Paris-Nice and The King

The 2021 Friends of the Podcast series

Paris-Nice is the first great stage race of the spring, an annual pilgrimage south in search of the sun that takes the riders through sleepy towns and villages just waking from winter and tests their legs with stinging climbs along the way.

In the 1980s the Irish owned the Col d'Èze and Côte d'Azur. Every year between 1981 and 1989 either Sean Kelly or Stephen Roche won the final time trial on the little hill that sits above the Mediterranean.

The episode looks at Kelly's run of seven consecutive overall victories between 1982 and 1988. In a way the story of his career can be told through his relationship with this race and, in turn, the race's position as part of French cycling heritage tells the story of a country's relationship with the sport too.

Written and read by Lionel Birnie this episode tells the story of Paris-Nice, its origins and Kelly's record-breaking run.

Run time: 1hr 15mins