Ciarán Power is one of the country's most successful cyclists ever and will be on the start line at the An Post Rás tomorrow for the first time since 2008. His comeback has more to do with losing weight and regaining his mental health than anything performance-related (Picture: Sean Rowe)
By Brian Canty
Ciarán Power has opened up about the dramatic weight loss he’s had to go through in order to be in a fit enough condition to take to the start-line for the An Post Rás tomorrow.
The two-time winner (1998 and 2002) had ballooned to a whopping 112 kilos in October last year but since then – and with help from close friend Rolf Power - he’s down to a much leaner 92 kilos now.
Though he says he still has a stone to lose, he’s happy to have come as far as he has in a relatively short time.
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“Two years ago when I decided to come back and do the Rás it was one of those things I was trying to do to raise money for charity but I wasn’t that big at the time,” he recalls.
Sprinting in to win in Navan at the Cycleways Cup at the start of the season (Photo: Sean Rowe)
“I was 98 kilos and I managed to get down quite skinny but this year, doing the Rás has just been for my own health. I was 112 kilos back in October and now I’m 92.
“I’m not as skinny as I’d like to be but in that short time to lose 20 kilos…that’s the benefit of doing the Rás for me. It’s not to prove anything to anybody. It’s just to get back to good health.”
Power, who recently turned 40, has no problem accepting he had been overweight and depressed.
“It was a bit of everything,” he said as to why he’d been feeling so low.
“I had couple of crap years with my wife Lisa being sick and then my mam passed away and generally, I was not giving a shit about my health or what I ate or what I drank.
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Ciaran Power (centre) sprints to 5th place in the bunch gallop that settled stage 3 in the Giro d’Italia 2000.
“The weight just piled on and as people tell you you’re getting bigger you kind of go ‘well f*ck you, I’ll just get bigger again’.
“But there comes a stage when you say ‘this can’t go on, this can’t keep going’ and you look at yourself in the mirror and think ‘this must change’.
“So one day I decided to change and that was it. I rang Rolf Power, he was available, he runs his own supplement shop here in town and I asked would we go training. That was the start of it back in October.
“I remember how bad I was at the time. I’d struggle to bend down and put on my shoes. That was a challenge and I almost had to hold my breath to do it.
“That was one thing but my kids are mad into all kinds of sports and playing soccer or basketball or walking the dog was tough.
Ciaran Power leads Johan Museeuw and Michele Bartoli into the finish of stage 6 of the Tirreno-Adriatico in 2000 while riding for Linda McCartney (Photo: Sirotti)
"Within a couple minutes I’d be out of breath and on my back in the garden so definitely I was in a bad place physically.”
Rás preparation has not been without its hiccups and a recent chest infection saw him miss two weeks of training.
He had a bad Tour of Ulster and missed the Shay Elliott but in a true testament to the man’s new-found positive outlook he reckons he’ll have fresher legs by the end of the week.
And though readily accepting he’s in for a tough few opening days, he’s not ruling out the possibility of making the podium.
“You never know, if the fitness and form get a little bit better I might sneak in for a county prize or something!”
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