Riders like new elite men's national cyclocross champion David Montgomery (left) and nationals bronze medal winning Glenn Kinning (right) would have loved a crack at the Worlds, but it's not happening this year say Cycling Ireland (Photo: Toby Watson)
By Brian Canty
Ireland will not be represented by any riders at the UCI World Cyclocross Championships in the Czech Republic in two weeks.
Cycling Ireland said none of the riders met the criteria it has set out, though Ireland is entitled to send five riders to each event. Nations do not have to qualify.
The federation released a brief statement to stickybottle last evening outlining its decision which is based on the criteria drawn up in April 2012.
The news will come as a blow to the most recently crowned national champions, 19-year-old elite men’s victor David Montgomery (Chainreaction Cycles) and elite women's winner Fran Meehan (Aquablue CC).
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Both had been in superb form for last Sunday’s title races in Swords, north Dublin, and were hopeful of support from Cycling Ireland for the biggest races in the discipline over the weekend of January 31st-February 1st.
Montgomery would have been riding the U23 race at the Worlds but others would have jumped at the chance of riding the elite race.
Fran Meehan winning her title on Sunday; she had raced abroad in recent weeks and was hoping to be sent to the World Championships (Photo: Sean Rowe)
Meehan will be particularly let down by the decision as she had performed admirably against world-class fields in events in Belgium in recent weeks.
For men, the criteria states, amongst other specifications, that interested riders must:
- Achieve a top 15 placing in a UCI-ranked C1 event and be within 12 per cent of the winner’s time or a top 10 in a UCI-ranked C2 event and within 10 per cent of the winner’s time.
- Have results in events with World or European class fields.
- Hav results in other similar standard events.
Montgomery raced the UCI World Cup in the UK back in November but was listed as a non-finisher there, as were Timmy O’Regan (DID Dunboyne) and Glenn Kinning (Kinning Cycles).]
They took the silver and bronze respectively behind Montgomery on Sunday..
The criteria seems extremely difficult to satisfy and has been put in place Cycling Ireland even though it could simply select riders to compete at the Worlds.
For women, to be considered for selection one needed:
- A top 8 in a UCI-ranked C1 event and to be within 12 per cent of the winner’s time or a top 6 in a UCI-ranked C2 event and to be within 10 per cent of winner’s time.
- Results in events with World-European class fields.
- Or results in other similar standard events.
Hopefully young guns like new junior national champion James Curry, above, and David Conroy and others will get a chance to compete in major championships in the years ahead (Photo: Sean Rowe)
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Though accepting the criteria were challenging, Cycling Ireland chief executive Geoff Liffey defended it.
"The standard is the standard and the benchmark is there," he said.
"We’d have known, and the riders would have known that (criteria) before the cyclocross season started in September.
"We said that we’d perhaps look at a team this year, we’d usually say there’d be 'x' number of riders maybe up to it across junior, U23, elite and women.
"There was a couple of people who expressed an interest in going to the World Championships but (were) late in doing so.
"But ourselves and the off-road commission were in agreement that there wasn’t anyone up to the standard.
"It’s also about having the conversation early enough (in the season) about possibly going.
"We always say we’re not obliged to send a full quota to any major events be it road or track.
"It's only those who are up to the standard that we send.
"We could have sent a full sprint team to the World Cup in Cali this weekend but that's not our focus."
Tim O'Regan, David Montgomery and Glenn Kinning all rode the World Cup in the UK but there will be no Worlds this year (Photo: Toby Watson)
Liffey said the current high performance budget was "almost exclusively on the track and the road".
But after the Olympics next year he suggested more focus would be placed on the off-road disciplines, be it cyclocross, mountain biking and BMX.
The disappointing news comes after resurgence in Irish cyclocross over the past few years.
This season, which drew to a close last weekend, saw a packed calendar of well-supported events both north and south of the border.
But with no Irish riders regularly riding major cyclocross events abroad, apart from the elite women's champion Fran Meehan in recent months, major results were always unlikely.
For a look at the criteria in full, click here.
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