Cycling Ireland is cutting the schedule of races the Irish U23 road team will ride this year and does not plan to take a national team to Tour de l'Avenir. This is despite Archie Ryan finishing 4th in the event last year and being expected to go to the 2023 edition as a pre-race favourite.
Stickybottle understands the U23 programme has been cut to just three races for 2023 and that some personnel, including U23 road team manager Martyn Irvine, have not been rehired this year. Irvine, a former world champion on the track, was regarded as a key figure to the U23 group's success last year. The decision not to renew his contract will be very unpopular.
However, the decision to scale back the schedule of races the U23s will ride this year is of most concern. It will be seen as proof Cycling Ireland cannot fund the development of our best young talent, even when it has world class U23 riders at its disposal. Both Ryan (Jumbo Visa Development) and Darren Rafferty (Hagens Berman Axeon) have already won major international races, while some of our other U23s have developed rapidly over the last 12 months.
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The decision to so significantly scale back the U23 programme, at a time when it should be expanding based on last year's results, is a major blow for the U23 rider group.
Those in the last season or two of their four-year U23 tenure have already seen significant opportunities lost because the pandemic forced the cancellation of so many U23 international races in 2020 and 2021. At other times, Irish teams did not travel to the events that were promoted because of the uncertainty around international travel during the pandemic period.
While the U23 riders took in a series of stage races in the build up to Tour de l'Avenir in 2022, there will be no such programme this year because funding constraints within the national governing body have forced cutbacks.
Cycling Ireland is currently facing major challenges after a spike in expenditure on consultants' and lawyers' fees and other related expenditures - expected to run close to €1 million - following a period of controversy in 2021 and last year. Now the inability to send a team to Tour de l'Avenir this year brings into focus the true extent, and implications, of the funding problems.
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In the year ahead, an Irish U23 team will be selected for Rás Tailteann, the European Road Championships and the World Road Championships. No other races are planned at present. Barring an unexpected injection of cash those three races will be the extent of the U23 programme this year.
However, stickybottle understands Cycling Ireland still has some avenues to explore in terms of securing more funding, though it appears the main sources have already been explored and exhausted. Last month a group of U23s was taken on a training camp to Spain by Cycling Ireland. The riders will be hoping that camp is evidence of a willingness on the part of the national governing body to provide more for them if additional funding could be secured.
Though Irvine's contract has not been renewed, Cycling Ireland was expected to ask him to be involved with the U23 teams selected for the three races on the programme, meaning he will at least have some involvement this year, if he is available.
While Cycling Ireland, including the high performance programme, is currently financially constrained, the qualification process for the Olympics and Paralympics is fast-approaching. That means the demand being placed on resources - to help qualify riders for Paris 2024 - is increasing at a time when funding is under pressure.
News that the U23 programme has been cut to just three races follows a decision last year to opt out of the World Road Championships in Wollongong, Australia. On that occasion, some of our top road riders did not want to go to the Worlds. Cycling Ireland said at the time the cost of sending a team such a distance, at a time when the cost of everything was increasing, was a major factor in the decision to skip the Worlds.
More recently, while an Irish team was not selected for the cyclocross Europeans in November, a number of U23 and junior riders were selected for the recent UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Benidorm. Furthermore, a team of junior and U23 riders has been selected for the cyclocross Worlds in the Netherlands the weekend after next. The teams for Benidorm and the Worlds - which are the responsibility of the Cycling Ireland Off-Road Commission, rather than the high performance unit - were selected on the basis the trips would be part-funded by the riders.
More to come.
