O’Loughlin with Team Ireland’s Chef de Mission Sonia O’Sullivan during a preparatory trip to London last year
Irish Olympic team manager Martin O’Loughlin believes the three-man team in the Olympic Road Race in London on Saturday could come away with a medal if things went their way.
Now settling into the Olympic Village following the arrival this evening of Nicolas Roche and David McCann – Dan Martin arrived yesterday – O’Loughlin said there was no reason why the lottery element of any major championship road race could not break in Ireland’s favour.
“It is definitely a lottery to a certain extent,” he told stickybottle.
“Dan (Martin) and Nico (Roche) appeared to get stronger as the Tour de France went on and they have come out of it well if the last few stages were anything to go by. Dave (McCann) has said he’ll be happy to play the support role. He will be the first man at a team meeting to say, ‘right, what do you want me to do’. He is a great reader of a race too and it is great to have a brain like that on the team.”
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“McCann has been altitude training in Spain and having spoken to people who were with him, like Tommy Evans (Ireland triathlon coach), his training went amazingly well. He is hitting the right numbers and he may be looking at a career best performance or thereabouts in the time trial.”
O’Loughlin shares most observers’ view that if the race comes down to any kind of a sprint from a group it is hard to look beyond Great Britain’s Mark Cavendish. However, he said while the climb of Box Hill - to be negotiated nine times - had been resurfaced and will be very fast, all may not go Team GB’s way and the Irish riders would be strong enough to capitalise on that.
“You may be looking at a sprint from a small bunch. It all depends how (Roche and Martin) feel after the Tour de France. When you ride a race like that; after it the body can play tricks on you. So we will see how they feel. But if some of the big riders, the likes of Cancellara, were to give it a really good go up the climb on the first few laps and it split, then it might be a question of one of ours going with that. I think they could; a medal is not out of the question, the team is at that level now.”
When stickybottle spoke to McCann recently he said the fact the bigger nations were limited to five riders was key. He believed with Ireland having three men, the numerical disadvantage Ireland normally finds itself at in major championships would not be as stark in London. And he believed this put Ireland in with a fighting chance of a medal.
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O’Loughlin shares that view and believes even with four riders working for Cavendish, the GB team may not be able to hold the race together.
“It’s 250kms; that is a long, long way. But there is a question around whether you have nations like Britain and Australia, Germany; maybe they will work together a bit, have a shared interest in holding it all together for their sprinters, you have Greipel for Germany for example.”
O’Loughlin said while Box Hill is not very steep, there are very small roads – similar to Irish country roads – in the area of the climb, with a false flat after it. He believes the minor roads that make up the circuit means a breakaway may well succeed.
Coupled with that, the false flat after the climb may result in riders having to battle to get back on after the climb; a factor that may be crucial if the race is really on up the ascent from the opening laps.
In terms of the track, he says Martyn Irvine’s preparation has been “fantastic”.
“He is the real dark horse for me,” said O’Loughlin of Irvine’s prospects of pulling off a major upset in the omnium.
“In those scratch races he has inflicted so much pain on the others in the major meetings; he just goes and goes and you can see it is only the strongest able to try and close him down. And they always react to him; they know him and they don’t want to let him go too far. He has prepared really well.”
Stay tuned folks; we’ll have more on the Games tomorrow and every day from now on.
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