Paltry Irish promotion of Giro a scandal, says Kelly

Irish cycling legend, Vuelta winner and former world No 1, Sean Kelly has described as a “scandal” the lack of promotion by Tourism Ireland of the Giro d’Italia coming to Dublin in May.

He said the publicity dividend that comes with such a big race has already been substantially wasted, warning the country may never get a big race again as a result.

He said while the tourism authorities in the North, which hosts the bulk of the action, have been more proactive, he bemoaned how little publicity there has been about the race’s visit for three stages, kicking off with the team time trial, on Friday, May 9.

He fears with just two months to the race’s visit to Dublin, most people in the city know nothing about it: “I think there’s an awful lot of the opportunity downstream already,” he said.

“We’ve heard almost nothing about it. It’s going to be a long time before we get to host a big stage race again. I think it’s a scandal that Tourism Ireland are not doing something.”

The visit of such a high profile event should bring a two-fold dividend. Firstly, visitors would flock to where the action is unfolding, resulting in an increased spend for local businesses, including hotels.

Secondly, the TV images broadcast to an estimated audience of 775 million people in 165 countries should represent a major sales pitch for Ireland as a cycling and holiday destination.

Dublin-based firm Shade Tree Sport, which helped to introduce race organisers RCS Sport to the Irish interests funding the visit, are trying to use the race’s visit as a platform to resurrect the Tour of Ireland from next year.

However, according to Kelly, not enough is being done to maximise all of those opportunities, despite cycling currently booming across the country.

“It should be promoted more,” he said of the race’s visit here.

“I’m not patting myself on the back, but they should use Dan Martin, Nicolas Roche, Stephen Roche and myself. I think there should be more done with those guys, but there’s nothing being done.”

Meanwhile, Dan Martin gets his 2014 racing season underway today as he lines up as co-leader of the Garmin-SHARP team for the seven-day Tirreno Adriatico stage race in Italy.

Martin is excited to get going as the season is almost two months old but with his big goal the Giro in a little under two months’ time, he said he’s not worried about starting his season later than usual.

“It’s what I wanted and planned for,” he said: “If I started a month ago I’d be flying by now and that would be a little dangerous, with the Giro still eight weeks away. I want to be in top form for that, and not now. But Tirreno is a great race and we’ll take it as it comes. There are some stages that will suit my characteristics but I really won’t know what level I’m at until I start racing.”

Also in the field are fellow Irishmen Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) who will lead his team along with Alberto Contador while Sam Bennett (NetApp-Endura) faces the toughest week of his life and will look to get up there on the flatter sprint stages against the likes of Mark Cavendish (OmegaPharma-Quick Step) and Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol).

Bennett is looking forward to racing against what is a Tour de France quality field. “It’ll be my first time racing 200-kilometre back-to-back stages in a WorldTour level field so I’m keen to see where I’ll be. This is going to be a real test of my mental and physical strength this week but we’ve a strong team dedicated to getting me to the finish to see what I can do.” The race starts today with a 16.9km team time trial and finishes next Tuesday.