Maeve Gallagher, Lara Gillespie and Lucy O’Donnell were for us the highlight of Ireland’s Worlds campaign in Yorkshire.
It was fantastic to see Cycling
Ireland send a three-rider women’s junior team and even better to see all three
finish the race; a really solid team performance in itself.
Though O’Donnell had ridden the
cyclocross Worlds, she was making her debut at this level on the road and to
finish, especially given the weather and crashes, is something very solid for
her to build on.
Gillespie and Gallagher are more
experienced at this level and it showed this year; both in the front group and
jockeying together for position as the finish approach.
The biggest shame of Yorkshire from
an Irish perspective is that they were both taken out by crashing deep inside
the final kilometre.
Advertisement
It meant they didn’t get the chance
to show what they were truly capable of, which was perhaps top 10. But even in
such a disappointing outcome there were signs of real class.
Gillespie’s rear wheel was broken
after her crash and she simply threw the bike over her shoulder and ran to the
finish.
She was determined to get there and muster the best placing she could out of the brutal hand she was dealt at the finish.
Her instinct to run revealed a
steely competitiveness in a moment that would have seen most riders older and
more experienced than her not react so well. But she got on with it and ran up
the finishing straight.
She has already won medals on the
track at the Europeans and Worlds – six in all over the past two years – and
there is plenty more to come from her.
This is a special athlete and a
special approach needs to be taken to her by Cycling Ireland, as it has been so
far.
For her part, Maeve Gallagher was
uber impressive in Yorkshire and without two major crashes one really does
wonder what she may have done.
She chased back for 10km after a
crash with just over 40km to go and was then taken out again in a crash deep
into the last 500 metres.
But she was back on her feet in an instant and sprinted to the finish, body battered from the falls, just 33 seconds down on the winner.
Related News
Gallagher told stickybottle
afterwards she was disappointed the junior women’s race didn’t get a chance to
ride at least on circuit in Harrogate, saying she would have liked that as it
would have split up the race.
It was really positive to hear those
comments from an Irish female junior rider and one that revealed, without any
arrogance, that she would have relished a bigger test.
This is a great sign for the future
for her. After a world title race she wanted more and she wanted it to be
harder.
One feels these three riders haven’t
even begun to fulfill their potential. But in the absence of a full U23
category on the female scene they now face a big step up and must be supported
through that transition.
They will, however, have the chance to ride an U23 race at the Europeans next year and it would be fantastic to see Cycling Ireland support them by providing European racing opportunities before that.
They had very little international
experience on the road with Ireland in the build up to these World
Championships.
The only international races
Gallagher has ridden in her two years as a junior before these Worlds was the
Worlds last year and the Europeans this year.
She is an international triathlete
and so has had other international racing experience.
But it was a shame not to see her
provided with the chance of riding some junior European stage races this year.
Similarly, Gillespie has only ever
ridden the Worlds and the Europeans on the road for Ireland. However, her
career to date has been as much based on the track as it has on the road.
The next step is surely a full Irish
team at the U23 Europeans with a number of preparation races abroad before that
encounter, not to mention focusing on getting Irish female juniors to the
Europeans and Worlds.
Cycling Ireland now has real
progress in the junior female ranks and it looks like something to be nourished
and built on; this group and some of the others their age going on to the U23
Europeans and more riders coming into the junior category.
These Worlds felt like a big step
forward for the junior women but it will count for little if not sustained. The
momentum must be kept going.
Even a handful of foreign trips a
year in an Irish jersey for our junior and U23 female riders would be a big
step forward.
We’ll have an appraisal of the other categories later.
Topics
