David O'Loughlin won many great races during his career and the 37-year old Mayo man - leading - is coming out of retirement in 2016 and will race as part of a very decent Cunga CC squad.
By Brian Canty
Three-time Irish national road race champion and Olympian Davy O’Loughlin is to return to the domestic peloton this year after a number of years away from racing.
The 37-year old from Cong, Co Mayo, will ride for Cunga CC alongside former Irish U23 internationals Mark Quigley and Jason Prendergast as well as local strong man Anthony Murray.
There will be at least one more named added to that team.
Murray has spent the last number of years in Australia where he raced with the Subaru Albion squad; a squad that travelled to Ireland to compete in the An Post Rás in 2015.
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O'Loughlin in the leader's jersey while riding got Mayo in the Rás of 2000. He would lose the jersey but won the U23 classification.
It’s a small team but a very strong one and with former professional O’Loughlin in their ranks, they’ll not only be one of the most formidable squads in Connacht but indeed, in the country.
O’Loughlin is a two-time national time-trial champion and in the mid-noughties he was almost untouchable at home.
He has a stunning palmarés and if his road CV is impressive his track resumé is no less so.
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In February 2008, he became the first Irish pursuit rider to make a UCI Track World Cup medal race when he posted the fourth fastest time in the 4k individual pursuit qualifying session in Copenhagen.
In the bronze medal ride-off, he lost to Australian ex-pro Luke Roberts.
A year later he became the first Irish pursuiter to medal at a UCI Track World Cup when he claimed bronze at the Beijing World Cup, beating Volodomyr Diudia of the Ukraine.
A hugely talented rider, O'Loughlin could switch between track and road very much in the same vein is some of the top British riders have done down the years.
He followed this with a silver at the Copenhagen World Cup meet in Denmark, losing out to one Taylor Phinney in the final.
He retired from the sport a year later after becoming disenchanted with the racing, though a series of nasty injuries didn’t help his morale either.
In 2010 he won a remarkable stage of the FBD Insurance Rás from Carrick-on-Shannon to Oughterard in Co Galway.
He also rode the Rás a year later for the Waterford Comeragh team, though that would be one of his last big bike races.
It’ll be interesting to see how he takes to the peloton this year, and how seriously he’ll take it.
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