1998 Tour de France
These photos were taken over the opening weekend of the '98 Tour in Dublin. This was a historic occasion, as it was the first time that the Tour had started outside continental Europe. The reasons for this were twofold: primarily to avoid a clash with the football World Cup, but also to honour the great Irish cyclists who had graced the Tour in previous years - from Shay Elliott in the Fifties to the likes of Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and Martin Earley in the Eighties. All these riders found success in the Tour: the highlights being Kelly's record 4 green jerseys and Roche's victory in 1987.

The Prologue
The prologue is a short time trial, usually between 5 and 9 kilometres long, that establishes the first holder of the yellow jersey of race leadership. Britain's Chris Boardman is a specialist at this discipline: it requires a high power output for a period of between 5 and 10 minutes, at which he excels, and he didn't disappoint his many fans who had crossed the Irish Sea to see him win his third maillot jaune. The course was ideal, but the weather not so. A cold and cloudy morning became a rainy afternoon, and memories of Boardman's spectacular crash in this event three years before came back to haunt us all. We stood on the approach to a sharp right-hand hairpin bend, and witnessed several methods of taking this corner, but only one crash - Francisco Cabello (Kelme), the winner of the Brighton stage in Le Tour en Angleterre in 1994 - and he got up pretty quickly. Sorry, I didn't manage to capture that bit of action :-)
Go to Stage 1 photos

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Magnus Backstedt and mechanic check his bike over. Boardman returns from a mid-morning ride around Dublin. The pre-race cavalcade features ... ... many bizarre vehicles! Erik Zabel
Jan Ullrich World Champion Laurent Brochard Stuart O'Grady Italian Champion Andrea Tafi Alex Zülle
Fernando Escartin Mario Cipollini Abraham Olano French Champion Laurent Jalabert Marco Pantani

Stage 1
The following day saw Stage 1 proper - a loop south out of Dublin, passing Stephen Roche's home town of Dundrum, before going down and over the Wicklow mountains before returning to Dublin, for a finish in Phoenix Park. We caught the riders at the start in O'Connell Street, and then wandered over to Phoenix Park to see them hurtle past us twice. Tom Steels of Mapei won the stage, the first of 4 that he chalked up over the Tour. A crash as the riders entered the park meant that several - including stage favourite Mario Cipollini - were held up, and crossed the line a few minutes down. Sorry that there aren't as many pictures from this stage - most of them are too blurred!
 
Chris Boardman Jeroen Blijlevens Stuart O'Grady Herminio Diaz-Zabala
Mirco Crepaldi chases after being caught in the crash A group including Outschakov, Cipollini and Barthe coast in, way down The fast-moving peloton zips past (Steels centre) The head of the peloton (Steels visible on the left)

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