Getting to ride against the pros is a long and arduous process, right? You race in Ireland and enjoy some success then you go abroad, start off with a club in France or Belgium and initially get a hammering.
If you’re good enough, and lucky enough,
you stick at it and break through with more success before eventually getting a
place with a UCI team.
For others, they’re such good juniors on
the Irish scene they immediately get places with British Continental teams and
go from there.
Those may be the two tried and tested
routes, but nobody told Aoife Ryan and Lorraine Mullarkey.
They’ve just wrapped up two strong rides at the Dubai
Women's Tour, a four-stage UCI-ranked 2.2 event against pro opposition.
They were both part of Team UAE, which won a stage on the race, held the yellow jersey.
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The Irish women and their team mates were also in the
fight for the points and climbers’ jerseys before eventually placing one of
their number 3rd in the final general classification.
Ryan and Mullarkey emigrated to the Middle East, where both have been working as school teachers.
They were not newcomers to cycling when they left Ireland; Mullarkey having competed with Emyvale CC and Ryan with Barrow Wheelers at home.
Mullarkey (35) has been living in Dubai for the past 2½
years where she works as a PE teacher. From Monaghan, she has been riding for
the Cycle Hub Arla Protein Race Team in
Dubai of late.
Aoife Ryan (32) is from Tullogher in Co Kilkenny and was introduced to cycling in 2015 by her then boyfriend, now husband, Patrick Keating Kearney.
While she had started cycling in Ireland before moving to the Middle East she had never raced here.
Living in Abu Dhabi for the past 3½ years, Ryan works as a national school teacher and joined Barrow Wheelers in 2016 just before moving abroad.
She still rides with the club when she travels home and races with Al Wathba Yas Cycles Team in Abu Dhabi.
“Because I'm a primary school teacher I get home about three times a year so I get out lots with the club,” she said of maintaining her involvement with Barrow Wheelers.
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“The wheelers have been a huge support since the day I joined in 2016 and extremely encouraging. I did my first race here in Abu Dhabi in 2017 and have been racing since.”
The only race with UCI grading either of them had ever ridden before last week was Mullarkey’s three appearances at the National Road Race Championships to 2017.
But having very much stepped up their cycling since leaving Irish shores, and having been racing on the Middle East scene over the past few seasons, they were selected onto the Team UAE line-up for last week’s race.
They both finished in the bunch on the opening stage when
their team mate, Jordanian Samah Khaled, placed 3rd and may have won but for a
slipped chain.
The following day the Irish women were again in the bunch
at the finish and helped their team mate to stage victory, and to the leader’s
jersey.
On stage 3, over hillier terrain, the Irish women
committed fully to Khaled, losing time
themselves as a result. Their team mate lost 16 seconds on the Hatta Dam finish
and slipped to 3rd overall.
The final stage saw a breakaway survive to share the spoils as the two Irish women finish just seconds behind the leaders.
Lucy van der Haar (Hitec Products), who claimed the opening stage, ran out the overall
winner as the Irish women’s team mate Khaled placed 3rd, some 12 seconds down.
Mullarkey said the team had been
disappointed to lose the overall lead and the points jersey on stage 3.
“We thought we’d
done enough to hold the green jersey but the race manual had misleading information
regarding the finish,” she said.
“The race manual
said the finish was a KOM but they awarded triple points for the green jersey
at the finish instead.”
She added
conditions were challenging as the temperature jumped by up to six degrees
between a couple of the stages.
However, with
their team competing for the intermediate sprints through the stages, as well
as for stage wins and the overall, both were in the thick of the action through
all four stages though it was there pro debut.
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