Oakley looks forward to joining senior ranks for full-time international career

By Caroline Martinez

Having secured sponsorship from Asda Sporting Chance in 2011 and Schwalbe more recently, she is full of motivation and is now training full-time, having just graduated from secondary school.

Oakley will once again ride for the UK WXC Mountain Bike Team next year.

“As a first year senior I’m not expecting much but I’m hoping for a top three placing in the (MTB) nationals and to get to a World Cup or two,” she told stickybottle.

In recent weeks she has become the latest addition to the offroad2rio project along with Irish international MTB racers Mel Spath and Cait Elliott.

The project aims to secure a place for Ireland in women’s MTB at the Olympics in Rio in 2016.

“I got an email the other week from Cait Elliott asking if I would like to get involved, so how could I refuse?”

The project is an athlete driven-initiative operating without any assistance from Cycling Ireland, and like both Spath and Elliott, Oakley will have to be self-funded.

“At the moment this seems the only way that any Irish riders are going to have a chance of getting to the Olympics for MTB,” says Oakley.

For Spath, having Oakley on board was a “no-brainer”, given her extensive experience on the Irish and UK scene despite her youth.

“Next year she will be racing her first year in the senior category which will be a big step up, so we hope this will give her motivation to step up in her training too,” said Spath.

Oakley may be yet to ride at senior international level, but a quick look at her palmares reflects a career already crammed with success.

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In 2010 as a first year junior she took the junior road and MTB titles and also bagged the national junior sprint title on the track, as well as taking the junior title in the Ulster MTB series.

In 2011 she took the junior cyclo-cross national title, junior Ulster 10 mile TT title, Ulster criterium title in the A4, over 50s and women’s category and took third in the road championships. She was also fourth in the elite national MTB championships.

Even though she will now focus mainly on her favourite discipline of MTB, she will still be involved in some of the main road and track events and is planning to “give the women’s national race a go” in 2012.

“I may do the track champs as long as it isn't going to clash with any of the MTB races. Hopefully I'll try to get in a few of the Ulster women’s road races and TT's, but again it will be fitting them around MTB races.”

“The off-road event I would probably be most looking forward to would be going to a World Cup and racing in the U23 category.”

On her 2012 calendar feature the Irish and the British series as well as the Cyprus Sunshine Cup early in the year, the Israel Cup and possibly some of the Turkish races, all of which the whole offroad2rio group are targeting.

This way, she will try to get as much experience as possible and expose herself to top quality international competition.

"It’s not so much the extra distance I’m worried about as I’ve raced as an elite before, but it’s more of a difference with the higher quality of opposition I will be against."

From Newtownards, Co Down, Oakley is also targeting an MTB place at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

"By then I would hope do be doing reasonably well and I’d still be an U23 by then so I’d be hoping to be recording top five results in U23 races."

Oakley’s new offroad2rio team mates are also her biggest competition, which will without a doubt raise the bar at the next Irish National championships.

“With Mel winning the British Series this year it shows the potential here and of course with targeting qualifying for the Olympics they are all only going to get better,” she said.

More immediately, in January she will be aiming for her first National Cyclocross Championship title as a senior.