“Do what you want but I ain’t going home” - Stephen Roche talks Tour de France with Bradley Wiggins

Stephen Roche joined Sir Brad’s Café with Bradley Wiggins and Grahahm Willgoss for a deep dive into his legendary 1987 season, a year in which he won the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, and World Championships. It was a year of glory, controversy, and unimaginable physical toll.

Wiggins opened the conversation by recalling seeing Roche in Paris in 1993, standing on the Place de la Concorde for his final Tour de France. “I’ll never forget Stephen saying, ‘I did 13 Tours, finished 13th in my first Tour and finished 13th in my last Tour de France.’”

The episode quickly turned to Roche’s achievement last year, when he posed for a now-famous photo with Tadej Pogacar, who had just joined Roche and Eddy Merckx as the only men to win the Triple Crown. Roche explained: “I said to Mario Gianetti, his manager, I said, ‘Mario, Mario, what about getting a photograph of myself and Pog together?’... We took a few photographs, a few selfies, and believe it or not, those selfies went around the world.”

But the bulk of the conversation focused on 1987: the year Roche made history himself.

During the Giro d’Italia, Roche attacked teammate and Italian favourite Roberto Visentini, who had won the race the year before. It made him a target.

“The people were taking rice in their mouth and as I came past, some red wine, and spitting it at me,” Roche recalled. “It was quite hostile... I was basically protected at the start and the finish, my mechanical, my bike, for fear somebody would sabotage it.”

His move came after he had lost the pink jersey to Visentini. “I said to my teammate Eddie Schippers to bring me to the front before the descent... I went down the descent without looking in the mirrors.”

When Roche’s team car caught up with him, they were furious. “‘Stephen, what are you doing?’... I said, ‘Okay, well just go back and tell Roberto I’ll stop if he stops. But as long as he’s riding, I’m riding on the front—and I’m going to ride harder now. It’s war.’”

Visentini didn’t take it well. “He stopped right on the foot of the podium, looked up at me and said, ‘Tonight somebody’s going home.’”

That night, Roche was whisked away by police. “Nobody wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t talk to journalists... I opened my bedroom window and on the terrace there was a guy called Angelo Zomegnan... I said, ‘Angelo, Angelo, come here, I want to give you my story.’”

But the Italian press didn’t want it. “He politely says to me, ‘Stephen, you know I totally believe you, but I’ve got one problem—the paper is closed for tomorrow. If you survive tomorrow, I can guarantee you’ll have a good article explaining your side the following day.’”

Roche did survive. He kept the jersey, and the story.

On another stage, Roche said Visentini tried to ride him off the road. “He brought me over towards the ravine... so I put my hand on his handlebars. I said, ‘Roberto, if I go, you come with me.’”

Asked by Wiggins whether he wore sunglasses to hide his eyes from the crowd, Roche replied: “I was trying to stay focused... and also afraid of getting something in my eye, people spitting at you and everything else.”

But the hostility only strengthened him. “I found this kind of inner courage where I was saying to the Italians, ‘Do what you want, but I ain’t going home.’”

At the Tour de France, Roche cemented his legend on the slopes of La Plagne. Dropped by Pedro Delgado on the final climb, Roche measured his effort. “I found I was holding him at 1:20, 1:25... with 4K to go, I just started burying myself. I found energy where I don’t know where I found it from.”

The effort nearly ended him. “I couldn’t move. I could move my eyes but I couldn’t talk... the doctor saying to me, ‘Stephen, move your legs, the cars are getting very close.’”

He needed oxygen and was taken to the Tour’s medical clinic. That evening, his masseur asked what he wanted for dinner. Roche had a plan: “I walk in as if nothing was happening and everybody was saying, ‘Stephen, great ride today... unfortunately tomorrow is another mountain stage... but nevertheless, a fabulous stage today.’ And in my own mind, I’m saying, ‘You wait and see.’”

The next day, he did just that.

“I said to my teammate Schippers to bring me to the front... in the first corner I left the group and I put 18 seconds into Pedro. For me that was like nailing his coffin.”

Roche believed the psychological impact was just as important. “By him seeing me being taken away in an ambulance one day, next day if I can put one second into him... he’d say, ‘This guy is unhuman.’”

Asked about his post-career ventures, Roche laughed about nearly getting involved in a cake shop business. “I didn’t know this but the guys were actually avoiding paying their taxes... the police stopped our project before we got too far.”