Stephen Roche's Triple Crown memorabilia from 1987 are all lost: "One of the hotels where I was working confiscated it and now it's gone"

Stephen Roche has said all of his memorabilia from his glorious 1987 season when he completed the Triple Crown (wins at Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and World Championships), as only the second cyclist in history at the time. However Roche believes it's not gone for good just yet, suggesting it might still be around at Mallorca where he once run a business.

The jerseys and bikes from his career highlights were on the same site as his cycling holiday business that ran into financial problems, and then collapsed. "Well, a lot of it is still in Spain, locked up in Palma. One of the hotels where I was working confiscated it, which wasn’t very nice, and now no one can find it," he told journalist Ian O’Riordan in an interview in The Irish Times. "But I’m not looking for any sympathy."

Currently, Roche still organizes similar events in France, besides other small jobs. "I still love the work, sharing the passion of cycling, still get a kick out of it. So there’s another chapter yet. There’s still a lot of stuff there that I couldn’t tell for the moment. To maintain credibility, and also some of my dignity as well."

"There are things I’ve done the last few years that I’m not proud of, there were certain situations I tried to manage as best I could, and now I can say they were the wrong decisions. But I can’t undo them."

Roche had run a cycling holiday business for 20 years in Mallorca. His company, Shamrock Events, ran in to problems in 2018 and collapsed. Two of the hotels he had used took a legal action claiming they were owed almost €400,000.

He added that he is still hoping to one day go back to Palma and "put a cheque on the table, but say I’m only willing to give you the cheque if you return my memorabilia".