Rejuvenated Martyn Irvine lands Aqua Blue contract

Martyn Irvine was heading for the autumn of his career 12 months ago, rounding the bend at 30 years of age and staring down the finishing straight.

The end line would come soon after when he announced he was walking away from cycling with no regrets — but it seems there was one buried deep down. The former king of the track cycling realm suddenly developed a thirst for road racing. Within weeks of the An Post Rás in May he was making enquiries in a bid to fulfil his new dream.

A few thousand kilometres away on the Cote d’Azur on the French Riviera, Cork businessman Rick Delaney was making plans for Ireland’s first ever paid professional cycling team. When word reached Irvine’s hometown of Newtownards, it seemed like some divine intervention had brought them together.

“I put the feelers out in June and then I suppose the initial contact from Aqua Blue Sport was only about a month ago,” he recalled.

Yesterday, the team named four of the 16 riders who will take on the world’s biggest stars and teams in 2017 and among the Irish contingent leading the charge is Irvine, now 31. “I feel very lucky, I suppose with funding I just followed the path to whoever gave me money (over the years) and I was lucky in that I was good at it and I enjoyed doing it. Obviously, the road was compromised a lot because of my track commitments; I’ve always used the track as an excuse to have an average road season. Hopefully this can be different. I’m not too old and by doing this I can make sure I have no regrets when I finally hang up the bike.”

Also in the team are four-time national road race champion Matt Brammeier who will leave Dimension Data for Aqua Blue while another in the line-up is Conor Dunne, a former yellow jersey wearer at the An Post Ras currently racing for JLT-Condor. Norwegian star and former Tour of Ireland and Britain winner Lars Petter Nordhaug, 32, was also announced yesterday and it’s expected the remaining riders will be revealed in the coming weeks.

The staff has a good sprinkling of Irish personnel too with Stephen Barrett (sports scientist and physiologist), Tim Barry (Sport Director) and Dr. Alan Farrell all involved, alongside Delaney.