Eagle-eyed TV viewers watching the conclusion of the men’s MTB race at the Olympic Games race will have seen Tom Pidcock very emotionally hugging an official in Irish kit. Pidcock made a beeline for him immediately he crossed the line having been crowned champion.
Indeed, at stickybottle we’ve had countless messages
asking about the “Irish” official and his connection to Pidcock and Team GB,
such was the warmth and intensity of the embrace between the duo immediately
the race finished.
The simple answer is he’s Kurt Bogaerts and he’s not
Irish at all. But he may as well be Irish given his place in Irish cycling for
the last decade and a half and the sheer scale of the contribution he has made
to Irish cycling.
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Bogaerts (44) rode the 2006 Rás Tailteann as part of the
Sean Kelly Team – a fledgling UCI Continental level outfit at the time. And
once that season ended and he hung up his racing wheels he teamed up with Kelly
in managing the team.
He spent a total of 12 years with the Irish outfit that
would eventually become the Sean Kelly-Chainreaction team; its most famous
alumni being Sam Bennett.
Indeed, when Bennett broke through at the Tour of Britain by winning a stage on that race in 2013, the video that captured Bogaerts’s reaction in the team car was something special (below).
Unfortunately, the team soon ran into sponsorship problems,
proving unable to replace An Post as a title sponsor and then ceasing
operations in 2017.
Bogaerts then developed The Breakaway; a business that
takes on cyclists as clients. It offers racing cyclists coaching and support,
including accommodation, so they can race in Continental Europe as independents
(without being in a team).
After An Post stopped, Bogaerts also became involved with Team Wiggins and later Trinity Racing; again via an Irish connection. Team Wiggins was run by Andrew McQuaid, the Irish cycling agent who now owns Trinity Racing, with whom Pidcock won the Baby Giro last year.
While working for those two teams, Bogaerts developed a close relationship with Pidcock; becoming his right hand man across road, cyclocross and MTB and moving to Ineos Grenadiers as a directeur this year when Pidcock signed for the team.
Bogaerts is effectively the directeur who travels with
Pidcock all over the world for racing and training. He was key to getting
Pidcock through the last month as he trained for the Games while recovering
from a broken collarbone.
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“This is as much Kurt’s medal as mine,” Pidcock said
after winning the gold medal on Monday, such was the role his right hand man
played in the success.
From his time with An Post-Chainreaction to the current
day, Bogaerts has managed countless Irish road racing teams at World and
European championships as well as Olympic Games; hence his presence in Tokyo
wearing Irish kit.
He began in that Irish team manager role while working for An Post-Chainreaction. When Irish teams were on international duty, all of the resources of the An Post team were committed to the Irish teams.
That included resources such as management personnel – mainly Bogaerts and Dan Martin’s father, Neil - as well as vehicles, equipment and other team infrastructure and expertise.
As Irish team manager, Bogaerts has worked with riders
like Bennett, Eddie Dunbar, Nicolas Roche, Ryan Mullen and Conor Dunne to name
but a few.
While he is now Pidcock’s manager, adviser and mentor in
his role with Ineos Grenadiers, Bogaerts remains involved with the Cycling
Ireland set-up when Irish elite teams are on the road.
He is in Tokyo at present as part of the Irish set-up. But because he is so close to Pidcock he went to the race on Monday and was on hand to celebrate with him, after first working with Nicolas Roche early that day as he prepared for tomorrow’s TT.
“I can’t describe what this means to me,” Bogaerts said of Pidcock’s gold medal ride. “I know Tom so well. In the winter, in the cyclocross season, he lives in one of my houses. He visits me, knows my parents. My girlfriend’s children consider him a brother… I really see him as a son.”
Incidentally, when Ineos Grenadiers riders Richard Carapaz and Jhonatan Narváez were left by the Ecuadorian federation to fend for themselves in the build-up to Saturday’s Olympic road race, it was Bogaerts who stepped in. He made sure they had all the support they needed, with Carapaz then popping up and winning gold.
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