Philip Cassidy, left, rode on countless Irish teams; an option sadly denied our best home-based elite riders at present (Photo: Delaney Family)
Until recent years, elite riders competing on the home scene had many chances to represent their country, even if the World Championships and Olympics were understandably the preserve of our pros.
Home based road racers had the chance to ride for Ireland at races in the UK and in the Rás. But those teams simply are not selected any more.
The absence of aiming for international caps detracts greatly from domestic cycling. Cycling Ireland can point to funding shortfalls as the reason why these teams aren’t selected to travel any more.
We’ve asked a number of prominent cycling figures whether elite Irish teams drawn from the home scene could be funded by clubs or even the riders themselves, as they were in previous decades.
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In this first dispatch, Olympian and double Rás winner Philip Cassidy outlines his views.
By Brian Canty
Philip Cassidy is around long enough to know that funding is often the major obstacle to sending Irish teams drawn from the home scene away to race abroad.
But he believes a tiered funding system under which riders, likely via their clubs, pay set amounts based on their ranking could help but home based riders back into the green jersey of Ireland.
“This debate is going on for a lot of years but I think an actual Irish team should be covered by Cycling Ireland because we don’t want a situation where some of our better riders can’t travel for financial reasons,” he said.
“Maybe have a tiered system where you have grades A, B, C and D for international competition.
“Grade A would be fully covered, a portion of a grade B team’s expenses would be covered, grade C teams could be helped by their clubs and members.
“But a fully international Irish team should not have to pay their way,” he said of selections that would ride at the Olympics and World Road Championships.
Meath man Cassidy said the only way riders can improve is by racing at a higher level than they become accustomed to.
“They’ll never be good enough unless there’s a carrot to get better,” he said.
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“I’m not saying we were any better in our day; I’m not saying that for a minute.
“But at least we had the opportunity to race hard and train hard with a view to getting out of the country once a month or every six weeks to go to the Milk Race or the Sea Link International. You have to speculate to accumulate.
“Where would we be if there weren’t funds to send Sean Kelly away to the Milk Race in the 70s and Roche likewise; where would they ever have turned up?
“The federation reaped huge rewards on the back of their successes and that was the speculation – send them away to better them and we have to invest now again to give the young people an incentive.”
Cassidy recalls being out of the country once a month when he was going well.
This year, the only Irish team picked from home-based men to race abroad was at the Kreizh-Breizh Elites in August.
And with the exception of this year’s selection, places on the Irish team for that event have always gone to those riding at Continental level.
“We were out of the country every month at races like the Tour of Lancashire, Sea Link International, Scottish Health Race, Tour of the Cotswolds, Lincoln GP; you’d be flat out on international duty if you were going well.
“That’s what brought us on and that’s how we’ll get our next Rás winner.
“The Sean Kelly outfit has proven that,” he said of the project that has morphed down the years into the An Post-Chainreaction team.
“But in tandem with that, having riders do races a decent standard (above) the domestic scene will improve the domestic scene; one will feed the other.”
He believed races at home were too easy to really progress those with aspirations of competing abroad.
“You have to have the standard of racing to get the level but the races at home are too short and not hard enough,” he said.
“Go back a few years, they were all 80-mile races on hilly circuits; the Tour of Wicklow was four laps of Sally Gap and over 100 miles.
“But it’s so difficult to organise now with road closures and organisers have their hands full with a lack of man-power. It’s not anybody’s fault but ideally, the races would be longer.”
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