As the calendar year draws to a close, we look back on what we regard as the top 10 performances by Irish riders abroad during 2014. The number of Irish riders now capable of top international results is at unprecedented levels.
Indeed, it is a mark of the volume of top road races won and road and track championship medals captured that riders like top junior Eddie Dunbar and Team Sky’s Philip Deignan don’t feature despite having both had massive seasons.
1. Dan Martin – Tour of Lombardy
After a year turned upside down by a serious crash in the Giro d’Italia, Martin returned to peak fitness towards the end of the season. In stunning fashion he beat the best in the business in the final monument of the year, the Tour of Lombardy. He became just the second Irishman to win the race after Sean Kelly’s hat-trick in 1983, 1985 and 1991.
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2. Martyn Irvine – World Track Championships
In February Irvine claimed the silver medal in the scratch race at the Worlds in Colombia. A broken hip that wiped out his entire 2013 road season was only one of a number of crashes to sideline him last year. But he came out fighting in the first weeks of this year and his combination of power and sheer guts was enough for silver, having won gold in the same event 12 months earlier.
3. Ryan Mullen – World Road Championships
The An Post-Chainreaction man missed out on capturing an historic win for Ireland at the World Championships in Spain; beaten to the U23 time trial title by only 48 hundredths of a second. The winner, Australian Campbell Flakemore, has since snapped up by BMC. Mullen had also been 4th in the elite pursuit at the World Track Championships earlier in the year.
4. Nicolas Roche – Route du Sud
Roche’s 2014 was not as good as the previous season when he took a stage win and the leader’s jersey at the Vuelta. But he still put in a number of very strong rides, with a stage and overall win at the Route du Sud back in June his best result. He would take the queen stage on his own, as well as the final yellow and victory in the points classification.
5. Sam Bennett - Bayern-Rundfahrt
Having already won the Clasica de Almeria (UCI 1.1) and Rund um Koln (UCI 1.HC), Bennett won the sprint on the fifth and final stage of Bayern Rundfahrt (UCI 2.HC). He beat Vuelta bunch sprint stage winner Yauheni Hutarovich (AG2R) and Raymond Kreder (Garmin Sharp) into second and third place respectively in Nuremberg. He also clinched the sprint jersey with his win of the day.
6. Eoin Mullen - European Track Championships
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Anyone who has been watching the progress of Eoin Mullen in the sprint events on the track over the past couple of seasons would not have been surprised by his European Championships ride in July. He took bronze in the sprint event, his first medal at a major championships. A top result in itself, his performance and progression generally comes against a backdrop of Ireland having not history in this event.
7. Michael O’Loughlin – World Road Championships
First-year junior Michael O’Loughlin put in the ride of his life to claim eighth placing in the junior time trial at the World Championships in Ponferrada, Spain, in September. The 17-year-old covered the 36.1km route in a time of 37 minutes and 55 seconds, some 1:42 off the winning time of Germany’s Lennard Kamna. While the Carrick teenager has been a standout performer in recent years at home, his worlds result was the biggest of his career to date.
8. Mark Downey – European Track Championships
The Standard Life-NRPT man won a silver medal in the junior men’s points race at the European Track Championships in Anadia, Portugal in late July – lapping the field with Great Britain’s Gabriel Cullaigh and eventual winner Corentin Ermenault of France. It was a great result made all the more remarkable considering he crashed during the race.
9. Josie Knight – European Track Championships
Josie Knight of O’Leary’s Stone Kanturk CC also won a silver, in the junior women’s individual pursuit at the same championships. Knight qualified for the final as the fastest qualifier for the 2km race but was just beaten for gold in the head to head decider by Russian Daria Egorova. It was a stunning debut at a major championships for the Dingle woman who, perhaps along with Sam Bennett, has arguably been Ireland’s breakthrough rider of the year.
10. Eoghan Clifford - Paracycling World Championships
Speaking of spectacular breakthroughs, Galway rider Eoghan Clifford stormed to two world titles in three days when he won the Men’s C3 Road Race at the UCI Paracycling World Championships in South Carolina in early September just two days after taking gold in the MC3 Time Trial. The significance of his returning to Ireland with two rainbow jerseys is put into context when one considers it was his first major international race.
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