that moment – ’87, ’88 – it was the most important race on my programme.”

Kelly had not always been a Grand Tour contender. Starting out his career as a sprinter, he had enjoyed a supremely successful first half of the 80s as a Classics rider, with two Paris-Roubaix, a Liège-Bastogne-Liège and a Milan-San Remo in his palmarès by the time he took the start line in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, for the 1988 Tour of Spain.

But at the outset of Kelly’s pro career, at Belgian team FlandriaVelda, boss Jean De Gribaldy had immediately recognised Kelly’s potential, planting the Grand Tour seed in the Irishman’s head.