Martyn Irvine on the boards (Photo: Fred Draisma/www.fwd-photo.nl)
Irish Olympic hopeful Martyn Irvine has said he is increasingly confident of qualifying for a place at London 2012 and believes if he gets there, winning a medal would not be impossible.
Fresh from his fifth place in the omnium at the latest World Cup meeting in Cali, Colombia, last weekend, Irvine told stickybottle he now feels stronger and more confident against international opposition.
“Before, I was probably lacking that bit of track practice. But I guess it’s trial and error isn’t it? With the racing I’ve done now, I feel stronger. And my performances are more consistent. I feel I can be right in there now until the very end of a scratch race.”
While now 9th in the European omnium standings following the latest Olympic qualifying event in Cali, Irvine is just five points off the top eight. He needs to be at least eight in Europe next April to qualify for London 2012.
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“I got something like 160 points in Cali, so five points is not that much in the omnium.”
Had he not been disqualified from the omnium during the elimination race at the Astana World Cup meeting last month, he believes he would be in 8th place in the European rankings “by about 20 or 30 points”.
“I definitely think I can do it now,” he says of Olympic qualification.
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“It will be hard; I need to keep the head down and in the World Cups in Beijing and London I need to do what I did in Cali. I have to be consistent.”
He said while initially satisfied after Cali, when he examined his ride in the days that followed he felt he could have done “a bit better”.
“It all happens so fast, and you need a bit of luck, it can be a bit of a lottery,” he said of the six events that make up the omnium.
“After Astana I was sickened. You do all that training and then travel out there, even the money it costs to get there; and then it all comes to nothing. So I really was sickened for a few days after it. But then maybe it puts the fire in the belly to go for the next one.”
He says if he can get into the top three in one of the two remaining pre-Olympic World Cup meetings – in Beijing in January and London in February - he would be very well-placed to qualify for the Olympics.
And he believes any rider who can podium at a World Cup is capable of repeating that at an Olympics.
“You are riding against the same riders all the time. It just needs to come together for you all on the same weekend; I’m right in there. I beat the world champion in Cali, he was sixth.”
“It’s possible,” he said of winning an Olympic medal, assuming he first qualifies.
“If my form progresses the way it should…. I had a cold (before Cali) so I should be stronger (in Beijing).”
“I’ll just keep training now over Christmas. It’ll be a combination of road and then stationery work; on the rollers and turbo. I’m training now mostly twice a day. I just need to not eat too many chocolates over Christmas, not get bored with the stationery training; just put the head down and keep it going.”
