![]() A six-month suspension from racing followed for Kelly and the McQuaid's. Because of an international ban on athletes competing in South Africa, as a consequence of a protest against apartheid, the three Irish cyclists and two Scottish, John Curran and Henry Wilbraham, competed as a British team under false names. In 1975, Kelly and two other Irish riders, Pat and Kieron McQuaid went to South Africa to participate in the Rapport Tour stage race in preparation for the 1976 Olympic Games. He won the Shay Elliott Memorial Race in 1974, 1975 and three stages of the 1975 Tour of Ireland. Kelly won the national championship again in 1973, then took a senior licence before the normal qualifying age of 18. At 16 he won the national junior championship at Banbridge, County Down. ![]() He was still three minutes ahead when the course turned for home after four miles (6 km) and more than three minutes in the lead when he crossed the finish line. Kelly set off three minutes before the backmarkers. The race was an eight-mile (13 km) handicap, which meant the weaker riders started first and the best last. Joe participated in, won local races and on 4 August 1970, Sean rode his own first race, at Kennedy Terrace, Carrickbeg, County Tipperary, part of Carrick-on-Suir. Kelly began cycling after his brother had started riding to school in September 1969. His education ended aged only 13 when he left school to help on the farm at home after his father went to a hospital in Waterford with an ulcer. Fellow pupils recall a boy who retreated into silence because they thought he felt intellectually outclassed. įor eight years, he was educated, at Crehana National School, County Waterford, to which he travelled with his older brother, Joe. He was named John James Kelly after his father and was referred to as "Sean" to avoid confusion at home. He was born at Belleville Maternity Home in Waterford City on. Kelly is the second son of Jack (John) and Nellie Kelly, a farming family in Curraghduff, County Waterford. ![]() 8.4 Major championship results timeline.8.2 General classification results timeline.In the 1984 season, Kelly achieved 33 victories. By total career ranking points, Kelly is the second-best cyclist of all time after Eddy Merckx. When the FICP rankings became established in March 1984, Kelly was the first cyclist to be ranked World No.1, a position he held for a record five consecutive years. Kelly twice won bronze medals (1982, 1989) in the World Road Race Championships and finished fifth in 1987, the year compatriot Stephen Roche won gold. Other victories include the Grand Prix des Nations and stage races, the Critérium International, Tour de Suisse, Tour of the Basque Country and Volta a Catalunya. He achieved multiple victories in the Giro di Lombardia, Milan–San Remo, Paris–Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, as well as three runners-up placings in the only monument he failed to win, the Tour of Flanders. Kelly won one Grand Tour, the 1988 Vuelta a España, and four green jerseys in the Tour de France. ![]() From becoming a professional in 1977 until his retirement in 1994, he won 193 professional races, including nine monument classics, Paris–Nice a record seven years consecutively and the first UCI Road World Cup in 1989. John James 'Sean' Kelly (born ) is an Irish former professional road bicycle racer, one of the most successful road cyclists of the 1980s, and one of the finest classics riders of all time. Other Super Prestige Pernod International (1984–1986) UCI Road World Cup ( 1989) Grand Tours Tour de France Points classification ( 1982, 1983, 1985, 1989) Intermediate sprints classification (1982, 1983, 1989) 5 individual stages Vuelta a España General classification ( 1988) Points classification ( 1980, 1985, 1986, 1988) 16 individual stages Waterford City, County Waterford, Ireland
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