Sean Kelly - Hunger

Like New Hardcover - Unmarked Pages (320). Relive King Kelly's life story in his own words. As a kid, I liked proper working class heroes. That's what Sean was. He still is.

Bradley Wiggins, 2012 Tour de France winner

No wonder the Belgians adopted Sean, he was one of those mythical Flandrians you see in black and white photos, covered in mud, growling, being hard.

He just happened to be born in Ireland instead of Belgium.

Robert Millar, 1984 Tour de France king of the mountains

The last of the old-school cycling champions in the Eddy Merckx mould William Fotheringham, The Guardian, author of Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike

Sean Kelly is the archetypal cycling champion: humble, quietly heroic and tough as old boots, and also a pioneer as the only English-speaker to dominate the hardest races of all, the cobbled classics. The greatest living Irish Belgian.

Sean Kelly turned professional in 1977 and in a career spanning 18 seasons he established himself as one of the toughest and most respected riders in the peloton.

Brought up on a farm in rural Ireland he adapted quickly to the harsh world of professional cycling and won a stage in his first Tour de France.

Kelly became the first rider to win the Tour's green jersey four times. He won the Vuelta a España, and many of the toughest classics, including Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège twice each. For five years in the 1980s he was the world's No. One ranked rider.

For the first time, here is the story of his racing career in his own words