By Shane Stokes
Kate Richardson, the Scottish rider who won Rás na mBan on Sunday, looks set for a big future with the news that she will be part of the GB national setup next season.
The 20-year-old represented Scotland in triathlon and athletics, winning multiple national titles as a youth and junior rider. However in July of 2021 she walked away from that in order to focus fully on cycling, and competed with the Alba Development Road Team this season as the first step in that path.
“I’ve been based mostly in the UK,” she told stickybottle after winning Rás na mBan. “I’ve come from a triathlon background, so this is my first season as a cyclist. I’ve been doing a lot of track with the GB squad. I was at euro under 23s early on in the year.
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“I haven’t really looked at next season yet, but I’ll be doing a lot of stuff with the GB girls. I’m moving to Manchester to be on the GB [track] program. So yeah, it’s all very new. It’s really exciting. I’m kind of just going with the flow, and who knows what’ll happen next year.”
Richardson went in to Rás na mBan after winning the Scottish circuit race championships and had a superb campaign in Kilkenny, taking two stages and placing highly in several others. She started the final day time trial five seconds behind the Dutchwoman Lieke van Zeelst (Greenmount Cycling Academy) but beat her by 5.13 seconds in the test, thus taking over the race lead by 0.13 seconds.
She had a moment of panic when she crashed in the criterium with six laps to go, suffering a mechanical issue. Richardson changed to a teammate’s machine and was then able to switch to a spare bike, availing of the lap out rule. She then rejoined the bunch and finished just ahead of Van Zeelst, sealing her overall win.
“I’m delighted to win today,” she said. “I had a bit bad luck in that crit there, coming off at the corner. But yeah, I knew this morning in the TT I had to try and get that five second gap then because it would be quite difficult to do in the credit.
“I’m really buzzing. I couldn’t have asked for much more this week. I got the stage win on the queen stage, stage 3, and then won the TT this morning. I had second place on the first and second stages and fourth yesterday. So it was just about consistency, I think. I always want to win any race I am in, so I just try to do that every day.”
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Richardson praised Van Zeelst for being a strong adversary over the five days. “I would never have expected the GC to that close in the end,” she said. “But I’ve been pushed all the way this week and congrats to the girl in second. I mean, she’s been brilliant all week. And it took a lot to beat her.”
She ended up winning overall, but also taking the queen of the mountains award, the points jersey and the best young rider category.
“I’ve exceeded my expectations, to be honest,” she said. “I definitely had my eyes on the GC. But I would never have expected to come away with four jerseys. So I’m delighted.”
“I’ve really enjoyed the race. This is my first time racing here and it’s been absolutely brilliant. The organization has been fantastic as well. This has been an event I’ve known about for a long time, so I really targeted it this year. It’s been it’s been great. It’s lived up to its expectations.”
Richardson’s season is more or less at an end. She said that she might compete in the Curlew Cup later this month but, other than that, her year is done and dusted. She can look back with satisfaction, with her Rás na mBan performances plus her fourth place in the British under 23 TT championships all encouraging results, and so too her second in the team pursuit and fifth in the individual pursuit at the European under 23 track championships.
She will take a break and then start planning for 2023. She has part of that already worked out, with the GB setup in Manchester taking care of the velodrome aspect, but still needs to establish what road squad she will be with.
“I’ll just see what sort of road teams I’m looking at,” she explained, talking about that planning. “Alba’s been brilliant this year. I don’t know if I’m saying here or not, I still have got a lot to think about. But I’ll wait and see.”
The most important thing is that she is keen to keep progressing, and exits her first full season in an upbeat frame of mind.
“I’ve ended the season on a high, which is good.”
