To the casual observer, Lara Gillespie (22) is one of those athletes enjoying success after success - with a champion's physiology and the carefree manner to match. First - way back in 2017 - it was silver in the TT at the European Youth Olympics. That apparently effortless result - the first glimpse at her engine - came just months after joining Orwell Wheelers after mistakenly thinking it was a mountain bike club. She had to be shown how to use clip-in pedals.
Then into the junior years and the serious results poured in - five medals, including points race gold, at the track Europeans and an individual pursuit bronze at the Worlds. There have also been two national elite cyclocross titles - when she was just 16 and 17 years - not to mention two junior Irish road crowns, two elite Irish road race titles and, just a couple of weeks ago, two U23 European track titles.
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But Gillespie's life hasn't always been the bullet train to the podium that her palmares suggest. In this in-depth interview ahead of the World Championships in Glasgow she says a sometimes bumpy home life when she was younger has proven her sword and her shield. It has helped her ground herself and cope with challenges that might get the better of other riders - "I don't let little things ruin my energy". And, more recently, two years marred with illness and injury saw real doubts creep in. As she struggled to get well again her competitors were off racing and training, progressing with every week as Gillespie "wondered if I would ever get back".
Her issues began in October 2020, just after she won the road race at the National Road Championships in Co Limerick. She began suffering the ill effects of a rare abdominal condition and while she eventually underwent surgery, it took a long time for medics to identify the problem. She raced again in 2021, winning gold in the team pursuit and bronze in the omnium, at the St Petersburg World Cup in July of that year. The following month, she claimed silver in the individual pursuit at the U23 Europeans. But she then had to abandon plans to ride further races at those championships when her old condition surfaced again.
Since then she has been hit with a range of problems - Covid-19, glandular fever and a hamstring issue. Thankfully, late last year she was clearly back on track, with two stage wins at Rás na mBan. And for months now she has felt fully back to normal; able to take on, and truly absorb, a full schedule of track and road racing; and winning in both disciplines. As well as her two golds at the recent U23 Europeans on the track she has been riding on the road for UAE Development Team. She won the Schellebelle pro criterium in the Belgium in the middle of June as well as the road race at the National Road Championships two weeks later.
On the eve of the UCI World Championships in Glasgow - where she will ride both track and road - she exudes the quiet confidence of a woman who has rediscovered her powers. She doesn't know if she can take a medal in the U23 road race in Glasgow, but she doesn't find it unusual that someone would suggest it.
In the longer term, the Paris Olympics are clearly a big goal and she is part of the Ireland team pursuit line-up trying to qualify. She says she'd also love to give professional road racing her full effort - hopefully soon - having taken her first assured steps into the European pro peloton in recent months.
Toughing it out
When forced out of competition, and even training, for long periods since late 2020, Gillespie said she tried to immerse herself in the outdoors. She also had college, which she was finishing up at the time, to distract her; something she was very grateful for, though ultimately it was was a difficult time over a very long period.
"To be honest, there were times when I didn't think I would be able to get back to the same level," she said. "Whenever you are out, and every athlete experience is it... it just feels like forever. And you don't know how you're going to make up all that time - that everyone else who isn't injured doesn't have to make up. So it was tough."
She dug in mentally and tried to maintain a positive energy around herself - an approach to life for Gillespie rather than simply a mechanism to deploy for her cycling.
"I always try to find the positives," she confirms. "Growing up, my family and my childhood wasn't always smooth sailing. So I taught myself from a young age to find the positives in hard times or in stressful times. I think I was able to cope with that quite well and I guess now I just don't take anything for granted. And every day is a blessing and every race, feeling that pressure... I just don't take that for granted.
"I generally don't let little things ruin my energy. For example in the omnium last week (at the U23 Europeans) I did a shocker of a scratch race, I came tenth. And I'd just won the previous race so I knew I wasn't 10th best. I was so angry and disappointed... I shouldn't have left that happen but at least when bad things happen I feel like I am able to realign myself."
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While her two European U23 titles in Portugal - in the omnium and the points race - appeared to bring a formal end to her challenging period, her troubles were long behind her before she went to those championships. She was part of the team pursuit selection for Ireland at the elite Europeans in Switzerland in February and at the World Cup in Jakarta two weeks later, the team placing 5th at both meetings.
The 22-year-old then made her debut in the pro peloton in early March, immediately being backed as designated leader by UAE Development Team and placing 2nd in Porec Trophy Ladies in Croatia. Since then, on the road, she has been 2nd in GP Eco-Struct (1.1) and 6th in ZLM Omloop der Kempen Ladies (1.2). She has also won the Schellebelle criterium and the Irish road race title.
"I've been able to properly race hard and recover and I think the road really helped me to develop that proper base and foundation I needed to get back after two years of not having a base," she said, saying she has felt completely well and strong since about April. While her European title wins were confirmation of her return to form, that was no surprise. She sees those two European titles as "taking these steps and they are all steps to go higher and higher".
Next goals
Gillespie is a Sport Ireland carded athlete - a rider being funded for her track abilities and with the Olympics in mind. The route to qualification is via the team pursuit. The Irish need to be in the top 10 in the world to get to Paris and are currently 9th. More immediately, the Worlds in Glasgow are the next goal.
She rides the combined elite-U23 road race on a team that includes Alice Sharpe and Megan Armitage. Gillespie will also ride the track; madison, team pursuit and omnium. She doesn't know if she could podium in the U23 category in the road race. The event is complicated, she said, because some of the U23 riders will be working for the elite leaders on their team. At the same time, many of the U23s are World Tour riders and Gillespie is yet to ride a World Tour race.
Whether the course will suit her is also not clear to her yet. However, she said the team would sit down with manager Barry Monaghan and work out the plan of attack, which Gillespie would then stick to. And what about the track in Glasgow?
"Realistically it's going to be the highest level omnium ever, probably, because it's the closest one with everyone before Paris," she said of the best riders gearing up for the Olympics already. "So I'm up against Lotte Kopecky and Katie Archibald and all the names. I have to get into the mindset where I feel comfortable in that group - competitive and confident racing them. I do feel like I can be up there, but I need more steps. At the moment I've only had one World Cup this year to learn the process of an elite omnium.
"I'm taking steps forward but I think a podium is a very high reach. And right now it's more about process goals with me, and feeling confident... racing confidently in that bunch and taking it on with aggression in the same way that I was in the under-23s, where I can be attacking and not just holding back. So that's more my goal, rather than saying I want to beat X, Y and Z."
She said she watched the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift every day and the performance of Kopecky - "she's a tank" - underlined how many riders in the peloton confounded expectations and refused to be pigeon-holed as athletes. Overall, she found many of the Tour riders "really inspirational". She was very interested in giving pro road racing a full-time effort, saying her road racing this year with her new trade team had only whetted her appetite.
"I loved it to be honest with you, I kind of surprised myself," she said. "That was my first time racing abroad really on the road. And what I kind of felt like in every race was, like, meditative... I was in such a good flow and always at the front, in the front loop, feeling really comfortable and feeling really confident.
"I just do feel comfortable in that group, in that racing environment. But I think what also really helped was I came into the environment of the UAE Development group and they all just immediately believed in me. I didn't have to prove anything. I think from my junior track results a lot of the Italians (team managers) had seen me racing against a lot of their riders. I just had that quiet confidence in myself where I didn't let things overwhelm me."
And what of her future in the pro peloton - perhaps alongside continued track commitments- in the next few years? "That's something I'm still figuring out and there will be discussions after the Worlds with various groups of people."
