The Irish in Manchester
The newly established Irish track cycling team are heading to Manchester for the
final round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup February 23rd to 25th as part of
their new campaign which targets qualification for the world championships as
part of the plan.
Irish professional David O’Loughlin has already given
Ireland’s track cycling team the best possible start when he produced a
qualifying time of 4 min 32.206 seconds in the men’s 4,000 metres individual
pursuit in Moscow in December to finish in 8th place in the UCI Track Cycling
World Cup race.
O’Loughlin is the first Irish competitor to ride the
four event series as part of the ambitious plan by Cycling Ireland which
includes qualification for the world championships in Palma, Mallorca in March
next year. “It’s a decent start to my international track career,” said
O’Loughlin: “Especially in the middle of winter as I’m not 100% fit at the
moment and there’s lots of room for improvement.”
“It’s very
encouraging,” continued the 28-year-old from Cong, Co Mayo: “I was only about
five seconds off qualifying for the bronze medal ride-off. That’s not so far
away. Prior to Moscow I didn’t do any specific training but I will have more
specific work done before the next world cup in Los Angeles in January. There
are no indoor tracks in Ireland so I will be training at home using the special
trainers that the Australian’s have developed. I will also be able to get over
to the tracks in Belgium and Newport. I have 100 UCI points already from Moscow
and I hope that I can qualify for the world championships in the individual
pursuit.”
O’Loughlin is currently under contract with the US Navigators
team based in New Jersey with compatriot Ciarán Power who is also part of a
larger Irish team scheduled to ride in Los Angeles.
Cycling Ireland’s
High Performance Director Frank Campbell is delighted with the results of the
fledgling project so far. “We are holding another training session in Gent in
January and from there we go straight to Los Angeles. If things go to plan we
would like to have a good run at the men’s team pursuit in Manchester but Los
Angeles could be a bit early for us.”
“Mark Scanlon and Ciarán Power
will be riding the bunch races for us in Los Angeles as well,” continued
Campbell: “They both ride for American teams and they have to be over there for
their early season training camps and early racing. Things are coming on lot
quicker than we could ever have hoped for. The plan is to have a big squad at
Manchester and we would love one of the guys to qualify for the world
championships and that would probably be Davie (O’Loughlin). But we are only two
months along the line and it’s pushing our hopes a little bit far at this
stage.”
“We are also taking Louise Moriarty along to Gent to train with
the lads and ride the pursuit. We also have Jenny Faye on the squad. Jenny rode
the track and the road last year until she was caught in a crash in one of the
world cup races and she is already experienced in both disciplines.”
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