The performances of the Irish U23 men at the World Championships in Yorkshire were somewhat overshadowed by the modest size of the team; just two men in the selection.
Ben Healy and Michael O’Loughlin both rode the TT and
Healy was Ireland’s sole representative in the road race.
Ireland was, like all nations, entitled to two TT places.
But because we did not score as many UCI points in the rankings during 2019 as
previous years, we only qualified one slot for the road race.
O’Loughlin was unlucky in the test, an event he is very
strong in, when he crashed in one of the flash floods; his hopes of getting the
best out of himself gone in an instant.
Healy rode very well in Yorkshire; 15th place in the TT
and getting into a breakaway in the road race followed by finishing the event.
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He was 50th of the 113 finishers on a day when a third of
the field didn’t make it all the way.
Healy’s road race and TT ride were very encouraging,
especially considering he is in his first year at U23 level.
Having said that, he has shown great promise as a junior and this year; a stage win at the Tour de l’Avenir an Irish result that really jumped off the page this season.
We will have other strong juniors coming up to the U23
ranks next year and a number already in the category look like they can develop
in the next couple of seasons.
But the failure to qualify more than one place this year
in the Worlds road race is a worry; especially considering other developments
in Irish cycling in recent years.
The An Post-Chainreaction team, which was a traditional
route for our young riders, is no more. It is a big loss for the Irish
development scene.
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Across the water in Britain Team Wiggins is also
stopping. Both Healy and O’Loughlin were in that team this year and others have
also raced with it, including Mark Downey and Matt Teggart.
Irish cycling agent Andrew McQuaid had a key role in that
team and because of that it had become something of an avenue for Irish talent.
The absence of Rás Tailteann this year also denied Irish
U23s the chance to gain UCI points on the home scene.
Those three developments – the Rás, An Post-Chainreaction
and Team Wiggins – are all now negatively impacting the Irish development
scene; by that we mean U23s.
On the up side, EvoPro Racing has been established and
hopefully some of our U23s can find places with Morgan Fox’s team in the coming
season, assuming it can continue in a difficult climate.
Healy and some of the other strongest U23s can also now
hopefully pick up UCI points next year and put some direction into the U23
group going forward.
A few more years of having only one rider in the U23
Worlds would be a disaster for Irish cycling.
It may be only one race, but it is a huge fixture on the
calendar. And working towards it, and Irish U23s competing for places in the
Worlds team, adds real momentum to the development scene.
One possibility to secure more UCI points would involve
having a separate U23 road race at the national championships; taking the U23s
out of the combined elite-U23 format at present and running a standalone race.
However, just over forty U23s rode the nationals this
year; perhaps too few for a standalone race but still a significant group whose
absence would be felt from an elite-only race.
While it is tempting to suggest the answer lies in
sending more U23 teams away to race in extra Nations Cup races, the reality is
that they are very hard events to score points in.
Placing as many Irish U23s as we can in foreign teams
that ride UCI-ranked events seems like a better bet.
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