Brian Ahern winning the Junior Tour in 1999 and while the previous year's winner Mark Scanlon went on to a junior world title and later the Tour de France, Brian has ridden his career in Ireland but also represented his country.
On the day the best juniors in the country line out against each other and the foreign invaders at the start of the Junior Tour in Co Clare, former race winner Brian Ahern looks back on his triumph. He reminds us of the rich heritage of the race and encourages those taking to the start this evening to dream big because in cycling anything can happen.
The Junior Tour of Ireland is an awesome race. In 1998 I was a first year junior but a dislocated shoulder meant that I missed the race.
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I watched the final stage criterium around Mount Street in Dublin city centre and looked on in awe as Mark Scanlon outclassed Bradley Wiggins of the GB team.
Wiggins and his team-mate Yanto Barker had made a brave attempt to wrestle the yellow jersey off Scanlon’s shoulders but the Sligo rider was a different class and eventually won the stage solo almost lapping the bunch.
The following October Mark Scanlon won the world Junior RR Championships in Valkenburg, Holland.
In 1999 the race lost its sponsor and there was a doubt over the event. A group of key people in Irish cycling including Alice and Harry Sherratt, Philip Cassidy and a few more recognised the significance of the event and managed to organise the race on a shoestring budget and so kept it going.
At the end of the week I had the honour of being on the top step of the podium, winning my first ever stage race. That remains one of my most treasured memories. I have no shame in admitting the fact I’m probably the worst ever winner of the race!
The list of riders who have ridden the Junior Tour is a who’s who of superstars; Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish, David Millar, Philip Deignan, Robert Gesink, Ian Stannard, Geraint Thomas, Nicolas Roche and Daniel Martin to name but a few.
The crazy thing is, not too many on that list actually won the race.
For many of the riders starting this year’s race this evening it will be the first time they will ride as part of a team having been selected for a national team, provincial selection. They may be part of a composite team.
It may be the first time a rider will fetch bottles for a team leader.
It may be the first time a rider has to sacrifice himself, waiting for a team leader who had bad luck, riding on the front to bring back a breakaway or giving the team sprinter a lead-out for a finish. The pros on the telly make all of these things look easy.
It’s the first time many of these young men will experience what stage racing is all about. It may all look like glitz and glamour on TV but to get there you need to suffer the pain, the suffering, the sacrifice and the emotion.
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Some riders will thrive on the experience and want to take cycling further, travel to Europe and experience Continental racing.
Other guys may well realise what cycling is all about and think to themselves that there must be an easier way to make a living.
There’s no doubt that some of the riders in Ennis this week will end up in the professional peloton. And in years to come we will be watching their careers unfold on Eurosport as they develop into Grand Tour or Classics riders.
Competitors in this week’s race may look back and remember the time they beat “that fella” on stage 4 or they were in the break “that guy” on stage 5.
In some ways, the average Irish Junior will be like a county rider on the Rás.
They may feel out of their depth but if the fact is, that you just never know what you can achieve and you may be able to raise your game to another level. International racing is just a bit different!
You may put in the performance of a lifetime and by some bizarre fluke you could take a stage. Stranger things have happened.
Watching the opening stages in this week’s Tour de France should be all the proof you need that cycling can be a strange sport where mad things can happen so dream big and believe in yourself - anything is possible.
Cycling is an awesome sport and the Junior Tour of Ireland is an absolutely awesome race.
Best of luck to all the riders - enjoy every minute of it and give it socks.
Brian
Brian is still racing; seen here in last year's An Post Rás in the hills of Donegal.
