Newtownards cyclist Martyn Irvine, made history earlier this year when he won gold and silver at the 2013 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
The last Irishman to win gold at a Track World Championship was Harry Reynolds “The Balbriggan Flyer” back in 1896 at the ICA Track Cycling World Championships, Copenhagen.
“Harry Reynolds is more famous than I am now!” exclaims Irvine who Informed me that Reynolds was a “good cyclist back in his day” and there’s a race and a road named after him in North County Dublin.
On his success and the extra attention he has been receiving Irvine says: “It’s weird, for the first few weeks it was mad. Lots of interest in me and what I had achieved. Now I’m back to normal, same old. I think in years to come I'll probably see what I’ve done and be proud of it.”
For a country that only has a couple of outdoor cycling tracks and no indoor one, it’s quite remarkable to have a world champion. Irvine says that it was pure luck on his part for getting into track cycling. “Right place, right time. I was in Belgium racing on the road and Cycling Ireland was starting a track programme. I tried out and wasn’t the worst,” says Irvine.
“I just love doing what I do,” says Irvine on what inspires him. That and the love of what he describes as “a raw form of cycling, generally brute force wins. I like getting stuck into racing.”
When an opportunity surfaced recently for Irvine to change events he jumped at it because he preferred certain events more than others. His move proved to be the right one as it resulted in him becoming world champion. However, Irvine says “without the years of the omnium I wouldn’t have done it.”
After his silver medal Irvine was in two minds as to whether or not to race. “I was pretty wrecked and felt average in the pursuit final that’s what made me contemplate not riding. Once I got stuck into racing I just did what I normally do, race hard! It paid off big style.”
Similarly to Kelly and Roche back in the 80s Irvine is now a figurehead that may inspire more cyclists into the sport.
On Irvine’s success and its potential for the sport in Ireland, Chris Boardman, individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics, told The Epoch Times that “success can breed success … it’s a yardstick that everyone can measure themselves against … It makes people believe it is possible which is the real battle where there is a culture used to making up the numbers.”
On maximising the gains for cycling with a world championship success, Boardman noted that individuals success “can only act as a catalyst for more success, if there is desire to make that happen and there is a credible business plan.”
The importance of funding
Cycling at a high level is a full-time occupation. Boardman’s funding in the late 80s early 90s was almost all private sponsorship which all went into his “pursuing the dream”. “Life was little more than subsistence, which was okay for a while but it wasn’t sustainable. You can achieve an awful lot on a small budget if you focus on the need to have activities rather than the want to have.....which having no money makes you do! This is something that I think is sometimes lost in this age of lottery funding,” explained Boardman who added “I never thought of it as difficult, it was just the way it was, I had something I wanted to pursue and looked for solutions not problems to make it work.”
Like Boardman, Irvine has a ‘can do’ attitude. Not having an indoor track in Ireland means travelling abroad just to train, funding is limited compared to that of his competition. “I appreciate every penny I get though. Living on a small budget is the biggest challenge, I’m not gonna say how hard I get it, it’s the same for a lot of people,” explains Irvine.
On the news that the Giro d’Italia will start in Ireland next year, Irvine says it’s so good for Irish cycling. “I'd be silly if I said I didn’t want to ride a grand tour, that would be awesome.”
Now that the Irish team is more high profile I jokingly asked Martyn what he thought of the Ireland cycling kit, he said: “The simpler the better I think, I liked the kit with more green. Maybe more retro.”
