Jack Wilson has just begun his second year with An Post-Chainreaction and has high hopes of being selected for Ireland and Northern Ireland for some very big races in the season ahead (Photo: Stephen McCarthy, Sportsfile)
By Brian Canty
Still only 20-years-old, Jack Wilson has set himself some lofty goals for 2014. He is targeting another U23 national road race title, a ride in the Commonwealth Games and a better showing in the U23 international Nations Cups series with a view to qualifying a slot for the World Championships in September.
With five Irish riders now in his An Post-Chainreaction team, he told stickybottle that making its line up for the eight-day Rás in May was also foremost in his mind.
However, he openly concedes he has been in survival mode for the first races of the season; perhaps not unexpected given the world class competition he is facing every weekend.
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“My goal last Sunday was to survive, I didn’t do that too well,” he says of his failure to finish the 197km Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.
In his first outing of the year, the GP Marseille in France last month, he was outside the time limit. He appeared to hold his own much better on some stages of the Etoile des Besseges stage race in France the following week.
And the weekend before last he finished around halfway down the field in the GP Izola, a UCI 1.2 race in Slovenia.
“I got binned last weekend,” he adds of his experience in Belgium on Sunday.
“I’m doing West Flanders at the weekend, so it’ll be about survival again.”
Despite those difficult outings, his motivation is high to go better than last year; something he says wouldn’t be hard.
“Last year was a disaster. I got two bouts of food poisoning before the Nations Cup and that wiped me out for six or seven weeks.
“Then I panic trained and tried to come back. I was in my bed a week before the U23 Tour of Flanders (Nations Cup race); went out the weekend before it and did two four-hour rides after not being out of bed for five days. How stupid could you be?
“Then I rode Picardie, the next Nations Cup race. And because I did shit in that I said I needed to train more. So I rode home from it; had 240km in the legs. And two days later I lasted an hour in the next Nations Cup, the ZLM Tour.
“I was in a complete box. I went home after that, had three weeks of recuperation, had a week of taking it easy and two weeks training again, and then sort of built up after that.”
Wilson on his way to taking the U23 title in the National Road Race Championships in Co Louth last June
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He says he rues over training in 2013.
“Looking back, it was probably the biggest mistake I made last year. There was no pressure on me to do anything; it was just a learning year. But when they tell you that, you end up putting pressure on yourself for no reason.”
Despite being a harsh critic of his own performances, he sounds keen to get stuck in and build condition.
“I’ve done two training camps with the team and another one in Majorca with the Cycling Ireland house for 10 days so we got some good miles in,” he told stickybottle at the An Post-Chainreaction team launch in Belgium yesterday.
“Results in this game are easier said than done though,” he added.
“The Nations Cup will be the first big goal but at the moment I have no chance of getting a result, the way I’m going. There’s still loads of time to find form. I’ll probably be riding for (Ryan) Mullen or (Conor) Dunne; I not sure what I’ll be doing.
“Having the other lads from An Post Chainreaction in the Irish team is bound to help – if we’re picked. I think Kurt (Bogaerts, An Post-Chainreaction manager) will be the manager. So it’ll be just like riding for An Post; you see who’s on form and work for the strongest guy.”
After that he’ll target the Rás, though he knows how well the men in green are marked.
“The team is really strong this year so it’ll be really hard to make the Rás five. I just need to keep my head down and hope for the best. It’d be nice to ride it. It will be very hard, especially with there being pressure from the team’s sponsor obviously. Everyone is watching you; it’s hard to get away.”
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After that follows a hectic summer schedule with berths up for grabs in the Euros, Commonwealth Games and Worlds and where he will also try to retain the U23 Irish road crown he captured last year in Carlingford, Co Louth.
“I’d love to get to the Worlds again, I rode them in Valkenburg in 2012 and it was some experience. Of course the Commonwealth Games are a huge goal – but I need to get results before the cut-off point in May. It’s a shame they’re on in Glasgow and not somewhere warm like Australia!”
Wilson, who turns 21 years in August and is from Jordanstown, does not sugar coat the world of European racing that he is trying to carve his name into.
The nature of the constant battling during races, he says, is as mentally exhausting as it is physical.
“In the big races you get no respect, but no one gets any respect. It’s just a massive shit-fight really; kill or be killed type of thing. No one gives you an inch and you don’t give anyone an inch or else you’re going backwards.
“And then in the smaller races you get even less respect because guys will kill you to win, they’ll do anything. They’ll go through gaps that aren’t there. They’re nuts… but it’s good craic.”
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