By Shane Stokes
Following on from strong showings earlier this year plus some very solid performances at the UCI World Championships in Scotland, Lara Gillespie has confirmed a big show of confidence in her with the news that she will be riding with the UAE Team ADQ World Tour squad for a number of races in coming months.
She has spoken to stickybottle, setting out her European road racing schedule for the next few months with the team, reflecting on an up and down - "chaotic" - World Championships and also discussing the future, into next year and beyond.
The Wicklow rider is part of UAE Development Team, and will remain on its books for the rest of the year. But she will step up to the higher-level squad for several races between now and October, a reflection of her strong progress and potential.
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“I have all road races planned [out], obviously, because that is the end of the track season now until next year,” Gillespie told Stickybottle in recent days. “All my races until the end of the season in the first week of October are with the WorldTour team, which is really cool. I am really happy to be stepping up with them a lot more. It will be good.”
UAE Team ADQ press officer Giorgio Torre outlined her programme to Stickybottle on Friday. “Lara will race with the WorldTour UAE Team ADQ tomorrow at GP Oetingen, will do the Tour de l’Ardeche from 5-11 September and the Chimay Binche pour Dames on 3 October.”
Having signed for the team prior to this season, Gillespie’s racing for the UAE Development Team has been on a reduced basis thus far. Her priority until now was track racing in order to try to secure Olympic qualification and, because of that, the number of road races she competed in was limited.
However she made a strong impression, netting second in her very first race of the season with the team. She was runner-up in the 1.2-ranked Poreč Trophy Ladies in March, then in May was second in the GP Eco-Struct/Thompson/Security Tools behind former world road race champion Amalie Dideriksen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team).
The results were highly impressive, not least because she is just 22. Her class has long been apparent, with a European junior points race victory in 2018, as well as five silver medals as a junior and under 23.
In July she clocked up European titles in the points race and Omnium, weeks after winning the national road race championships, and is clearly one of the new wave of talented riders in the sport.
Reflecting on the World Championships
Prior to looking forward to the road programme, Stickybottle asked Gillespie to assess the world championships campaign. She was part of the Irish squad which finished ninth in the team pursuit, then finished 12th in the Madison with Alice Sharpe, a race in which both riders crashed.
Two days later Gillespie competed in the Omnium, riding confidently and aggressively to place ninth against some very strong opposition. She was encouraged by that and sees promising signs, but also has some mixed feelings about the other track events.
“This year’s worlds was a huge step forward for me, to be honest. Particularly the Omnium event,” she said. “The other events I found were a little bit disappointing. We had a good prep coming into it and I just feel that we didn’t get our best out.
“However in the Omnium I was really, really happy to build my confidence and step up racing against the best in the world. It was my first time racing the omnium at Elite worlds, and [it was good to] feel confident in that group and being able to race aggressively and assertively and powerfully.”
Gillespie said in the run up to the road race that her energy was still low as a result of her crash in the Madison plus the concentrated block of racing in the Omnium. Her sleep was also affected, but she hoped to be in strong form for Sunday’s road race.
On the day she was affected by feelings of sickness during the race, including a bad earache and headache, and also had problems with her gears towards the end of race.
She ended up a respectable 68th out of 203 starters in the combined Elite/Under 23 event, 14 minutes 49 seconds behind the winner Lotte Kopecky. In terms of the under 23 classification, she was a very solid 14th out of 57 starters.
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Looking at the championships as a whole, she believes that it will really stand to her in the long term.
“I think this Worlds has just been a lot of ups and downs and will really help me going forward, to be honest,” she said. “It wasn’t the same way that everything went right at under 23 Euros, like my health and where I physically just felt super, super strong and everything was kind of in my control.
“Whereas at this worlds there have just been a lot of chaotic things going on. Being able to deal with that emotionally and physically has been a learning curve and nothing has come easy. So I am happy with how I dealt with everything so far.
“I think in the future things always will go right eventually and everything will fall into place, so I am just kind of trusting that process for the track, and also for the road.”
Limited World Tour team exposure until now
Gillespie now knuckles down to competing with the WorldTour team for the remainder of the season. She has already made a strong impression with team management this year and was offered rides with the WorldTour squad on several occasions.
She has taken the team up on that offer just once, riding the 1.1 Trofee Maarten Wynants in Belgium in May.
Speaking to Stickybottle in June, she explained the need to balance road and track, and how this impacted on her taking up those offers.
“I had been asked a few times previously. But it’s just with track commitments, I’ve had to say no to a lot of those opportunities, unfortunately. The Olympics for track is the priority right now. So maybe after that, the priority will change. But they are really good with trying to develop me and offer lots of opportunities. So it's more about picking and choosing the right ones that suit me.”
With her track commitments now over for the coming months she is able to focus fully on road and showing what she can do. That journey begins with Saturday’s GP Oetingen in Belgium, after which she is planning a quick reset after an intensive block of training and then racing at the worlds.
“I am really looking forward to going home now, to be honest,” she said. “I have been on the road for seven weeks with my suitcase and my bike and sleeping on floors and all the rest. So I’m excited to reset at home and then go again.
“I am doing the Tour of Ardeche with the WorldTour team, which will be super hard. And then I have Europeans [road race championships], hopefully I will get selected for that in mid-September. And that has an under 23 event separate from the Elite.
“To be honest, that is a huge goal for me going forward. I am really looking forward to getting road legs back and build for that again.”
Effectively, Gillespie now has several opportunities to capitalise on her strong form and to collect some solid road results.
Asked if good performances in the coming races could see Gillespie offered a contract with the WorldTour team, Torre said that things still needed to be decided.
“For the future nothing is defined yet,” he said. “For sure these races will be a good test for her to earn a possible promotion.”
However it remains to be seen if Gillespie would jump at such an opportunity. She told Stickbottle in June that there were advantages to holding off on joining the WorldTour team for now.
“Right now, I’m very happy with how the devo team is working because of my track commitments. It does really complement the [track] World Cups and all this. And next year is going to be a bit more intense, obviously with the Olympics. So I might leave that goal for another year. But it could be an option, for sure.”
Landing good results in the weeks ahead will only help in having that option on the table.
