Dermot Nally and Mark Scanlon in the Irish national jersey, Rás 2007 (Photo: www.rastailteann.com)
A Cycling Ireland proposal that would have seen the Ireland national team continue to compete in the An Post Rás was rejected by the UCI, it has emerged.
Stickybottle understands from reliable sources that the national federation last year sought a derogation to rules that ban riders with UCI Continental teams, or higher, riding on a national or regional selection in any race where their own trade team is taking part.
Cycling Ireland made the request based on the reasoning that if the derogation to the rule was granted, a large number of Irish riders currently not available for selection for Rás national team duty would have become available for selection.
This would have enabled a strong national team to be picked. And based on that strength, Cycling Ireland would have continued to enter an Ireland team in the An Post Rás.
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However, the UCI’s Race Commission rejected the request. It said if an exemption was granted to Cycling Ireland for the Rás, the same exemptions would have to be granted in other countries in similar circumstances.
The UCI rule is in place to prevent collusion in races; where a rider picked on a national or regional selection might start riding in support of his trade team in the race, effectively making that trade team bigger and strong.
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Cycling Ireland made the case to the UCI that if a derogation was granted it would be used sparingly. For example, the national team would only have been made up of U23 riders rather than the strongest possible elite national team being assembled.
However, this pledge only to pick the U23 riders with Continental teams, along with some domestically based riders, was not enough to persuade the UCI to agree to Cycling Ireland’s proposal.
Sources have insisted that no funding shortfall nor any other financial considerations influenced the decision taken by Cycling Ireland not to have a national team in the race this year and into the future.
Instead, Cycling Ireland took the view that there are now so many Irish riders with Continental teams that regularly ride the Rás that the pool of strong riders to pick from had become too small to justify sending an Ireland team to the race.
The rule as it stands excludes a large number of riders from Rás Ireland team duty because their teams are riding the race. These riders are: David McCann and Martyn Irvine (both RTS Racing), Sean Downey, Sam Bennett, Ronan McLaughlin Conor McConvey, Mark Cassidy (all An Post-Sean Kelly), Peter Hawkins (IG Sigma Sport), Stephen Halpin (Metaltek SCOTT), Philip Lavery (NODE4 Giordana) and Felix English (Rapha Condor-Sharp).
Cycling Ireland plans to have a development team in the Rás at some point. However, it will not be included this year and it appears it might be several years before that plan comes to fruition.
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