Team Sean Kelly

Kelly and Cycling Ireland established a training base in Belgium some years ago and Kelly has funded part of that project.

A little bit of background.
In 1996, Kelly was retired two years when the Olympics was opened up to professionals.
A wealthy Irish businessman - who will remain nameless - put a business proposition to SK about coming out of retirement to race in Atlanta with a "Team Ireland".
Roche was approached as were some other aspiring professionals.
Kelly and Co were offered full financial backing amounting to £2m.

That venture never came about.
But Kelly kept in touch with the businessman and they developed a very strong friendship.

The same business man - not the one named in the teams launch - has put forward a substantial amount of money to get the initial venture in Belgium off the ground.
Now formal sponsorship is in place as well.

I think that this team could develop in to soemthing quite interesting.
Watch this space.

limerickman said:

Kelly and Cycling Ireland established a training base in Belgium some years ago and Kelly has funded part of that project.

A little bit of background.
In 1996, Kelly was retired two years when the Olympics was opened up to professionals.
A wealthy Irish businessman - who will remain nameless - put a business proposition to SK about coming out of retirement to race in Atlanta with a "Team Ireland".
Roche was approached as were some other aspiring professionals.
Kelly and Co were offered full financial backing amounting to £2m.

That venture never came about.
But Kelly kept in touch with the businessman and they developed a very strong friendship.

The same business man - not the one named in the teams launch - has put forward a substantial amount of money to get the initial venture in Belgium off the ground.
Now formal sponsorship is in place as well.

I think that this team could develop in to soemthing quite interesting.
Watch this space.

And is this WIB (Wealthy Irish Businesman) completely altruistic and has he no interest in financial gain by putting his website address on Team SK's bibshorts? I know of wealthy philanthropists who enjoy donating and sponsoring and being charitable, but I don't know of any that want to remain annonymous - they generally like the recognition (having a library named after themselves for instance) even if it's not their primary motive.

Not complaining, just curious.

Very interesting indeed!

Do you know if Sean Kelly now lives in Ireland or still in Belgium? When I was a kid in the late eighties I almost daily past by the house where he lived at that time on my way to school. It was in Vilvoorde (north of Brussels), I was always hoping to run into him once but unfortunatly never saw him...

Jupiler said:

Very interesting indeed!

Do you know if Sean Kelly now lives in Ireland or still in Belgium? When I was a kid in the late eighties I almost daily past by the house where he lived at that time on my way to school. It was in Vilvoorde (north of Brussels), I was always hoping to run into him once but unfortunatly never saw him...

He's moved back home - he lives in Carrick in a place called Ballyduff.
He's built himself a huge house in Carrick.
Sean's invested his money - he owns a lot of agricultural land and some business premises in South Tipperary.

But the connection with Belgium is very strong - we did an event with Sean last June and he had two Belgian guys (juniors) riding the event with him.
In fact Sean was speaking Wallon (is that the correct spelling) with one of the guys.

You're correct about where he lived in Vilvoorde - with Hermann Nys and his wife (I can't remember the ladys name).

DiabloScott said:

And is this WIB (Wealthy Irish Businesman) completely altruistic and has he no interest in financial gain by putting his website address on Team SK's bibshorts? I know of wealthy philanthropists who enjoy donating and sponsoring and being charitable, but I don't know of any that want to remain annonymous - they generally like the recognition (having a library named after themselves for instance) even if it's not their primary motive.

Not complaining, just curious.

The businessman in question would be well known - his company name or logo isn't on the SK team kit.

In this instance (and I know it's hard to believe) the businessman in question is quite low profile.