Roche has decided to put his shoulder to the wheel in developing young Irish riders
Nicolas Roche and well known figure on the domestic scene Philip Finegan are to launch a new squad for Irish junior riders for next year and beyond.
The ‘Nicolas Roche Performance Team’ will be based in Ireland and will have six junior riders next year. It is likely that four of those will be first-year juniors while two berths will be for second-years.
While the squad will be based in Ireland there is very much an international flavour to the concept, with Finegan telling stickybottle they have already secured invites to ride five international stage races next year; four in France and one in Germany.
The team will have a set budget and team car. Finegan said both he and Roche have been working on the plan for a number of months and are in talks with potential sponsors and are also working on a bike deal.
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“The idea is to get riders used to riding as a team, to teach them how to do that and how to get used to that,” he said.
“When you look at the window that good riders have to get into a big pro team, it’s pretty short. It can be hard to make that step up to a big pro team once you’re 22 and you move out of the U23s.”
“So the idea here is to try and get the riders into that way of thinking and that way of riding from the time they are very young; to hopefully get them on the road to making that transition from the time they are first-year juniors.”
Finegan said that as well as the foreign races already pencilled into the schedule for next year, he as manager has clear domestic goals.
“The first one will be the Easter Weekend with the Gorey Three Day. Then as the season goes on we have races in mind like the Corkman Three Day on the May Bank Holiday, the Junior Tour, the National Championships and the Suir Valley Three Day.”
He said while the team would be exclusively based on junior riders in the first season or two, it plans to progress into the senior ranks as some of the first riders to come on board age out of the junior ranks.
“Obviously there is a good national set up and juniors are taken into that for the main races and we’ve seen there was a stint with Cycling Ireland for the juniors racing abroad before the European Championships this year. But what myself and Nicolas are really hoping to do is to get juniors and give them that set-up the whole year round, with the added bonus of the foreign races we can bring them to.”
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Finegan said he was confident of attracting sponsors despite the tough economic climate.
“You’re not talking about a massive budget anyway. A lot of these races abroad that invite you over pay for everything apart from the travel. So you don’t have to have an endless pit of money. We’d feel that Nicolas’s name and contacts will help us get a lot of invites to race abroad so hopefully that factor can really bring on the Irish riders. As well as the races in France and Germany already lined up for next year, we’d be looking at junior events in places like Belgium, Italy and the UK.”
Finegan will be the hands-on manager at home and abroad while Roche will be the team principal. He will mentor and advise the riders, as well as maximising their racing opportunities abroad.
The team is effectively a domestically-based junior version of the An Post-Sean Kelly team.
Cara Finegan will be involved with the team logistics while husband Philip has called on his long-time team mate Aidan Crowley to help with other aspects of running the set-up such as building and maintaining a team website.
Finegan said the 2013 riders have not been picked yet and he was planning to fill the slots by asking riders to apply by email at [email protected]
Those commercial entities interested in being a title sponsor or secondary backer can also contact the team via that email address.
“We’re very open to having a look at everyone,” Finegan said of the process that will be used to find the right six riders for next year.
“This is a team structure; we want team players who will understand that cycling is about working for the team goal. But they will be young riders and it’s very important that every single one of them gets chances to win or be the main rider sometimes; we’re going to be very committed to that.”
Finegan has worked with Roche on getting the Nicolas Roche Classic off the ground this year, with the first running of that sportive having taken place last month and been a great success.
While Roche’s involvement in the new Irish junior team is a very significant development for the progression of our juniors, Finegan also brings a wealth of riding and managing experience to the table.
He spent a decade with the Cycleways/Myhome.ie team where he was a rider and helped developed the project. He has also spent seasons developing Murphy & Gunne, Sportactive and more recently with Dan Morrissey-Speedy Spokes last year.
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