Cycling Ireland head coach Brian Nugent believes Irish riders could be much more successful on the world stage
By Brian Canty
Cycling Ireland head coach Brian Nugent believes we could “consistently” produce world class road and track riders if a velodrome was built in this country.
Nugent, the longest serving member of the federation, saw years of hard work come to fruition in Minsk in February when Martyn Irvine rode to a remarkable gold and silver medal at the World Track Championships. And he believes that can be the norm, not the exception, with adequate resources and support.
“Look at our road riders who go out to Europe and are given the support; we can consistently produce world class road riders. We could produce world class track riders consistently. We’ve shown with Martyn and Caroline (Ryan) what we can do if we put support behind them.”
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“Unfortunately until we get a velodrome you can’t support 50 people, you can only do 10 to 12 juniors, U23s, elites. You can only support a smaller number. A facility in Ireland would mean you could support more so you would get much more success.”
“The talent is in Ireland, it’s always been in Ireland and it hasn’t gone away. The talent is everywhere; it’s how you look after it, let riders realise their potential.”
However, with the country in the midst of a recession and funding for most sports cut, he doesn’t envisage a situation where a velodrome could be in place before the next Olympic Games, or even the 2020 Games.
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“The biggest thing for us is always trying to be imaginative with our budget. No matter what happens we know we’re not going to get a massive increase in our budget. We know it’s going to be in or about a certain amount for the next few years. It might go up or down 10 to 20 per cent so you always have to be inventive and use the knowledge of the last six, seven, eight years.”
“I’ve been working with the federation for the last eight years coaching. I’m the longest member of staff there so we’ve found lots of ways of doing things wrong but we’ve learnt from our mistakes.”
“The last couple of years we’ve really started to get it right and we need to get that out to as many groups as we can; U23s, juniors, elites. We’ve done a lot of work with the elite paracycling squad coming into the London Games. But the challenge is always going to be facilities.”
Nugent also outlined what he’ll be doing in the short to medium term in his role with Cycling Ireland.
“I’m going to coach the U23 squad. Downey, Bennett and Lavery have all moved out of that group and it is a very young group. We fear that the numbers won’t keep coming through unless we work in that area so my goal is to build that group. We have Ryan Mullen, Conor Dunne and Jack Wilson. But that’s only a few. We need to be getting four or five riders coming through every year. We have Martin O’Loughlin with the Talent Team and Frank O’Leary with the junior squad. My goal is to make sure riders are fed through to U23.”
“A vital part of that is the Junior Track Worlds in Glasgow in August and for the next four or five months I’ll be working along with the junior coach to make sure we have a full squad of juniors riding the track in Glasgow because it’d be foolish not to when it’s that close. Next winter then, back into the track with the seniors.”
But before that there is the World Road Race Championships in Florence at the end of September, and that’s an event he thinks we can contend in.
“We’ve already gone out (to Florence) and had a look at it and brought back the data and footage. So we’re looking at it. These things are planned 12 months in advance. I plan, in the end of May or early June, to go out with the core squad of men (Roche and Martin). It’s something that hasn’t been done in recent history. I want to make sure that they’re given the opportunity to look at the facilities we’ve organised, have a look at the course, see is there anything the federation can do to make it more realistic to be successful.”
“I want to remove barriers more than anything, the main thing is if there are any barriers to performance we’d like to identify them in June - things like clothes, accommodation - to make sure it’s the best it can possibly be.”
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