The mix of international riders, mostly with Continental level teams, and county men in the Rás is captured in this shot of yesterday's stage 8 breakaway. But how the ages of the two groups in the race compares might surprise you (Photo: David McVeigh - The Belgian Project)
With another An Post Rás over, we can say the flatter route suited some of the county riders better than the course in recent years.
Many county men went on the attack and a small number were very much threatening for stage wins.
The debate has raged in recent years as to whether the race is now beyond home-based riders as the standard seems to have crept higher each year since the inclusion of Continental-level teams.
But one aspect of the race that’s rarely commented on is the age profile of the county men. And indeed how it compares to the foreign and Continental level riders.
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We’ve done some number crunching on this year’s field and come up with some interesting statistics on riders’ ages.
Exactly halfway through the race we took a snap shot of the field and had a look at how old each of the riders was.
We’ve focussed on the ages the riders will turn this year.
So if a rider was, say, 24 years old last week but will turn 25 years old later this year, he counts as being in his 25th year in our charts below.
By recording the riders' ages in that way; we are grouping riders in terms of who would have turned junior together and U23 together and so on.
At the finish of stage 4, the average age of those still in the race was 30 years; higher than we would have expected.
What’s more interesting though is how the average age differs between county and international riders.
County riders’ average age came out at 34 years, whereas international riders’ average age was 25 years; a massive difference.
And again, this is probably not something we would have expected before we ran the analysis.
The oldest man left in the race was Des Woods of Down Newry Wheelers. He was aged 48 years last week and will be 49 years old in October.
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So in our charts below, he is the rider in his 49th year.
The youngest was Alexander Cowan of the Canadian national team. He is 18 years old and will be 19 years old in November.
So he counts as being in his 19th year in our charts below.
Canada and the US Novo Nordisk had particularly young teams, with the average age of both squads being around the 20 years mark.
It should be pointed out that there are some exceptionally good younger Irish riders classed as internationals in our analysis because they were riding with Continental teams last week.
We’ve included three graphs below. The first illustrates the ages of county men and the second is of foreign and Continental team riders.
The third graph shows both groups combined.
It very clearly illustrates the concentration of international riders between the ages of 19 and 25 years; perhaps indicating that these teams tend to see the Rás as a development race given its current UCI 2.2 rank.
What it means for the future of the Rás and indeed Irish cycling in general is a broader question and open to debate.
The most obvious point is that there are very few young Irish riders in the race.
The Rás now appears to be an event older Irish riders tackle as a challenge aged 25 years and older, especially in the 30 years and older age group.
Let us know in the messages slots below what you think.
County riders' ages
Continental team/foreign riders ages
County Vs Continental team/foreign riders
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