Irish sports fans have grown so accustomed to our nearest neighbours trying to claim our stars as their own, it wouldn’t be a massive shock to see them claim to have ‘invented’ Hurling or Gaelic Football!
That said, it has been pleasantly surprising that there hasn’t been much sneery lampooning of the celebrating of Ben Healy’s Irishness following the outstanding achievements of the aforementioned cyclist in this year’s Tour De France – to date.
At the time of typing Healy – whose parents are from Cork and Waterford respectively – has possession of the race leader’s yellow jersey.
By doing so, he becomes rhe first Irish competitor to achieve that feat since Stephen Roche in 1987. And yes, when he did so he went on to win the race outright. Sure wasn’t CJH himself in Paris to greet the enigmatic Roche for his crowning moment.
Now, in contrast, if poor auld Micheal Martin wants to pop in to watch his beloved Rebels playing in Croker there’s nearly a tribunal of inquiry. But then, there are folks from the top part of the country that would get far more thrills taking unsolicited tours of other buildings and taking souvenirs therefrom with them!
Anyway, at the time Stephen scored under the Eifell Tower, cycling in this country was on a high. No, not the Lance Armstrong kind. Sean Kelly was the best road cyclist in the world, Roche wasn’t far behind him and Martin Earley and Paul Kimmage were no shabby supporting cast either.
If you are to believe the adage about success breeding success, it’s surely the case that it manifests as a by-product of the excitement drummed up by and enthusiam germinated from the achievements of the likes of Kelly and Roche.
However, if that was the case, the inspiration must have skipped a generation because, it has only been in most recent years that the likes of Sam Bennett and Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche have put Ireland back on the cycling map.
Yet in the space of nearly a fortnight, Ben Healy has done more to make matters of the peloton ‘Cool’ again for the first time in nearly four decades since the Sunday in Paris when Stephen met Charlie.
There is no suggestion from this seat, yet anyway, that Healy is about to repeat Roche’s remarkable race of 1987, but how ironic it is when compared to the rugby player of the same name who abandonned his own chasing some notion which went down like a lead baloon.
Incidentally, when Roche did triumph on the banks of the River Sienne all those years ago, in one of the strangest marketing stunts of all time, for a period, he replaced the smiling school girl as the face on the packaging of Calvita cheese.
Not that it made much difference to me because if cheese was among the last food left on earth I’d gladly see the good in hunger.
It’s highly unlikely anybody would try a similar stunt in this day and age if, hopefully, Healy does hold onto the yellow garment until the sunny Sunday in Paris.
Regardless, I still won’t eat the cheese!
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