Fiona Mangan may be known only for her exploits on the road to this point in her career, but now the Limerick woman is broadening her horizons and is set to debut for Ireland on the track.
The former Irish road race and TT champion, Mangan (Winspace Orange Seal) is being brought into the track national team set-up as a likely addition to the team pursuit set-up looking to make it to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Just over a year on from the last Olympic Games, in Paris, where a very familiar line-up of riders represented Ireland, the endurance group is moving on and looks very different. This new Irish squad is likely to be thinned out a little before the Olympic qualification process starts, certainly for the team pursuit.
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And the riders who will form the core of the qualification process, and then gain selection for the Olympics, will emerge from the team now selected for UCI World Track Championships in Santiago, Chile, next month.
The team is comprised of just one of the riders from last year's Olympic selection, namley Lara Gillespie (Team UAE ADQ), who has hit a rich vein of form. She won A Travers les Hauts de France (1.1) last Saturday and followed up the next day with 2nd in La Choralis Fourmies Féminine (1.Pro).
Gillespie also won bronze in the points race at the Worlds last year, her first medal at a Worlds and only the second by an Irishwoman, following Caroline Ryan's bronze medal at the Worlds in Melbourne back in 2012. In February, Gillespie was also crowned European champion in the elimination race, the first senior European title ever won by an Irish cyclist, male or female.
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Also in the team for the Santiago Worlds are: Mangan, Aoife O'Brien (DAS-Hutchinson, Caoimhe O'Brien (Cynisca Cycling), Emma Jeffers (Liv AlUla Jayco) and Erin Creighton (McConvey Cycles), the latter having traveled to the Olympics last year as a reserve rider.
Jeffers has shown very strong form of late, taking a stage win and holding the leader's jersey at the recent Memorial Michela Fanini (2.2) in Italy. Caoimhe O'Brien also took arguably the result of her road racing career recently with 9th at the Maryland Cycling Classic Women (1.1) in the US.
All of the riders bar Mangan have competed for Ireland on the track in the past, though this Worlds will be step up for all, except Gillespie, as she is the only one to have ridden a senior track Worlds before.
Aside from taking on a new challenge in their careers, these riders are now part of a track set-up, compromised exclusively of female riders, who now carry bigger expectations following recent Irish success, on both track and road.
The line-up is comprised of two Tour de France riders, in Gillespie and Mangan. Added to that, the Irish team pursuiters made their first OIympics last year, repeatedly smashing their national record in the process. And Gillespie has become a genuinely big name in both pro road racing and track cycling in recent years.
All of that combines to recalibrate the definition of success of the Irish track team, with bigger things expected of them, and bigger ambitions for themselves. This group is now formed - after Paris Olympians Alice Sharpe and Kelly Murphy have retired from international racing - in plenty of time for a big Olympic qualification campaign.
And, this time, when they get to the Olympics, they will have a major contender for a medal in Gillespie, and aspirations to climb the pecking order in the team pursuit. These Worlds effectively represent the first step on the 2028 journey for a new line-up that can aim much higher than any Irish female riders in the past.
