The Irish team for the World Road Championships revealed yesterday has created a lot of debate and some of it about how well road racing is being run.
The selection of the Irish team for the World Road Championships always sparks a debate at this time of year.
But after another season in which Cycling Ireland has directed its resources at track racing and paracycling, the selection of a Worlds road team missing our biggest names and well short of the quota allowed was always going to be controversial.
Here we explore some of the key talking points following the selection of the team for next week’s races in Richmond, Virginia, and tease out what it all means for Irish cycling.
The big names missing
The absence of Dan Martin, Nicolas Roche and Philip Deignan from the Irish line-up for elite men’s road race may have seemed strange to many, but they were all offered places and declined.
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For Martin, the fact the trip involves a significant change of time zones so close to the Tour of Lombardy, which he won last year, always made this Worlds unattractive for him, especially since it seems too flat for him.
And crashing out of the Vuelta simply added to the overwhelming case, in his opinion, for sitting this one out.
Roche was also offered a place but declined it, apparently citing the need for a break after such a long and intense season, with the Vuelta just behind him.
He also has the small matter of preparing to get married in a few weeks.
Similarly, Deignan was offered the chance to ride in the US. But he suggested fatigue, recent poor form and a course not suited to him meant there was little in it for him to compete.
Those who were selected
Sam Bennett and Conor Dunne are both well worth their places. Such is Bennett’s standing now that he can expect to be picked most years.
Dunne’s ride in the Tour of Britain made him an obvious choice when the three World Tour riders opted out.
But the decision to leave such a strong rider like Conor McConvey off the team is bizarre, especially when there were three places to fill and an army of staff will be sent.
McConvey is riding at Continental level and has looked among the very best of the Irish riders competing in that tier of the pro game when they have gone head to head in the Rás, for example.
Yet Cycling Ireland seems determined to repeatedly overlook him.
His omission this time around is even stranger than his being left out of the European Games team in Baku earlier in the summer.
Non selection of Damien Shaw
Some had pointed to Damien Shaw as a contender for selection, given his national title win in June and strong performances at the back end of the Rás, where he finished in the top three on the final three stages.
However, neither the nationals nor the Rás are selection races for the Worlds.
And Shaw is currently in an Irish team camp preparing for the European Track Championships so his selection was never considered for Richmond.
Not filling quotas
Much of the comment on social media about the team’s selection for the Worlds has questioned why Cycling Ireland doesn’t fill the maximum quota of riders it is entitled to send, or at least go close.
Before we tease out that issue, let’s establish what the quota was for Ireland.
In only the junior and U23 men’s teams has the quota of berths allotted to Ireland been filled.
In the junior men’s road race, five riders are entitled to start and five have been selected. While in the junior men’s TT, the two berths on offer have been filled.
In the junior women’s road race, Ireland could have started four riders and had two berths to fill in the TT. However, the impressive Ciara Doogan is the only female junior selected.
We could have had two elite men in TT action and three in the road race but Cycling Ireland has confined itself to two in the road race and no TT riders.
Similarly, Ireland had the offer of two TT places and three road race places in the elite women’s events.
But just two women – Fiona Meade and Olivia Dillon – have been selected for the road race and one for the TT in the shape of Siobhan Horgan.
When taken combined, Ireland had a quota of 24 starts and has availed of 17.
Lack of an U23 team
Cycling Ireland cannot shoulder all of the responsibility for the lack of an U23 men’s road race team in Richmond.
Ultimately it is the riders who score qualification points and they can do so riding for both the national team and when riding UCI-ranked races were their trade teams.
If they score enough points when riding with their trade teams to break into the top 300 riders in the UCI Europe Tour rankings for elite riders they qualify their nation for the U23 road Worlds.
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However, perhaps the most direct route for qualification is by scoring points in the season-long Nations Cup series for U23 riders.
Cycling Ireland sent the U23 national team away for three such races in France, Belgium and Holland; all in the space of a week in the spring.
The squad was hit by illness and crashes, so much so that Ireland was unable to field a team in the third race of the week; the ZLM Toer in Holland.
But when that went horribly wrong, there was no plan B put in place by the federation.
No effort was made to identify other races to take a national team to that could include some elites to help the U23s score points and qualify Ireland for the Worlds.
This is in stark contrast to the U23 track riders, for whom a year-round training base – including velodrome access, accommodation and support staff and coaches – was available in Majorca.
It goes without saying that nobody would call for the withdrawal of those facilities for the track riders in Majorca.
But the effort put in for the U23 track riders compared to the lack of effort for the U23 road riders is quite incredible.
All this while we have two of the best young road riders Ireland has ever produced in the U23 ranks; Ryan Mullen and Eddie Dunbar.
Logic for leaving people behind
Cycling Ireland has long argued that selection for the Worlds is performance-based and that only those up to the job will be picked.
It sounds like a solid argument until one looks at the large teams now being picked for major track and paracycling championships.
Nobody would begrudge any of the riders selected for those fixtures in recent years the opportunity to travel.
But if the criteria applied to selection for the road Worlds was applied to paracycling or major track championships, the national teams going to both would be much smaller.
Both track and paracycling have in large part taken over Cycling Ireland’s focus and funding and made road racing an afterthought with the federation.
A small number of riders competing in both have been very successful. Further success may follow in time.
And if that were the case, especially with track racing, high performance funding would increase and the entire sport – the road scene included – would benefit. This is exactly what happened in Great Britain and Australia.
There is undoubtedly sound logic to what Cycling Ireland is trying to do. And to be fair to those involved – both riders and staff – they have pulled off some amazing performances in recent years.
But Cycling Ireland needs to generate as much support for the project as it can.
If track cycling and paracycling are promoted to the extent they are at a time when there is such a poor attitude to road riding, the inevitable outcome is a rift between the different disciplines in the sport.
Cycling Ireland could avoid this by making sure the much larger numbers of road riders get some of the action; even the crumbs from the table.
Giving even a few more riders the nod for the road Worlds, expanding the effort with the U23 national road team beyond one week per year and sending some national selections of home-based riders to a small number of the UK’s biggest races are all measures Cycling Ireland needs to look at.
Women make up smallest teams
If a strong case can be made for filling the elite men’s road race quota then a similar argument can be advanced for their female counterparts.
It is a great shame that of the five starts for elite women available to Ireland in Richmond, we have taken up just three of them.
And of the six starts available to the junior Irish women, just two have been availed of. Both go to Ciara Doogan who rides the TT and road race.
There are some very big names absent from the Irish women’s team; Caroline Ryan and Lydia Boylan just two that spring to mind.
However, some of those who one might expect to see fill an Irish jersey for a Worlds TT or road race are preparing for the European Track Championships and are ruled out for Richmond.
And with a much smaller group of women competing at a high performance level, once even two or three rule themselves out it is hard to find others with a season of international racing in their legs.
In the junior female ranks, Cycling Ireland has decided that Doogan is the only one up to the task. Some like Josie Knight and Autumn Collins have now completely committed to the track.
The Neenan Travel Talent Team 2020 has been up and running for some years now and has done a good job.
However, the junior female scene remains very small in Ireland.
The droves of middle aged men and women taking out Cycling Ireland membership – mainly because it is discounted and brings insurance cover with it – should not be allowed disguise the fact little is being done to bring more young riders, especially girls, into the sport.
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