John James 'Sean' Kelly (born 24 May 1956) is an Irish former professional road bicycle racer. He was one of the most successful road cyclists of the 1980s, and one of the finest classics riders of all time. From turning professional in 1977 until his retirement in 1994, he won nine monument classics, and 193 professional races in total. He won Paris-

Kelly returned in April to the 1988 Vuelta a Espana which started on the rugged mountainous island of Tenerife where his team struggled in the second stage, losing the influential rider Thomas Wegmuller to dysentery and losing further time in the time-trial around Las Palmas. However, on the Spanish mainland, Kelly concentrated on winning sprint time bonuses, battling with sprinter Jorge Dominguez, the BH teammate of leader, Laudelino Cubino.  After regaining a minute in four days, the race reached the mountains where Kelly relied on help from Robert Millar of team Fagor-MBK to stay within two minutes of Cubino after the mountain trial to Alto Oviedo. He then finished fourth behind stage-winner Fabio Parra and Anselmo Fuerte on stage 13 to the ski-station at Cerler, cutting a minute and a half into Cubino's lead. From this stage, Fuerte had moved into second overall and later took the jersey from Cubino on the 16th stage to Albacete when the leader got caught on the wrong side of a split caused by cross-winds.  Kelly maintained the gap between himself and Fuerte and started the time trial on the second last day 21 seconds behind. Confident that he could overhaul the leader, he "put it in a big gear and gave it everything". He took the leader's amarillo jersey, beating Fuerte by almost two minutes. The following day Kelly won his only grand tour, over West German Raimund Dietzen and also won the points competition. After his Vuelta win Kelly returned to Carrick-on-Suir where a parade was held in his honour. Answer this question using a quote from the following article:

did he have any failures?
his team struggled in the second stage, losing the influential rider Thomas Wegmuller to dysentery