Cycling Ireland has outlined a longer schedule than before for getting the mooted new velodrome built in Dublin. However, chief executive Geoff Liffey said he was confident it would be in place before the 2020 Olympics.
By Shane Stokes
It’s a project that has been talked about for a long, long time, but if all goes to plan the Irish riders preparing for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 will have the option of using a Dublin velodrome in their build-up.
Cycling Ireland chief executive Geoff Liffey gave details of the current situation to stickybottle, explaining how things stand right now and how he hopes things will play out over the next two or more years.
“Sport Ireland are preparing the tender at this present moment,” he said, confirming the progress outgoing Cycling Ireland president Denis Toomey mentioned at the federation’s recent annual meeting.
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“It is probably going out to tender in early 2016. It will be a two part tender; one for the track and one for the building.
“That is the way we wanted it done because there are only three or four people in the world who can build the track, while there are others who can build the bigger building.”
According to Liffey, Cycling Ireland’s input at this point is to assist Sport Ireland in determining the specifics of how a velodrome would be built.
“We are feeding into the requirement in terms of what the athletes would need, where a judging panel would normally be, where the TV cameras go. That sort of stuff.”
Although Irish riders have performed admirably on the world stage, including world championship gold and silver medals by Martyn Irvine in 2013, the country has no indoor velodrome.
Irvine and others have been forced to train abroad in Mallorca.
This would almost certainly continue even after a velodrome is built here, particularly when Irish weather is bad or in the final tune-up to competition.
But a home track would also be able to be used by the riders at other points in the season.
Perhaps even more importantly, it would be a major boost at the grassroots and development level, greatly increasing the opportunities for those interested in this wing of racing.
Riders would be able to train away from testing weather conditions and traffic, and daylight considerations in winter months would no longer be an issue.
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There would also be high quality races run in the velodrome, boosting tactics and performance levels.
The knock-on effects are clear. More track riders on bikes will increase the pool of talent in Irish track cycling and should in turn lead to greater international performances.
Liffey said Cycling Ireland has moved through several of the stages needed to get projects such as this completed.
“You have to get initial feasibility, then approval of feasibility, then planning,” he said.
“Once you have planning permission done then you can go to tender. Then once you have the tender ready, if you have money you build it.
“For us it [this stage] is about being top of the queue and ready to go.”
Of course, nothing will be built without funding from the government.
He said that there is no commitment as yet as to when the required funds will be available, but he said that Cycling Ireland was hoping that this will be achieved in the near future.
“The funding opportunities are usually around budget time. But there can be other stimulus packages available as well.
“We are not necessarily waiting until this time next year. It could depend on other activities on site," he added in reference to Sports Campus Ireland. “
Asked if Cycling Ireland was hopeful that the velodrome will be up and running before the 2020 Games, Liffey said he was optimistic.
“Yes, yes, that would be definite. We would see that are being realistic.”
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