THE GIRO D’ITALIA begins in Belfast on Friday morning and features four Irish riders with personal quests, to win stages or top the General Classification.
Nicolas Roche and Dan Martin will be hoping for strong starts to back up their duelling ambitions for the pink jersey. Team Sky’s Philip Deignan is keen to live up to the hype he showed when making his initial cycling breakthrough while Saxo-Tinkoff rider Chris Juul Jensen returns from Denmark to the land where he grew up, and first prospered.
As the world’s second biggest road race, the Giro will attract media attention from hundreds of countries and millions of cycling fans. For Irish supporters of the sport, the race’s arrival brings back memories of 1998 and the Tour de France as it began in Dublin, travelled through the Wicklow Gap, and ended [on stage three] in Cork.
I was clinging onto my teenage years when the Tour de France came to my hometown of Tallaght. The hype had been building for several months before the brightest and best [and those Festina lads] arrived in Ireland. The ink was still fresh on the Good Friday Agreement, signed that April, and there was a real sense that the ’98 Tour would show Ireland off as a vibrant country, taking steps in the right direction and giving back to their E.U buddies.
Jack Charlton was gone and Ireland were more accustomed to getting, rather than giving, lashes [the Dutch at Anfield springs to mind]. Brian O’Driscoll was making waves at Leinster but most of Irish rugby’s golden generation were worried about passing college exams or sharing their mother’s Mini Metro [looking at you, Ronan O'Gara]. In GAA, the rivalries of Tyrone and Kerry, and Kilkenny and Cork had yet to ignite.
Cycling was in between eras too. Miguel Indurain had finished up and Lance Armstrong was talking the talk but not quite up to elite levels. Jan Ullrich looked the sure bet but Marco Pantani, Mario Cipollini and Stuart O’Grady had designs on the Tour’s famous yellow jersey. A drug scandal added some spice, and a cloud of pessimism, to proceedings however. Festina masseur Willy Voet was stopped by border patrol in Belgium, a week prior to the race, and was found to be carrying performance-enhancing drugs.
1992 Olympic Gold Medallist Chris Boardman kicked off proceedings, around the streets of Dublin city centre, by blitzing the Prologue time trial. He held the yellow jersey on Stage 1, which went up and over a Category 3 climb through the Wicklow Gap and swivelled around to include Tallaght and Templeogue on its way back to Dublin City.
The riders were due to zip through Tallaght shortly after 1pm and Watergate Park was jammed with ice cream vans, magicians, people in X-Worx and Eclipse jeans, and O.T.T. The boyband had been on the music scene for about three years and had three songs in their repertoire. With the main peloton struggling in the wind and rain of Wicklow, O.T.T were forced to sing, or lip-sync, each of their three songs ad-naseum. Their efforts to entertain were as doggedly impressive as some of the mountain climbs Pantani produced in the latter stages of the race.
As it were, six riders, led by Jackie Durand, were in the clear as they neared Tallaght but the main grouping — eager for a sprint finish — were closing fast. A tannoy got crackly with excitement as the riders descended on Tallopolis. O.T.T were told to take five and everyone scrambled for position. The crowds were five and six deep in places and, after a battle to the front, I got to witness some back-markers and an army of support vehicles. 15 seconds later and it was all over.
Many people did not want to believe that their Tour de France was over, lingering for 10 and 15 minutes to swap expert opinions, guess who was on what drugs and, for the hardened few, remark ‘Well, that was a load of…’. I raced home to watch my video recording, featuring Gary Imlach’s insights, from Channel 4. The race flashed through Tallaght as quick, on TV, as it did in person.
The peloton got their wish and Belgian sprinter Tom Steel won the mad dash to the finish line. Boardman kept the jersey for another night but crashed out, heading from Enniscorthy to Cork, on Stage 2.
Pantani went on to top the G.C while Festina continued to protest their innocence. Their manager Bruno Rossel said, at the time, “We were frightened by some of the things we read in the press, which were libellous and defamatory.”
The Armstrong Era began in 1999 and, when the eventual stripping of his seven consecutive Tour titles is taken into account, it made Festina’s notorious antics seem like flimsy and playground in comparison.
Professional cycling has been attempting to salvage its severely damaged reputation ever since. The race organisers and riders will hope the Irish public, in the lip-sync words of O.T.T, are not All Out of Love.
*Patrick McCarry grew up watching the cycling duels of Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon. He learned to cycle on his little sister’s BMX at the age of 14.
Ripe for Robbie to take over as player manager next season.