Sean Kelly has expressed his disappointment at the decision by Cycling Ireland not to send a team to the World Road Championships in Australia next month. While budgetary pressures have been cited by the national governing body, Kelly believed Cycling Ireland must have had a Worlds team in its plans all season.
He also told stickybottle the situation was indicative of the direction within Irish cycling, with the bulk of available funding going to the track scene for years while road riders could not get funded. This was despite the size of the road racing scene and the bigger contribution it had made to Irish cycling down the years.
Cycling Ireland announced on Monday it had taken the decision not to send any Irish team to the Worlds. He said it had fielded large teams at the recent Europeans - across track, road and BMX - as well as other major international races. In the context of the significant costs associated with going to Australia, it had decided to focus on other high performance priorities but insisted it had not made the decision lighly.
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It is the first time since 1976 - when Kelly rode his first Worlds - that Ireland will have no representation at a road Worlds. Kelly said some of the elite riders may not have wanted to travel such a long distance to race on a course not suited to them. But he still believed the Irish juniors and U23s should have been selected for their races in Wollongong.
"It's very disappointing. All those years that I went (to the Worlds) and then you had (Stephen) Roche coming up, then (Martin) Earley and the others… Cycling Ireland didn't support us, ever. Our teams supported us or we had to pay to go, that was the case at the beginning for me. Or at times we might have had a sponsor to support us.
"But the situation now for Cycling Ireland; there should be funding there," he said, adding Cycling Ireland must have had it in their plans for the year to send a team to Australia.
When he looked back on his own career, Kelly said in the early 1980s when he rode the Worlds, some nations with populations comparable to Ireland, or only slightly bigger, only had one or two riders in the pro men's events. Yet those same countries - including Denmark and Norway - now often had selection headaches for the worlds because they had so many riders racing at a high level to choose from.
He could not understand why those nations had advanced so much, and had so many professionals now, while Ireland did not. But he believed a greater emphasis needed to be placed on road racing in Ireland, specifically when annual funding was being awarded.
When it came to the elite men's team, the matter hinged on "how many of the riders wanted to go". Stickybottle understands Sam Bennett indicated quite some time ago the course did not suit him. Ryan Mullen expressed a similar view at La Vuelta about his own possible participation in the road race if an Irish team was being sent.
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"Going down through the list of riders, was there really nobody who wanted to go and ride the elite (men's race), well then you can understand why," Kelly said. "But there still may have been elites who were very keen and wanted to go.
"And with the U23s; we have a good crop of guys there who are capable of doing something. And for them, for the experience to do a Worlds, it's disappointing they are not going. Why not give them a crack at it?
"It's a shame because if you go down through the list of the U23s, you'd have a nice team. For them it would be important they get that experience to ride the Worlds, and for the juniors as well - if you put a few of the juniors together they could fend for themselves and do good races."
Asked if it was justifiable that Cycling Ireland may simply have had other priorities for high performance this year, Kelly did not believe there were "other priorities" above the road Worlds.
"First of all, with the track… (Cycling Ireland) have focused more on the track in recent years. And if you go back 15 years, they've been putting big money into the track. But what came out of the track? I remember when we had the An Post team running, and some of the (Irish) guys were hoping to get a bit of funding to support them. But they didn't meet the criteria because they made it so complicated."
At present under the criteria for funding, set by Sport Ireland, very few road riders are ever funded. Those riding for World Tour or Pro Continental teams are not eligible for funding. Performances at junior level, for example, cannot secure funding for a first season at U23-elite level.
Kelly believes the criteria - while suited to track and para riders, who are successful in securing funding - was weighted away from the road scene. And given the place of road racing in Irish cycling at present, and in its history, he believed that needed to be re-examined.
"If you look at Sam Bennett, say… He's been in the green jersey and winning even at the Tour de France. They talk about him, they talk about Ireland… I mean, what more do you want? He's representing Ireland on world TV every day. So I feel the road racing has given the exposure to Ireland but the sports council (Sport Ireland) doesn't seem to see that. They are always talking about medals, medals.
"You know, medals are great if you can get into the medals," said Kelly, who medaled twice in the elite Worlds road race.
"But what medals have we got at the Olympics? And the money they have pushed into track, really over the last 20 years, compared to road…. (Cycling Ireland have) spent an awful lot of money on the track for a long time," said Kelly, adding apart from Martyn Irvine that funding hadn't produced "any big champions".
