Darren Rafferty was one of the stars of Giro Next Gen, also known as the Baby Giro, taking 2nd place overall after an impressive ride through the eight stages. The 19-year-old was the only Irish rider in the race and his performance was by far the most important thing from an Irish perspective. However, the sheer significance of an Irish rider making the podium at an event like this also brings into focus some of the problems within the sport in Ireland.
How might our other U23 riders do at this level if given a chance, especially with the national team? Can Cycling Ireland step up with the resources to support riders of this calibre, especially as Rafferty is not the only one at this level now? What does this result - and the manner it was achieved - tell us about Rafferty? Also, what of those Irish riders who were missing from Baby Giro 2023 and some of our other young emerging stars?
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In this piece we obviously don't seek to drag any of our young riders into a critical conversation about Cycling Ireland. However, the level some of our juniors and U23s have now reached on the road inevitably raises questions about how Cycling Ireland is performing for road riders, as opposed to our track and paracycling internationals.
Darren Rafferty's climbing
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Rafferty, who started his cycling with Island Wheelers CC in Co Tyrone, had already posted big international performances before this Baby Giro. He took 4th in the Europeans and 11th in the Worlds in the TT discipline as a junior. And last year, his first in the U23 ranks, he was 6th in the TT at the Europeans and won Strade Bianche di Romagna (1.2U). This year has seen him move up a level, despite having to overcome some crash injuries sustained in April. The Hagens Berman Axeon rider was 5th in both Giro del Belvedere (1.2U) and U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège as well as 7th at Trofeo Alcide DeGasperi. However, his Baby Giro ride is by far the best result of his career. Rafferty told stickybottle recently the big difference between this year and last was his ability to better absorb training and racing load. He felt less tired physically and mentally at this point of the 2023 season than he did last year. And he also now had the confidence, and the legs, to race with a view to riding the finale with the favourites, rather than going in the breakaways. But the one huge stand-out on the Baby Giro was his climbing ability. The only time he had raced up very high mountains like those he encountered over the last week was at last year's Baby Giro and Tour de l'Avenir, when he was riding for team leaders Leo Hayter and Archie Ryan. But over the last week he was free to ride for his own results and the fact he stepped up on the Stelvio on stage 4 - and the very hilly finale of stage 7 - was huge. He showcased his climbing abilities in a manner we have not seen before. In just 18 months in the U23 bunch, Rafferty has now shown he can TT and climb with the best and can also perform in, even winning, major one-day races. It is hard to over-estimate how much more marketable he is now after his climbing performances on this Baby Giro. And even if he doesn't move up to World Tour level as soon as next season, such a move seems inevitable. He is also shaping up like an athlete who may go onto big things at that highest level.
Cycling Ireland's role
We have had very few U23 or junior riders capable of doing what Rafferty did on the Baby Giro. In the lifetime of stickybottle, which is just over 10 years now (though it feels like about 50 years!) there have only been three - Rafferty, Eddie Dunbar and Archie Ryan. Lara Gillespie - while she hasn't ridden a race of this calibre yet - is also now definitely on the march through the pro road racing ranks. She took her first win against European pros last week; in the Schellebelle kermesse in Belgium. Cycling Ireland's high performance director Iain Dyer has spoken of having to justify national team selections with significant performances. He has clearly moved to introduce a higher bar riders must achieve before resources will be allocated to them; doing so with some credibility in our book. Ryan's results last year were a case in point; showing clear world class abilities before being fully supported, as part of the Irish team, towards 4th overall at the Tour de l'Avenir. And now riders like Rafferty and Gillespie are making that same case. There's no doubt the inflation crisis was a headache for Cycling Ireland last year. While it got flack for not sending a team to the World Championships, for example, other nations also cut back or made their riders pay their own way to the Worlds. Many of our top riders did not want to go to Australia anyway. However, like any organisation, Cycling Ireland must adapt to changing financial conditions. And while the inflationary spike was perhaps a surprise last year, that's not the case 12 months on. Meanwhile, the global inflationary spike is also easing. The bigger issue for Cycling Ireland now is that the coffers are empty after a scandal-hit period - and due to its continued failure to land a title sponsor. That very poor financial position exists as an Olympic year looms, with track and paracycling set to be the priority all the way through until the end of the 2024 Games. However, we have world class talent on the road now - riders capable of winning the biggest U23 races. Some of our juniors are also shaping up the same way - especially Seth Dunwoody, Patrick Casey and Adam Rafferty. And Cycling Ireland must move to meet that potential with support. Irish cycling has long been locked into a pattern of spending a fortune on trying to get track riders and paracyclists to the Games before a small number of our paracyclists win medals and carry the whole show. That structure has to be modified with the success of our young road riders in mind. It is clear the roadies are well looked after when they are selected onto Irish teams. The problem is national team selection for U23s and juniors is now very rare. That can't be allowed to become the new normal, not with the talent we have coming through. Cycling Ireland will - rightly - say the emphasis on track and paracycling arises because they offer the best chance of medals at the Olympics, which is the North Star of funding for Sport Ireland, our main funding body. However, if Cycling Ireland had a decent title sponsor - and found other ways to fundraise - the sport would not be painted into a corner where track and paracycling are the centre of the universe, even though both are small disciplines in Ireland compared to the road scene. That's not a criticism of our track and paracycling riders, it's a criticism of Cycling Ireland. The continued lack of a sponsor - after all the success of riders like Sam Bennett and Nicolas Roche and Dan Martin (for years) before him - is an embarrassment. And with so much money having been wasted on the controversies inside Cycling Ireland over the last couple of years, that lack of funding is now denying generational Irish riders some of the chances they deserve. We have two world class riders in Ryan and Rafferty in the same U23 crop and yet no Irish team is destined for Tour de l'Avenir this year, for example. It must be said most of the current officials/board members - and the high performance staff - in Cycling Ireland only came into the organisation after the issues of recent years. They cannot be blamed for the sorry state of the bank accounts. It is, however, up to them to remedy the situation. Hopefully, they will be successful and can turn things around quickly. Longer term, Irish cycling could hopefully become even a little less dependent on Sport Ireland for funding as it seems to have precisely zero interest in road cycling. Sport Ireland certainly doesn't want to fund road riders, that's very clear in its criteria. The interim Cycling Ireland CEO, Chris Kitchen, has already set out his hopes - that sections of activity within Irish cycling would be parcelled off into pieces and each sponsored by a different entity. One hopes the U23 and junior road programmes will get the attention they deserve if that plan is successful. Everyone knows the riders' trade teams will do the heavy lifting in fostering their development, but Cycling Ireland still needs to do more for the road riders.
Irish riders not at Baby Giro
While Johannes Staune-Mittet was a deserved winner of the Baby Giro, it was hard to look at the race and see him winning and not think of his Jumbo-Visma Development team mate Archie Ryan. In form, the Irishman could have won this Baby Giro. That's a remarkable statement for an Irish cycling website to be able to make; that we have a second rider in the same year who could have made the final podium, even won, a race like this. While Ryan was kept out of the race through injury, he is back on his bike and we hope to see him in the peloton again soon. He's an incredibly talented rider destined for great things once he can conquer those injury issues. One disappointing feature of the Baby Giro was the absence of Irish riders Dean Harvey and Kevin McCambridge from the Trinity Racing line-up. However, Harvey still has two years left to run at U23 level so hopefully he has a couple of Baby Giro appearances ahead of him. For McCambridge, 2023 is his fourth and final year in the category. He has been going well of late; a top 10 finish on Mount Fuji at the recent Tour of Japan suggesting he is good form. Hopefully he can be at the pointy end in big races in the months ahead. Ronan O'Connor is another we hope to see in the Baby Giro in the next few years. The 19-year-old former Orwell Wheeler is currently based in Italy with Colpack Ballan, a squad that gets an invite to the Baby Giro. O'Connor, a former Irish junior champion on the road, has been quietly going about his business in Italy. He has been in the thick of the action in hard races. Hopefully by the end of this season he will have found his legs even more and can be one those young Irish athletes who really shines in the years ahead. While the Roche-Martin years were very exciting for Irish cycling - and we waited a long time for them - the crop of talent coming through now is much bigger, and includes both male and female riders, which is a first. Mia Griffin, for example, is now riding for a World Tour team, in Israel Premier Tech Roland, while Megan Armitage (Arkéa Pro Cycling Team) looks set this season to become the first Irish woman ever to ride the Tour de France. These are exciting times for the sport in Ireland and, as that potential grows, so too must the support provided to them.
