Ireland's world track champion, Martyn Irvine has moved to the US for the 2014 season, having left Ireland yesterday
Not for the first time this year, world scratch race champion Martyn Irvine finds himself on the road back from injury.
After a two week training camp with his UnitedHealthcare team in Arizona last month, Irvine suffered through the festive season despite the lingering after effects of a crash at the Gent Six-Day.
“I’m still limping around,” Irvine told stickybottle as he prepared himself for one last indoor session in his home in Lusk, Co Dublin, before a move to Denver, Colorado yesterday, New Year's Day.
“I’m just getting up on the bike now to see if the sprint power is back up but I don’t think it is. The muscle wasn’t torn but it was off the bones according to the MRI scan so it was worse than I thought.
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“It held me back two weeks, doing nothing. At the team training camp, I was just babying myself, trying to get through training because I couldn’t jump on the pedals. I was kind of half training, just keeping my hand in, but it was good to catch up with the team again.”
Having crashed on the same leg that has a metal pin inserted in it, Irvine was carried off the track in Gent and admits the incident was a bit more serious than he bargained for.
“It took a bit more out of me than I thought,” he says.
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“I think I’m back to nearly full strength but I’m not sure how fit I’ll be at the World Cup in Mexico. I’ll be going in pretty raw, off the weights rack and turbo trainer.
“If I can get a good one hour base fitness... that’s my sort of default. If I can hurt myself for an hour and suffer through, which is what I did in Manchester; I wasn’t that fit but I used my head a bit and suffered through, so hopefully I can do something again in Mexico.”
Due to move stateside yesterday, Irvine had to do most of his training at home until then.
“I’ll be cramming in some short nasty training to get me through. I’ll be probably floating around a few races in Europe and back to Ireland every now and again but generally I’ll be based in Denver (in 2014).
“I’m hoping to be able to get to where I’m happy with my fitness here, but I’m clutching at straws really. Getting away to Denver might be a good thing to get me back in that groove again.
“The more selfish side of me is thinking there’s a lot of track races out there next year, the World Cup in Mexico in January, the World Championships, so it should be a good move for me.”
Although he’s been crowned world champion, taken a bronze medal at the Europeans and gold at the Manchester round of the UCI Track World Cup, 2013 has also seen Irvine suffer two bad crashes and the loss of his father-in-law, Joe McNally, a stalwart of the local Swords club.
“You couldn’t script this year,” he admits.
“I’ve been up to the top and back on the floor again. Any peaks I’ve had have been pretty swiftly followed by a smack back down to the ground again. It’s been a good year, one to remember, but I wouldn’t mind forgetting half of the year as well. Hopefully 2014 is a bit more stable, not as much up and down.”
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