A winner from the moment she took up cycling as an U16 rider, 2024 was Lara Gillespie's year. Granted, she had already proven herself with nine medals - three of them gold - at the junior and U23 Europeans and Worlds on the track. But her ascent has continued on much bigger stages over this past year.
She emerges from 2024 an Olympian, a World Tour rider with UAE Team ADQ and a medalist at an elite World Championships, not to mention the victor of four UCI-ranked elite pro road races, including her first stage race win.
The 2025 season will bring another step up and Gillespie told stickybottle that will happen immediately the new campaign begins. it will the first year road racing will be her main focus and she is intent on getting stuck into the biggest events on the roster on the cobbles, bergs and white gravel roads of Belgium, France and Italy.
Advertisement
"The road is my main priority next year, and to develop myself as a road rider," she said. "And I want to see what kind of rider I am because, still to this day, I'm not too sure. I know I can sprint and I know I like the cobbles and I love off-road, that will be forever my favourite discipline."
What we know about her, as a road rider, so far is that she won two stages and the overall at0 Giro Mediterraneo Rosa (2.2) back in April and claimed a brilliant victory at Antwerp Port Epic Ladies (1.1) in May.
Though she went into those races without being team leader "things just happened in the way they did and I then became the leader.
"So even believing in myself, and other people believing in me, was a big process (this year). I kept getting told by coaches and staff… 'it really surprised us that you were able to do that'."
Gillespie added some of the surprise at her performances arose from never having had an extended period on the road to show what she can do as she has been so committed to track.
"Next year we have a really strong and exciting team, and I think I'll be focusing more on the classics and also the UAE Tour at the start of the season, and then the rest of the season is still to be confirmed," she said.
"The classics will tell a lot about what kind of rider I am, who I'm best to support when I am a support rider. And what I should peak more for; whether it's sprint stages in the Tour, or breakaways, or supporting a GC rider in one of the Grand Tours."
When she speaks of "the classics" she is referring to that six-week part of the spring from the end of February that includes races like Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche Donne, Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, Paris Roubaix and others.
Related News
And though her exact schedule is not yet set, those races are the arena that will host Gillespie after she rides UAE Tour in mid February.
"All of those classics are going to be completely new to me," she said of the major races that will come thick and fast. "I can also be supporting my teammates and we can have a lot of success with the team we have.
"And it's about really getting a feel for what would be good for me to prioritise in the future, to focus on and hopefully one day be a leader for."
However, while full of ambition and very much looking forward to the challenge, Gillespie was not getting ahead of herself. She said It would be hard to be selected for some of the biggest races. And though she will also ride track for Ireland, it will be mostly about the road.
"This year was taken up a lot with the track World Cups and we did a big training camp in Australia at the beginning of the year, and then obviously the Olympics in the middle," she said. "My two big goals on the track are Europeans and Worlds next year. I still really want to get medals there.
"And then the rest of it is on the road, but I probably won't be looking at Europeans or Worlds because they're all climbing. So a lot of my goals on the road are before the summer."
Though much of that road racing will involve stepping into the unknown, she sounds like she's ready.
"I think I just have this inner belief that I can do it," she said. "And I'm never surprised, I'm always wanting more, I always think I can do more. So I'm really just learning a lot, making a lot of mistakes, and learning as much as I can.
"A lot of the time, I feel very very strong in the races. In all the races I really wasn't suffering as much as maybe I thought would be normal," she said, adding she also felt like she had the right team and support network to advance.
"I've been really lucky with that, and lucky to have that progression. I never got thrown in at the deep end, struggling to swim. I was very much at a level where I always felt really competitive, a level that I felt 'well, yeah, I can actually win here'.
"I feel confident in the bunch, I feel confident with my skills, moving around and getting to the front and feeling switched on. I really enjoy the races."
- We'll have a second installment of this interview in coming days
