Triple Crown of Cycling

The Triple Crown of Cycling is made up of two of the three Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España) and the World Cycling Championship. It is considered the hardest title to win in professional road bicycle racing.

There are many who feel that the true Triple Crown of Cycling is winning all three Grand Tours in the same year, which would be considerably more difficult than winning Worlds and two out of Giro/Tour/Vuelta, and as such this feat has never been achieved.

The Triple Crown has only been achieved twice (both times by winning Giro/Tour/Worlds):
*Belgian Eddy Merckx did it in 1974
*Ireland's Stephen Roche in 1987.

Among those who came close are Italian Fausto Coppi, Frenchman Bernard Hinault and later Spaniard Miguel Indurain who finished second in the World Championships in 1993.

Coppi was the first rider in the history of the sport to win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year which he did twice in 1949 and 1952. At the World road race championships in 1949 Coppi came third behind Rik Van Steenbergen of Belgium. Merckx was the first rider to win the triple crown but he had already come close to winning it in 1972 when he won both the Tour and the Giro, coming fourth in the World road race. After his disappointment, Merckx broke the world hour record several weeks later.

Hinault was aiming for winning the triple crown during the 1980 season. That year he won the 1980 Giro d'Italia before going on to the 1980 Tour de France. However during the Tour, Hinault suffered from knee injury and despite winning three stages and wearing the maillot jaune, he left the race. Several weeks later he won the World Road Race championships in Salanches. Indurain won the Giro-Tour double in both 1992 and 1993 and in both years he was very active in the World Road Race. In 1992 he finished sixth but in 1993 Indurain was very close to winning the Triple crown when he finished second behind Lance Armstrong.