Esther Wong, the former Great Britain international, may have only declared for Ireland a couple of months ago but already she’s ridden in the green of Ireland in two disciplines; track and cyclocross.
Aged 18 years, Wong hopes to become a firm fixture for Team Ireland for many years to come. And though she will ride on the road in Europe this year with UCI Continental team Hess Racing, she is also likely to become part of Ireland’s team pursuit line-up going forward.
For now, she told stickybottle she was really pleased to have made her debut for Ireland – via her grandmother from Coalisland in Co Tyrone - and had been made feel very welcome into what is a new national team for her.
“I’m really happy to be part of the Ireland set-up, to make her proud and learn more about my Irish heritage,” Wong said of her grandmother.
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Asked what the atmosphere was like in the Team Ireland camp when she made her debut at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Dublin, she beamed giving her response.
“I loved it, I loved it,” she said. “Everyone seems really supportive, really nice. And it was great with all the Irish supporters out as well."
Wong made the British team for the junior woman’s road race at the UCI World Championships in Zurich, won by her team mate at the time, Cat Ferguson. She also rode for Great Britain in the Nations Cup race – Watersley Ladies Challenge – in the Netherlands in August, when she was 3rd and 5th on stages and 3rd overall.
She was also 7th on a stage of the Bizkaikoloreak Nations Cup stage race, 12th in the junior Tour of Flanders and was 4th in the elite Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix in Britain in May.
In the early part of the road season, she took 5th on a stage of Tour du Gévaudan Occitanie, a Nations Cup stage race in France. She also finished 7th in junior Gent Wevelgem as well as taking 12th in Piccolo Trofeo Alfredo Binda, a one-day Nations Cup race in Italy back in March.
Her presence now in the U23 women’s Irish group – alongside riders like Lucy Bénézet Minns, Aine Doherty, Aoife O’Brien and others – will really strengthen that group.
Having competed on the road this year as a junior, she is a first-year U23 in 2025 and has already been competing as an U23 in cyclocross in recent months. As many of the races, including UCI Cyclocross World Cups, are combined U23-elite events, she has been thrown in at the deep end.
At the Dublin World Cup four weeks ago, she said the jump from the juniors up to race against the best elites in the world was a big change, as she expected.
“It’s a big step up, it’s a lot harder and very, very fast, way more intense,” she said of that Dublin race, won by Lucinda Brand (Baloise Trek Lions) from world champion Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike) and where Wong was best of the Irish team.
“It was quite difficult being at the back of the grid. So I had to work my way up. It was very hard with the long straights, the headwinds. I don’t think it was my sort of course, but I made the most of it.
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“More of a technical course would have been good, with a bit more mud. With (the Dublin course), the long straights made it very full on, power on, all the time.
“Cyclocross is not my top priority. Road and track are my priorities. I’m hoping to do some big races with my road team, Hess, and hoping to do some good track events.”
After the Dublin World Cup she was in action again for Team Ireland two weeks later, riding the Grenchen Track Cycling Challenge in Switzerland in mid December. She placed 14th in the omnium, 23rd in the elimination race and 19th in the scratch race, saying she was "a bit rusty" for the track.
Asked if she would be part of the team pursuit line-up - which made the Olympic Games this year - going forward, Wong said there were no final decisions made yet.
“We’re doing training for it but there’s no set team yet,” she said, adding while she was a pursuit rider, she also enjoyed other events.
“I also like the madison, the omnium, I like doing all the endurance events. But I’m quite a multi disciplined rider; road, track, cyclocross, I like to do them all.
“With (road team Hess) we’re planning to do racing in Belgium and Holland; puncheur kind of races or sprinter races. I really liked racing Flanders as a junior, that’s my favourite race. I pulled my calf in the sprint there, but it is what is.”
Fighting the fear in Hulst
Wong has also ridden the recent World Cups in Hulst in the Netherlands and Zonhoven in Belgium, finishing 58th in both. The course in Hulst, with its long and steep descents, resulted in plenty of crashes.
However, Wong the said the technical nature of that course and the “up and down” terrain “really suits me".
“I do think it’s a potentially dangerous course with how steep and long the descents are,” she added, perhaps no surprise given the number of crashes on the day, including British star Cat Ferguson (Movistar) falling very heavily.
However, Wong said she managed to stay upright and, very challenging descents aside, she liked the course.
“Last year I did find it quite scary, for the first time going down that descent. But this year, because I was more used to it, you just have to go down it without thinking, really, to just get past that fear.
“If you’ve got that negative voice in your head and you’re scared, it does tend to be worse because then you start bailing, you brake more and you can crash,
“But, overall, for me Hulst went quite well. I started at the back of the grid of over 90 riders. So I just had to work my way up as much as I could. But I think I paced it quite well.”
