Cycling Ireland has created a new role for a coach who will spot and develop young talent - from the U16 ranks and older - in a bid to provide a pathway towards Olympic level for those riders who show promise early.
Riders will be identified in the U16 ranks and in their junior years and first season as a senior. If they are regarded as having the potential to succeed they will be supported by Cycling Ireland, whose efforts will be led by the new coach, and the Sport Ireland Institute.
The new position of Cycling Ireland 'development coach' has just been advertised. The national governing body said the role had been created "to strengthen our pathway for aspiring riders to reach World Championships level competitiveness in the (2028) LA Olympic cycle and beyond".
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"Our aim is to identify, develop and support riders through these essential stages in the pathway to enhance their potential to be competitive as senior athletes in future Olympic cycles," it added. "The development coach is a new position in the high performance unit (HPU) for the provision of high performance coaching services to nationally identified young riders covering predominantly the final year youth, junior and first year senior age groups."
The successful candidate will work with head coach, Neill Delahaye, and national track coach, Dan Henchy. The creation of the new role comes as Cycling Ireland already operates the 'athlete development programme' in association with Sport Ireland Institute.
"Recently this has been expanded from the Jnr age group to incorporate final year U16s," Cycling Ireland said. "We wish to continue developing this exciting programme, and look to develop further support across the junior to senior transition in future. We also aspire to develop further in the area of talent ID in youth age groups, and see this new role as a key post in realising these ambitions, alongside day to day support of our junior athletes."
Anyone interest in the role should send a CV and cover letter to [email protected] on or before April 4th. For more information, those considering applying for the role can contact Cycling Ireland's high performance director Iain Dyer at [email protected]. You can also find out more about the role by following this link.
