Cycling Ireland and the High Performance Director part ways:

Cycling Ireland and the High Performance Director, Dr Phil Leigh have today agreed to part ways.
Dr Leigh and Cycling Ireland agreed that the timing was right as he had advanced the High Performance Programme as far as possible in the current conditions. There will now be a refocused effort on development.

Phil joined Cycling Ireland in April 2009 and during his time he has contributed greatly to the establishment of a High Performance Structure that delivered some key results. The full integration of Paracycling activities has provided a solid platform for this group to deliver consistently excellent results over the past number of years. These results include four world championship titles and several other medal winning performances at world track championships, world cup and road events. There has also been a considerable advancement of the High Performance Track teams. Both team pursuit squads setting significantly improved National Records and more recently Ireland secured a first U23 European Track medal.

Phil has built up key relationships with various service providers and commercial supporters that will benefit Cycling Ireland in the years ahead. New internal systems are now in place to ensure that clear pathways exist for the future development of Irish riders. Phil has overseen a sound logistical support over the past couple of years ensuring riders, coaches and volunteer staff can focus on achieving their performance targets. He has also been in the process of setting up a development pathway from youth upwards to enable talented riders achieve their potential.

Speaking of his resignation CEO Geoff Liffey said he and The Board of Cycling Ireland were very grateful for the contributions made by Phil during his time here and wish him well for the future.

VISION STATEMENT
To represent your country is one of the greatest honours in sport, to do so at the Olympics is the ultimate. The Offroad2Rio project seeks to establish a high performance pathway for women’s cross country mountain bike racing in Ireland. It will inspire increased participation & competition in sport, raise the standard of mountain bike racing in Ireland to world level, stimulate ambition and offer a goal for young athletes to aspire to. Our ambition is to establish a team of world class athletes working towards the common goal of Irish Olympic qualification for Rio in 2016.

Offroad2Rio will stimulate an increased focus on elite mountain biking in Ireland. There are 5 years until the Olympics in Rio with qualification beginning in 2014. For the next 3 years the project will focus on rider progression and increasing experience from development through to elite international level, establishing a high performance strategy, and increasing campaign awareness and financial backing.
The project is an athlete driven initiative set up by current Irish riders racing at elite international level without any assistance from Cycling Ireland the national governing body. These riders have shown the commitment and drive to progress from national to international level over the last few years. They have done so without any of the funding or expertise that comes with a high performance programme, and without any opportunity to achieve the honour of representing their country. We believe that with assistance these riders have what it takes to perform alongside the best athletes in the world at the most important sporting event in the world, the Olympics.

Visit the project website for more information: www.offroad2rio.com
Contact: info@offroad2rio.com

Photos courtesy of Maciej Staroniewicz

World Road Championships – Copenhagen (19th – 25th September 2011)
Team Ireland selections:
Following a successful appeal from two riders, the Irish National Team for the World Road Championships has been strengthened by Sean Downey and Siobhan Horgan. Downey will race in the U23 Time Trial while Horgan will race in the Road Race.

We now have 11 riders competing across 7 events next week, with riders competing on each of the 6 days of competition. It will be an exciting and competitive world championship from an Irish perspective, with plenty of opportunity for our riders to perform.

The updated team is:
Junior (M)
Jack Wilson (RR)
Ryan Mullen (RR & TT)

U23 (M)
Sam Bennett (RR)
Philip Lavery (RR)
Felix English (RR & TT)
Sean Downey (TT)

Senior (W)
Siobhan Horgan (RR)

Senior (M)
Daniel Martin (RR)
Nicholas Roche (RR)
Matt Brammeier (TT & RR)
David McCann (TT & RR)

Programme for UCI Road Race World Championships (Copenhagen) 2011

Time Trials:
September 19
10h00-12h00 Junior Women, 13,9 km
13h00-17h30 Under 23 Men, 35,2 km (2×17,6 km)
September 20
09h30-13h15 Junior Men, 27,8 km (2×13,9 km)
14h00-17h10 Elite Women, 27,8 km (2×13,9 km)
September 21
12h30-17h05 Elite Men, 46,4 km (2×23,2 km)

Road Races:
September 23
09h00-12h30 Junior Women, 70 km (5 x 14km)
13h30-17h15 Under 23 Men, 168 km (12 x 14km)
September 24
09h00-12h30 Junior Men, 126 km (9 x 14km)
13h30-17h15 Elite Women´, 140 km (10 x 14km)
September 25
10h00-17h05 Elite Men, 266 km (17 x 14km + 28 km, from start in Copenhagen town centre)
Website for 2011 World RR & TT Championships http://www.copenhagen2011.dk/index.php
ENDS:

Irish Mountain bikers Mel Spath and Cait Elliott recently competed in the final 2 rounds of the World Cup series. First up was Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic, set in a forested area of pretty rolling hills, the race was based around a biathlon stadium which created a great arena and starting area. The course was very similar to racing in Ireland, lots of natural forest singletrack with plenty of roots, twisty corners, kickers and a couple of rocky technical features to keep the cameras happy. However warm weather and lots of steep climbs on rooty trails made for tough racing. A new addition to the World Cup series, the event was extremely well run with an incredible atmosphere and over 20,000 spectators on race day. Mel battled hard to finish 54^th but Cait was unlucky to puncture leaving her unable to finish.

Mel: “The Czech World Cup was amazing! Probably the best ever spectator supported world cup – the cheering was deafening. The course was conditionally and technically very challenging, with lots of steep climbs and rooty descents. It was good fun to ride, but I didn’t have good legs on race day and suffered from the start. The laps were very short and I was pulled, but I can’t say I was too unhappy about that on the day.”

Cait: “I had a good start and was in the top 50s when I slashed my tyre on a rock miles from the tech area. It was my first ever dnf and not something I ever want to happen again. The course and atmosphere were amazing making it even more frustrating so I’ll be on a mission to do it justice next year!”

Next up was Val di Sole in Italy where it was even hotter and the climbs even steeper with a mixture of fireroad, grassy meadows and greasy, rocky  singletrack totalling 230m vertical metres over a 4.2km lap! Luckily the climbs were interspersed with flowing alpine singltrack, fast rocky trails and rooty switchback descents so there was still a lot of fun to be had but temperatures of over 35 degrees on race day made things hard work. Mel rode well to finish 54^th again with Cait in 63^rd.

Mel: “After the Czech World Cup we went straight to Val di Sole in Italy for the last world cup round. I absolutely loved the course – a lot of the descents were very “Irish”. It was also a very hard course – probably the most steep and climby world cup of them all and it was very hot (35 degrees). I had a much better race here, really enjoying the course and the racing, and was gutted that I missed the 80% cut-off with only one lap to go. I learned a lot in both world cups, which will really help for getting the preparation right for next year.”

Cait: “I was a bit disappointed to get pulled, I had a good position early on but was really suffering in the heat and began to drop back. The course was a lot of fun and it was a good learning experience, I’ll know what to expect next year”

Irish National Mountain Bike Champions Cait Elliott and Robin Seymour and soon to be Irish citizen Mel Spath raced on the London Olympic Course last weekend.

Three Irish mountain bikers, the male and female Irish National
champions (Robin Seymour and Cait Elliott) and Mel Spath (although
still riding under a German license), had the honour to be invited to
the Olympic Test last weekend in Hadleigh Farm, Essex, an hour east of
London.

The test event was run as a Class 1 mountain biking race on the
Olympic mountain biking course, as a dry run for the London 2012
Olympics. Many countries took the opportunity to send in their Olympic
hopefuls, including both the male and female Beijing Olympic Gold
medalists and many continental and national champions, to inspect the
course, often equipped with GPS devices and head cameras. The course
was open both Friday and Saturday for training, with the race being
run on the Sunday, under Olympic conditions.

The course design made good use of the little height difference in
this naturally flat area, with many tough and steep climbs and very
technical, rocky descents. All Irish riders negotiated the technical
sections comfortably.

5000 spectators and 180 international media lined the spectator
friendly, compact course on a hot and sunny, blue-skied Sunday. The
women were off at 11am with 33 starters and was won by Canadian
Catherine Pendrel in 1:32:04, followed by the US National Champion
Georgia Gould in 2nd and current World Cup Series leader Julie Bresset
(France) in 3rd. First Irish was Mel Spath in 19th place, followed by
Cait in 25th place.

Rider comments:

Mel Spath: "I am happy with my placing under the conditions. A problem
with my rear derailleur meant that I had to cut my training short and
thus didn't have enough time to familiarize myself with the technical
sections on the course before the race. So in the first 3 laps of the
race I made a few mistakes on those sections, losing quite a bit of
time, but I got into a good rhythm for the last 3 laps and by the end
I felt I was riding the course comfortably and strong. It was great to
be able to race in such a high-profile race against world-class
competition and I am confident with how my form is coming along for
the upcoming world cups."

Cait Elliott comments on her race: "The pace was ferocious from the
start and coming off the back of the grid meant much of the first lap
was spent losing time fighting for position. The course was very
tough, especially in the heat, with a lot of steep technical climbs
and little chance to recover but I enjoyed the technical rocky
descents. I rode hard but was a bit disappointed my lap times dropped
off a bit towards the end. The atmosphere and experience were
amazing."

The men's race followed at 2pm and was dominated by Beijing Olympic
gold medalist, Julien Absalon (France), who finished with a gap of
1:20min ahead of Christoph Sauser (Switzerland) in 2nd and a further
26secs ahead of Karl Markt (Austria) in 3rd.

3-times Olympian Robin Seymour had to abandon the race due to a
mechanical problem.

All of the Irish riders participated as self-funded privateers,
without external or official funding. There will be no Irish mountain
bikers at the London Olympics, since there has been no Irish mountain
bike team in recent years that would have qualified a place for
Ireland. However, the race gave a good insight for what is to be
expected in Rio 2016 which the riders are targeting for Irish
qualification.

Mel and Cait are also attending the final two rounds of the World Cup
Series in the Czech Republic and Italy in August.

----------------

Pictures attached:
- DSC_0813.JPG: Cait (in green Ireland kit) descending (picture credit
Alan Donnelly - permission granted to use)
- DSC_0952.JPG: Mel (in red skinsuit) descending (picture credit Annie
Bedford - permission granted to use)

Despite making huge leaps in progress in just one year, the funding for the women’s Team Pursuit Squad has been withdrawn. This announcement was made last week following confirmation that the HP funding received a 40% cut.

Congratulations to all the members of the team who represented us well on the World stage, knocking chunks off their time on every outing, before running out of time in gaining adequate qualifying points for the World Championships and Olympic Games.

Hopefully this is a temporary set back and we will hear the High Performance Unit announce an alternative women’s programme of racing to nurture the talent that was evident at at the World Cups and other International Meets over the last year.

Check out the report by Michelle on her recent outing in the UCI Classic in Holland. Kerry born Michelle rides for Dutch team Moving Ladies, and has progressed quickly through the ranks in Ireland since she took up bike racing in 2008.

So it’s been a few weeks since my last race. Since the disaster that was Omloop Het Nieuwsblad I’ve been ramping up the training a bit getting in some miles behind the motorbike and doing some club crits to get some speed in the legs and get used to that change of pace that you need to race.

We also had a team training weekend in Valkenburg where we scouted the route for the Parkhotel Rooding Hills Classic in the ‘Dutch Mountains’ which was held this weekend. It was a brilliant weekend and a welcome break from the flatlands of Stolwijk where I’m based.

Great weather and some ‘friendly’ rivalry up and over pretty much every climb made for some great training. I also got back home for a week which was great and got in two races, the St Patrick’s Day race in Dunboyne and the Des Hanlon Memorial in Carlow.

I scored top points in Carlow for the first round of the Trek Classic League but I might have finished further up the A3 field were it not for the fact that my chain ring bolts decided to run away from home without telling me which left me on the small ring all day…

This coupled with the Het Nieuwsblad brake pad debacle has resulted in a series of nightmares where I am thwarted by countless mechanicals – hmmm.

So on to this weekend and the Parkhotel Rooding Hills Classic. I was definitely looking forward to this one. With Moving Ladies our racing programme includes, as you would expect, a lot of the flat windy races that Holland and Belgium are famous for and not a lot of hilly climbing races for the likes of little old me.

So I basically spend most of the season seeking shelter behind the biggest behind I can find in the peleton. These races are great for building on strength and speed but I like hills.

Our DS Chris had arranged for us to stay in Valkenburg the night before the race which was great as the clocks were due to go back and we were going to lose an hour of sleep – horror of horrors! The race start was for 13.00 so we left the hotel at about 12.15 and rolled down to the sign on about five minutes away.

A bit of a pedal and last run to the loo (always a nightmare) and we were lined up at the start line. Marianne Vos was being interviewed about her new world championship title while I was busy worrying about how I was going to get from the very back to the front of this bunch ASAP before that left hander under the very narrow bridge and onto the first little climb of the day. Linda spotted the AA Drink girls lining up on the right at the back and so we scooted over beside them for a free ride to the front.

So it all started off really well. I was keeping myself in the front 10-15. The race was very calm at the start with everybody waiting for the important climbs. The race starts on a loop of about 20km which we do 3 times. It takes in about three good climbs. The most significant of these is probably the Eyserbosweg which starts at about 9% and maxes at 16%. Just before it you come down a very fast descent in a town followed by two sharp right handers which bring you onto the climb.

The first time down the descent there was a lot of late braking. I grabbed my brakes and locked up the back wheel and managed to hit the wing mirror of a car as I tried to stay upright. All of this meant that I was now quite far back hitting the climb and had to really fight my way back to the front.

I was climbing pretty well though so I managed to stay in the front group. Unfortunately my wobble meant that my nerve on the descents deserted me for the rest of the day. I was wasting energy all the time because the course is pretty much down/up all day.

By the third time up the Eyserbosweg there wasn’t much of a bunch to speak of. Vos was off the front with three or four chasing her and then there was a fast depleting bunch behind.

We split again that third time up the Eyserbosweg. I did my usual thing of starting the climb near the back and I killed myself up it. The crowds were brilliant on all the climbs all day. About ten riders got over the climb first including my team mate Linda and then there was me chasing them – so, so close but in the end I died.

We formed another group of about nine or ten behind with myself and team mate Kirsten trying to encourage a chase which didn’t happen. Next up were some recovery kilometers before we hit a climb which roughly translated means the dead man’s climb!

It’s one of those really steep ones that cruelly pretends to be over about half way up! Then we were through the finish for the first time and on to the final loop which would include two times up the Cauberg and two other climbs in the final 20 odd kilometers.

The Cauberg is a funny climb. It’s not very steep or very long but there is something about it that just hurts. At this stage we, as a group, had kind of made our peace, for the time being anyway, with where we were now and opportunities lost and as a result some dropped riders came back to us – hate that!

The last time up the Cauberg meant about five kilometers to the finish so a few of us went hard off the front and split the group again. There was some more attacking coming in the road most notably from Emma Trott who rode with us last year and is now riding for Nederland Bloeit.

I crossed the line 26th. Not bad but a bit disappointed not to have made the group with Linda as I felt I was climbing well. I need to work on my confidence when descending. Next up for Moving Ladies is the Energiewacht Tour 7th-10th of April. Things to look forward to include wind, road furniture and first race with team-mate and newly crowned team pursuit world champion, Laura Trott.

Caroline Ryan put in  a strong performance to get 9th overall in the women’s individual pursuit at the World Track Cycling Championships today. Report HERE

This Friday Caroline Ryan will be competing in the Women’s Individual Pursuit at the World Championships, an event in which she marginally missed out on  a bronze medal at the World Cup in Cali last December.

Apeldoorn, Holland

23-27 March 2011

IRISH CYCLISTS COMPETE IN THE WORLD TRACK CHAMPIONSHIPS

This weekend two Irish track cyclists, Martyn Irvine and Caroline Ryan, compete in the World Championships in Holland, with their sights set on top performances in the Men’s Omnium and Women’s Individual Pursuit. Both riders will be competing on Friday 25^th March.

The first Irish rider to race is Ryan in the Women’s Individual Pursuit, who will compete on Friday afternoon. The Kildare rider will be looking to build to her medal collection, having narrowly missed out on a bronze medal in the ride off at the World Cup in Cali. The individual pursuit is a 3km time trial, with the rider racing against the clock. The rider has one chance to produce a time fast enough to qualify for a medal “ride off”. The top 4 finishers contest the medals.

Irvine’s Omnium bid kicks off with the Flying lap on Friday. The Omnium is a new event to the Olympic Programme, comprising of 6 events, with points awarded to riders depending on where they finish. Throughout the World Cup Series Irvine has consistently produced top ten results in highly competitive fields, being particularly strong in the individual efforts like the pursuit and 1km time trial. Irvine will be hoping for a good result in the Omnium, as Olympic points achieved in the World Championships are worth more than those achieved in any other event.

The squad have been preparing for the World Championships in Majorca with their coach Andy Sparks. Racing starts on Wednesday 23^rd March and finishes on Sunday 27th

Team:

Men’s Omnium: Martyn Irvine

Women’s Individual Pursuit: Caroline Ryan

Coach: Andy Sparks

Mechanic: Ken Farrar

Physical Therapist: Karen Doyle

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE WORLD TRACK CHAMPIONSHIPS SEE BELOW:

Official Website: http://www.worldchamptrackcycling.com/

Tissot Timing for instant results: http://www.tissottiming.com/

TV Coverage: Eurosport and BBC – check TV listings for times.

In the final round of the track cycling World Cup series in Manchester, the women’s team scored a new National Record of 3.30.3, in a time competititive with the best in the world. Unfortunately in the shuffle for positions the time which was close to getting them 6th place overall, resulted in 8th European Nation, and 15th overall.

The team of Caroline Ryan, Ciara Horne and Jennifer O Reilly have been constantly improving, and the squad is increasing in strength and depth, with top roadie Siobhan Horgan acting as reserve for the weekend, and Sinead Jennings coming back to form  after the birth of her baby Clodagh last December.

In the recent Irish Sports Council funding announcement the endeavours of the squad was rewarded with funding of €36,000 being granted to the team pursuit team, and Caroline Ryan being awarded €12,000 on the back of her individual pursuit silver medal in Cali.

The women’s team pursuit raced on Friday morning, and the race was dominated by the home  GB team of Sarah Storey, Joanna Rowsell and Northern Ireland’s Wendy Houvenagall (Olympic Silver Medallist in the Individual Pursuit). The impressive British team were .2sec off breaking the world record in a time of 3.19.7min.

Over the rest of the weekend Caroline Ryan competed in the scratch race and Jennifer O Reilly competed in the Women’s Omnium. The Omnium is a recent addition to the Olympic Games and is a highly competitive event. It tests the rider over 6 events. In a brave Points qualifier for the event O Reilly made a burst for the finish line with 7 laps to go and hung on for fourth place on the finish line, one crucial point, and more importantly a place in the final. O Reilly finished 19th overall in the omnium, an impressive result for the rider who prioritises team pursuit training over bunch racing.

As for the rest of the team – very impressive riding from Martyn Irvine in the Omnium and Felix English in the Individual Pursuit. Irvine qualified for the Omnium comfortably, and with top results in the Individual Pursuit and Time Trial he finished an overall 9th place. The points race demonstrated the guts and determination of the Irish rider, who just missed out on one of the crucial moves of the day. English in the Individual Pursuit demonstrated his talent, emptying himself on the track and gaining some crucial experience for the young rider in his first year as a senior.

Video on facebook here: Irish Team in Women’s Team Pursuit

excuse the manic shouting from me on the sidelines!

Double Irish National Champion Olivia Dillon is currently on one of America’s top and most exciting professional cycling teams, Peanut Butter & Co. The 2010 Rás na mBan winner has climbed her way up the rankings in cycling and is managed by Olympic Champion Kristen Armstrong. Check out the brilliant video documentary of their team HERE , HERE , HERE and HERE . If you never considered racing… you’ll probably consider it now… looks so exciting!!!