Cycling chief fears ‘uphill battle’ to earn London medals

IRISH cyclists can win medals at the London 2012 Olympics but Cycling Ireland is facing an uphill battle due to a lack of training facilities, limited financial resources and the carding scheme which funds its high performance athletes, according to High Performance Director, Dr Phil Leigh.

The challenges were outlined yesterday when the Federation launched its ‘High Performance Strategy 2009 – 2012.’

“The problem is not finding the talent but the cost of nurturing and developing that talent. We do that on a shoestring compared to other countries,” Dr Leigh pointed out.

“Our annual budget is €500,000. Compare that to British Cycling who had a staff of 250 and a budget of over €22 million for its target of six medals at the Beijing Olympics.

“We are responding to that reality together with Irish Sports Council who have been tremendously supportive of our efforts.

“We know that we can produce winners and our High Performance Strategy is about being creative in using all of our resources to meet the high costs of having to travel abroad to train and compete at elite level.”

Cycling Ireland’s High Performance Strategy for the London 2012 Olympics is focused on performance rather than participation and it aims to identify and prepare a group of riders across the road, track, MTB, BMX and Paralympic disciplines to improve upon the performances at the Beijing Olympics.

It sets out their procedures for identifying riders for the squad through Talent Identification and Talent Transfer programmes. These riders will be “fast-tracked” into High Performance support through structured Pathway Programmes of coaching and competition The strategy expresses a desire to move away from the existing carding scheme of funding individual athletes to a model of providing funding for a squad of riders across each competition.

Dr Leigh added: “We are not criticising the carding scheme but we would question why Pro-Tour riders who are effectively beyond development seeing that they are on Pro-Tour teams are carded while emerging riders have no direct source of financial support.

“This strategy is about identifying, nurturing and developing talent from grass roots level through to high performance and Olympic level. It is structured so that young cyclists can see a pathway for development and see what is achievable.

“There is no question that the talent exists in Ireland. Our track pursuit team were 4th in the Copenhagen World Cup in February while Sam Bennett was the 2008 European Junior Points Track Champion.

“We won medals at the Paralympic Track World Cup in Manchester this May, pushing Great Britain very close and were within five seconds of a medal in the women’s time trial at the 2009 Para Cycling World Championships in Italy.”

Track racing will continue to be the priority for the High Performance squad and athletes from all disciplines will be provided with year long competition and coaching programmes.

Dr Leigh concluded: “This is about laying the foundations for success. Anything is possible but it goes without saying that the delivery of this strategy through to London 2012 is dependant on continued funding and support from the Irish Sports Council, Sport Northern Ireland, the Paralympic Council of Ireland and the Irish Olympic Council.”