Greg Swinand believes more opportunities should be afforded to domestic riders - but with clear objectives.
Until recent years, elite riders competing on the home scene had many chances to represent their country, even if the World Championships and Olympics were understandably the preserve of our pros.
Home based road racers had the chance to ride for Ireland at races in the UK and in the Rás. But those teams simply are not selected any more.
The absence of aiming for international caps detracts greatly from domestic cycling. Cycling Ireland can point to funding shortfalls as the reason why these teams aren’t selected to travel any more.
We’ve asked a number of prominent cycling figures whether elite Irish teams drawn from the home scene could be funded by clubs or even the riders themselves, as they were in previous decades.
Advertisement
In this latest dispatch on the issue; Olympian, top Irish road rider and multi national road, TT and track champion Greg Swinand outlines his views.
By Brian Canty
Greg Swinand believes Irish teams should be picked from the domestic road scene to compete abroad, but says clear criteria for selection and objectives for the team should be set down.
In essence, he says the riders need to be good enough and they need to be armed with a clear goal going into international duty.
“My view is there is a place for funding Irish teams, but it should be specific to give guys a chance of making it to the next level," he said.
“I’m of the view the riders ought to have more of an idea about what they're trying to achieve with the Irish domestic teams. I can recall Paul Griffin going abroad and doing good things.
"The question for me is; could the likes of him and David McCann have made it to WorldTour if they were given a proper leg up as younger lads here?
Related News
“I think identifying a goal like that; then identifying the races to put them into is the way forward."
He believed Cycling Ireland should fund Irish road teams for an extensive road programme that could take in events in not only the UK but also "France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy or indeed the US".
Swinand's place may sound ambitious, but the Irish track set--up has regularly travelled further afield in recent years; racing in New Zealand and Colombia in recent months, for example.
Swinand isn’t against track racing; indeed he rides track and excels there. But he feels a bit of lateral thinking is required.
“I'm not against the track programme but I think what can happen is you have ‘mission creep’," he says.
"This was the term given (by the Americans) for Vietnam when the mission started to expand beyond the original mission; instead of achieving more, they achieved less."
He questioned Cycling Ireland "trying to lash track-trained guys into road scenes and vice versa", saying it amounted to 'mission creep'.
With the road scene booming at the moment, Swinand believes riders who want to go abroad, should; but with more help from the contacts Cycling Ireland has.
“More liaisons with stagiaire routes in smaller pro teams in France and Belgium is the way forward," he said.
“If people had or have contacts they should be encouraged to come forward; that was done for the French and Italian teams I rode for.
“And those teams all had sort of ‘older brother’ links to pro teams.”
Swinand said while he is not criticising the track set-up, road teams need to be sent away in the away the Irish track team travels widely now (Photo: Ronan O Riain)
Topics
