By Shane Stokes
Sean Kelly has revealed the hunt to resurrect the former An Post Sean Kelly team has continued, though the Covid-19 pandemic had proven a major set-back.
The former world No 1 said his hopes of relaunching the team may have proven successful had the pandemic not wreaked havoc on the economy and on the sport of cycling.
“There was a time when we were still shopping around and we were hoping to find a sponsor,” he told Stickybottle. “Then Covid kicked in and that really killed it. If anything was starting to stir, Covid just knocked it on the head again.
"And now, where we are and the situation we are in at the moment, unless a sponsor comes along and says, ‘look, we want you to start a team,’ it’s highly unlikely we will see it again," he said, but he did not completely rule out the return of the team.
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The squad began in 2006 as the Sean Kelly ACLVB–M Donnelly team and continued until the end of the 2017 season, stopping after An Post withdrew from its various sponsorship roles in Irish cycling.
It was a huge boost to Irish cycling over that decade, exposing riders from the country to a strong programme of racing abroad, securing successes in the Rás Tailteann plus a number of overseas events and helping to develop the pro career of Sam Bennett. It also guided many non-Irish riders to professional careers.
Kelly and general manager Kurt Bogaerts continued to look for sponsors but although they were in talks with several companies and expressed optimism that a deal was possible, nothing was finalised.
Bogaerts began working for Trinity Racing, guiding riders such as Tom Pidcock and others, and has since moved to Ineos Grenadiers. Kelly said that Bogaerts current role made the return of their team unlikely, but didn’t rule it out altogether.
“I think if a sponsor was really interested in putting an Irish-registered team out there again to look after the Irish guys, and to take some other guys to build a team around them, for definite we would look at it,” he said.
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“We just couldn’t turn down an offer like that, because I think it could only be really good for Irish cycling. It would be a huge benefit for the riders that are coming through. So it would be unfair to really say that we don’t want to do it.”
Ireland will have a total of four WorldTour riders in 2022, one less than the current season. Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche have both retired in recent weeks, while Ben Healy is stepping up to the top ranks with EF Education Nippo.
Meanwhile junior road race and time trial champion Darren Rafferty has signed for the Hagens Berman Axion team, a Continental-level setup that helped Eddie Dunbar and others go on to WorldTour contracts.
Kelly said that the current situation is better than after he and Stephen Roche retired, a period which led to several years without any Irish riders in the pro peloton, but that he had expected more to be in the paid ranks by this point in time.
He wasn’t sure the reasons for that, but accepted that the demise of the An Post Sean Kelly team likely made things more difficult for Irish riders to make the breakthrough.
Ireland does have the EvoPro team, which has filled the gap to some extent, but the contacts and programme the An Post squad given Irish riders important opportunities over the years.
Kelly said it was a big goal of the team to nurture the home riders. “We were always thinking about looking after the guys who had the talent and who were at that level,” he explained.
“And we were flexible with our race program. Depending on what sort of riders we had, we could do a race program to suit those riders. And that’s always beneficial.
“We had definitely an interest in looking after the Irish guys even if we had to take other ones (riders from other countries) too. I think the An Post team would have been a better set up for some (aspiring professionals).
"Not for all, I think, because some of them got into good clubs and that, they were looked after quite well. But I presume there were some of them out there that they weren’t looked after as well as we were looking after the guys in the An Post team.”
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