Introducing Emer Heverin | Ireland’s newest elite champion at 16-years-old | Sticky Bottle

Emer Heverin leads the breakaway - in the order their finished - from Aine Doherty, Linda Kelly and Erin Creighton (Photo: Toby Watson)

It’s easy to find the similarities between world and European track champion Lara Gillespie and Emer Heverin from Belfast. On Sunday, in lashing rain in Dublin 16-year-old Heverin took an impressive victory in the elite National Criterium Championships.

Eight years ago, then a fresh-faced 16-year-old, Gillespie similarly announced herself by winning the elite race at the National Cyclocross Championships.

Gillespie, like Heverin, was a star youth rider before that first big win as a first-year junior, and the same came be said of Gillespie.

And while Wicklow’s Gillespie has since become a star of road and track, Heverin is just embarking on her journey in the sport and she doesn’t know where it will take her. But the early signs are good.

From Carryduff in Belfast, Heverin is currently a pupil at Our Lady and St Patrick’s College in Belfast, and said combining her cycling with her studies is “not too bad”.

“My exams are spread out so I only have two each week when I’m off. So I’m able to train and do school work.”

Heverin has raced since she was an U6 rider, lining out initially for Glenn Kinning’s club, Kinning Cycles. She followed her father, Gerry, into the sport.

Heverin at the European Youth Summer Olympic Festival in Kumanovo, North Macedonia last summer, when she placed 7th in the TT (Photo: Tyler Miller-Sportsfile)

Dad rode the Junior Tour of Ireland in 1991 and then won races as a senior, though his progress was slowed after being hit by a car, breaking his leg, when he was 20-years-old.

Then the travel bug hit him so be took around the world, leaving the bike behind, before getting back into racing later. He is well known, especially in Ulster cycling, and organisers trips abroad for cycling, and to watch pro races including La Flèche Wallonne (1.UWT).

Early success in Ireland

Heverin won her first national title as an U12 when she claimed the Irish road race crown – the only title on offer that year as the championships were scaled back due to Covid.

Between that season and last year she won almost very national title on the road – TT, criterium and road race each season – and has also picked up titles in cyclocross, MTB and on the track.

Last season, as an U16, she won all three titles at the youth road champs, including the road race by around seven minutes. She rode for Aidan Crowley’s VeloRevolution team for the last two seasons.

During that time she was 3^rd on GC at the Youth Tour of Scotland and won the overall at the North East Youth Tour.

On the way to the Irish title in the U16 race at the National Cyclocross Championships in Co Galway last year (Photo: Sean Rowe)

Despite that dizzying list of results, she combined her cycling with GAA and netball until last year, when her focus was on cycling on in the build up to the Youth Olympics.

Her very successful period as a youth rider saw her secure a place at the Irish team for the European Youth Olympics in North Macedonia last year, placing 7th in the TT. She has since landed a place with British junior team CAMS Majaco, a feeder team for Ineos Grenadiers.

Big Win | National Criterium Champs

She won Sunday’s race in the docklands area of Dublin from defending champion Aine Doherty (Dan Morrissey-Pissei), whose team mate Linda Kelly took bronze. Erin Creighton (McConvey Cycles) was also in the four-rider group that went to the line but had to be happy with 4th on the day.

“I wasn’t really expecting it,” Heverin told stickybottle as she went through her warn-down routine in the minutes after winning big.

Though the attritional course – six corners on a 980m circuit, all in the rain – trimmed the front group back to just four before the halfway point, Heverin said he was unaware of the damage behind her for a long time.

“I was just trying to stay at the front and out of trouble, so I didn’t really know how may people were behind me. I was just trying to keep in the top three or four the whole race.

“When I looked behind me about 20 minutes into it (I realised it was down to four), or maybe it was when I couldn’t hear so many brakes behind me.”

Emer Heverin has emulated Lara Gillespie in winning her first senior Irish title aged just 16 years (Photo: Toby Watson)

Team mates Doherty and Kelly played a clever game from the start, letting gaps open between them and forcing the others to do the chasing. And when the race at the front came down to four, they took turns to attack.

But Heverin said that tactic was not as effective as it might have been, due to just how technical the course was and the rain.

“It wasn’t so bad because of the corners, they were slippy so you could only go so fast around them,” she said.

“Definitely around the back bit of the course, with the cobbles, it was quite hard. it was very slippy.

“But I realised eventually it was actually easier if you didn’t pull your brakes because the wheel was starting to slide a bit the first few laps. I had a bit of a go (in the final), but obviously, because of the corners, you’d to pull your brakes so you couldn’t really get too far.

What was she thinking as the final laps ticked down and the big finish approached?

“I didn’t really know what was going to happen. I was trying to stay away from the back,” she said. “I was second wheel coming around the last corner, Aine was in front of me. Then she went and I just went around her.

As she drew level with Doherty and then she began to draw clear, was she thinking about the elite Irish crown she was about to take?

“Yeah,” she laughed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.. ‘just get to the line’. I’m very happy but I haven’t really thought about it yet.”

So what’s next?

“I’m racing Flanders next Sunday and then I have exams for a few weeks, GCSEs, and then the Nationals at the end of June, we’ll see how it all goes.”