Former Irish cycling international Josie Knight has spoken of leaving the “grim” Irish cycling squad set-up and switching allegiance to Team GB.
She was initially rejected by British Cycling as a junior and, having grown up in Co Kerry, had already declared for Ireland as a youth rider.
However, in an interview with Press Association she said
pledging her allegiance to Ireland happened by accident, adding she never felt
Irish.
Knight is a top pursuiter in the British set-up now and won the individual pursuit title at the British track championships earlier this year.
She has represented Great Britain already on the international stage and now that the Olympics have been postponed for a year she has a chance of making the Tokyo 2020 Games in the British team pursuit line-up.
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As a first-year junior rider she won silver in the individual pursuit at the European Track Championships in Portugal and competed for Ireland as a junior at the World Road Championships in 2014.
She also represented Ireland at the elite European Road Championships in 2016. Knight won the elite Irish omnium title on the track in 2016 and also rode the World Track Championships that season as part of the team pursuit line-up.
However, with the Irish women’s team pursuit set-up petering out after 2016 it appears she was at a crossroads not least because, though she was riding for Ireland and grew up here, she never felt Irish.
“There wasn’t any development happening and it was all a bit grim," she said of the Ireland set-up just before leaving. “I didn’t want to continue to be mediocre with Ireland when I felt British.
“I accidentally started riding for Ireland,” she
explained in the PA interview. “It sounds really stupid, but…”
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She first rode for Ireland in 2013 as a teenager at the European Youth Olympic Festival.
“At the time I wasn’t really thinking, ‘Right, that’s me declaring for Ireland’. I just wanted to go to the event. You got a big suitcase full of kit,” she said.
British Cycling had declined to take her as a junior – after which she continued to ride for Ireland. But after competing as an Irish athlete until 2017 she approached British Cycling again and switched her allegiance to Great Britain.
However, because she had no results,
after having to return her track bike to Cycling Ireland, she had no recent
results to show British Cycling and so they turned her down again.
“To me, it was the end of the
world,” she said. “I wrote to them and said, ‘I’ve got no results because I’m
not living at home, I can’t race, I’m just training in the hope you give me a
chance’.”
Her persistence paid off and she was eventually given a trial and did enough to gain her way into the British set-up.
Having switched allegiance to Britain, where she was born before moving to Ireland as an infant, she won silver as part of the British team pursuit line-up in the European Games last year.
She has since progressed through the squad to the point of being in contention to gain an Olympic team pursuit place.
Last season she came back to Ireland and rode Rás na nBan
with the Team GB squad and won the opening three stages of the race. The next
goal is to try and make the Games in Tokyo.
“It’s really exciting but I’ve got a lot of catching up
to do…I’m fully aware I’m now team-mates with some incredible athletes, Olympic
champions. I just want to see how far I can go,” she said.
“Whether or not I make the team, I just want to make the most
of the year I’ve been given and see how far I can take it.”
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