With so many riders on the market after the collapse of pro teams, it's great to see Martyn Irvine having no problems in securing a ride for next year.
Ireland’s track World Champion Martyn Irvine’s comeback momentum has continued today, with news that Unitedhealthcare have kept their faith in the Irishman for next year.
Irvine, who was sidelined for most of the 2013 road season after breaking his hip in March, has been named in the Unitedhealthcare roster for 2014. The full line-up has just been confirmed by the US-based Pro Continental outfit today.
One name not on the list is that of Irvine’s fellow Irishman Philip Deignan, who has ridden for Unitedhealthcare for the past two seasons.
After having had an indifferent year with them in 2012, the US squad kept their faith in Deignan and offered him a place again for 2013.
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He repaid them in spades with a return to the kind of form he has not managed since winning a stage in the Vuelta a Espana back in 2009.
Most of his big performances this year have come in the high mountains where he is most prolific.
He won the Tour of the Gila (2.2) stage race as well as the mountains jersey there, before finishing runner-up in the Tour de Beauce (2.2) and claiming sixth on GC at the Tour of Utah.
He turned in another scintillating performance at the Tour of California, taking ninth overall and then he notched a top 10 at the US Pro Cycling Challenge, proving a real menace on the steepest climbs there.
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Those performances have secured for the Donegal man a two-year deal with Team Sky.
A completely different rider to Deignan, Irvine has bagged some really amazing results in the past 12 months and it is no surprise that Unitedhealthcare would want to keep him. However, with so many pro teams having collapsed in recent months, there is now a glut of good riders on the market meaning many will be left without a contract for next year.
After the Olympics last year, where he finished 13th in the omnium, Irvine went on to take two silver medals in the individual pursuit and scratch race at the UCI World Cup in Glasgow last November.
He held that form into this year and at the World Track Championships in Minsk in March he won a silver medal in the individual pursuit before popping up again just 52 minutes later and putting in the ride of his life to take a famous gold for Ireland in the scratch race.
The celebrations did not last too long. Within days of Irvine returning to road racing with his trade team Unitedhealthcare, disaster struck. He crashed on stage 4 of the Tour of Taiwan just two weeks after his amazing Worlds performance and suffered a broken hip that saw him sidelined from the road for the season.
He has returned to competition in recent months and picked up the national pursuit and scratch titles at the National Track Championships on Sundrive Rd, Dublin, in August.
And just last weekend he competed for Ireland in the Three Days of Aigle international track meeting in Switzerland, where he was 4th in the scratch race won by Elia Viviani (Cannondale) and 3rd in the omnium.
Those results and the news today that his trade team future is secured is a welcome boost as he prepares for the European Track Championships the weekend after next.
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