Ireland will have no teams, in any categories, at the World Road Championships in Australia next month. Cycling Ireland has confirmed the decision this evening, and setting out its rationale behind the decision.
It is the first time since 1976** that no team from Ireland will represent the country at the UCI World Road Championships. Sean Kelly rode the Worlds the following year, 1977, thus starting an unbroken record of Irish representation at the Worlds to the current day.
Cycling Ireland chief executive Matt McKerrow has cited the cost of going to the 2022 title races in Wollongong as a factor in the decision, with the national governing body's high performance director Iain Dyer also explaining the decision in a statement.
“This decision has not been taken lightly – and reflects the need to be certain we can stand over the value and benefit of expenditure right across the sport," said McKerrow.
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"With the exponential cost increases in attending events post Covid, including some we’ve experienced already this year where flights and accommodation have escalated by some 70-80 per cent on previous editions, we’ve taken the decision to prioritise resources to other high-performance event and development activities at this time."
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Dyer echoed that statement, saying a number of high performance events had already been attended by national teams this year.
“In the face of hugely increased costs for targeted high-performance events already completed and planned for the remained for 2022, competing in Australia will stretch our resources far beyond what has been anticipated this year," he said.
"The UCI Road World Championships is also an event where success is far from assured. For the road riders, attending the European Championships in all categories this year was a significant commitment and one we felt we could manage effectively. The World Championships in Australia is a different proposition altogether.
“It bears mentioning that going forward, the High-Performance Unit will need to be extremely focussed on achieving our strategic aims in major championship events across all disciplines. With the spend on all events becoming so high post-Covid, it’s important that a projected outcome from attending an event is linked to key development aims, a qualifying process, or Olympic and Paralympic success.
"It is not a given in future that we will attend everything we qualify for or take up all our allocated quota slots. We have already seen this year several nations make strategic decisions on attending events based on available resources and budgets, so clearly, we are not alone in this respect, and are managing it in a similar manner.
“It’s important we don’t turn the taps off in other areas of the high-performance activity and focus solely on the senior elites. It has been an essential part of our year to support Junior and U23 riders in events such as the Tour L’Avenir, the Rás and upcoming Rás na mBan or the Junior Track World Championships, where Irish athlete have shown great promise. That is where our next champions might come from. Equally, there may be other times where we dial up our activity in other disciplines or categories because strategy dictates it is a more appropriate use of resources."
- **This piece originally stated no team had represented Ireland at the road Worlds in 1994. However, further checks have established there was Irish representation, with Philip Collins riding the TT for Ireland.
