Ireland leave for Beijing Track World Cup

ninetythree.six

It looks like a youthful enough team, no women are being sent this time !!

Best of luck to the lads.

http://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/2010/0110/ireland.html



The Ireland team left last Thursday morning for their final training camp in Aigle, Switzerland, ahead of next week's fourth and final round of the Track Cycling World Cup in Beijing from 22 - 24 January.

This campaign started back in Manchester in October 2009 and has seen some new faces added to the squad with some of the younger riders progressing into the team.

The team will spend a week preparing at the World Cycling Centre in Aigle and then fly on to Beijing on Sunday.


Some members of the squad are recently back from Australia where no doubt they will have benefited from some warm weather training.

The goal of this World Cup series is to ensure qualification is secured for the upcoming World Championships in Copenhagen at the end of March.

Ireland will be looking to secure qualification for the Team Pursuit squad who are now ranked in the top 20 in the world as well as having participation across multiple individual events.

The Ireland team has recently planned changes in their program for the year to accommodate the recent announced amendments in the Track Olympic Program for London in 2012.

These changes see the addition of several new women's events plus the removal of some of the established men's events.

The Ireland team for the Beijing Track World Cup is:
Aaron Buggle, Matt Brammeier, Stephen Barrett, Marcus Christie, Martyn Irvine and Sean Downey.

The team and event schedule for Beijing is:
Individual Pursuit: Friday 22 January
Marcus Christie
Points Race: Friday 22 January
Sean Downey
Aaron Buggle
Stephen Barrett
Team Pursuit: Saturday 23 January (4 riders from):
Aaron Buggle, Matt Brammeier, Stephen Barrett, Marcus Christie, Martyn Irvine and Sean Downey
Scratch Race: Saturday 23 January
Sean Downey
Aaron Buggle
Matt Brammeier
1K Time Trial: Saturday 23 January
Martyn Irvine

http://www.tissottiming.com/

55x11

Its great cycling ireland have finally put faith in their young guns and got rid of some old deadwood who may not be around for the next olympics. This will be a great learning experience for the squad in the development towards 2012. It would great to be able to get a report from somebody involved with theteam to let us know how they are going in training, anybody have any contacts?

RobFowl

I'll see what I can do, though TBH most of them are very busy this time of year with travel, training and team committements.

Great potential there, a medal in London is well within their reach.

Expect another Irish record in the kilo

Beasty

RobFowl wrote: »

Great potential there, a medal in London is well within their reach.

I presume they do most of their their track training in Manchester and Newport. Do you know if they get to train with the Team GB guys at all (as that's the standard they will need to get to)?

RobFowl

Beasty wrote: »

I presume they do most of their their track training in Manchester and Newport. Do you know if they get to train with the Team GB guys at all (as that's the standard they will need to get to)?

They actually train in Aigle and Ghent most of the time, occasionally on a track in Holland as well. Not much mingling with the GB squad (not CI's choice !) as they tend to keep to themselves,
The aim is to get closer to the GB guys and there is a detailed plan with stepwise targets. In the Team pursuit the Aussies and Brits are a long way ahead of everyone else but we are up with the Belgians, Dutch and Spanish at the moment and getting faster.
The omnium is a new one but IMO Martyn Irvine or Matt Brammier might have a chance there.
We,ve no sprinters yet but the women are coming on well and the Womens team pursuit and omnium are looking promising.

55x11

It would be nice to know what these guys are up to on a day-to-day basis, like the sessions they do and how things are going. The cycling ireland and irish cycling websites don't seem to run many stories on the squad considering that is where the bluck of their money is going to fund. Even websites like track cycling ireland don't even do much to be honest. With the advent of twitter and blogs it would be great to get an insight into life at a training camp or world cup. Also it is great to see some new guys like Aaron Buggle and Stephen Barrett intergreating into the squad really well, also with the young power house Christe and the more experienced guys like Martyn Irvine, all seems to bode really well for the future with nobody on the current squad going to Beijing over the age of 24.

Junior

55x11 wrote: »

Its great cycling ireland have finally put faith in their young guns and got rid of some old deadwood who may not be around for the next olympics.

Which deadwood is that ? Or who in particular were you referring to ?

RobFowl

Junior wrote: »

Which deadwood is that ? Or who in particular were you referring to ?

Don't be cruel !!

FTR DMcC is 36 now, but Juan Llaneras of Spain was 39 when he won Gold at Athens, and Chris Newton was 35 when we won Bronze.
The only criteria that matter at that level are ability and committment.

Beasty

... and Chris Hoy will be 36 by the time of the London Olympics - must be time to cut him adrift from Team GB:)

ninetythree.six

55x11 wrote: »

It would be nice to know what these guys are up to on a day-to-day basis, like the sessions they do and how things are going. The cycling ireland and irish cycling websites don't seem to run many stories on the squad considering that is where the bluck of their money is going to fund. Even websites like track cycling ireland don't even do much to be honest. With the advent of twitter and blogs it would be great to get an insight into life at a training camp or world cup. Also it is great to see some new guys like Aaron Buggle and Stephen Barrett intergreating into the squad really well, also with the young power house Christe and the more experienced guys like Martyn Irvine, all seems to bode really well for the future with nobody on the current squad going to Beijing over the age of 24.

I agree there should be better coverage by the paid staff in CI, surely one of staff who will be at the training camp and the event itself should be able to keep a diary. At the last world cup one of the riders kept a diary on the womens commissions website, it was great.

dave2pvd

OK, so why can't one of the CI members tweet what's happening while they're there?

RobFowl

ninetythree.six wrote: »

I agree there should be better coverage by the paid staff in CI, surely one of staff who will be at the training camp and the event itself should be able to keep a diary. At the last world cup one of the riders kept a diary on the womens commissions website, it was great.

The staff at these meets are extremely busy and multi tasking.
Where GB has a coach, assistant coach, masseur, physio, doctor, 2 mechanics and a manager, CI has a Coach and 1 or 2 others.
Coaching, bike maintanence, accomadation, meals, transport, team talks etc rightly take precidence over tweets

ninetythree.six

What i cant understand is why CI don't do enough PR for the teams they are sending away, these riders and their exploits deserve better coverage and CI members should be kept informed about their performance by CI staff either with the team or back in the office in Dublin.

Beasty

RobFowl wrote: »

The staff at these meets are extremely busy and multi tasking.
Where GB has a coach, assistant coach, masseur, physio, doctor, 2 mechanics and a manager, CI has a Coach and 1 or 2 others.
Coaching, bike maintanence, accomadation, meals, transport, team talks etc rightly take precidence over tweets

GB cycling is funded by UK Sport to the tune of £26.4m over a 4-year period (2009 to 2013). Although this is a £500k cut from the previous funding round, it still allows the team to benefit from a high quality support team

I suspect the Irish team has more limited resources:)