Lara Gillespie riding high again as career regains momentum

It’s a cliche but it applies perfectly to Lara Gillespie: form is temporary, class is permanent. The Enniskerry cyclist had some glittering successes as an underage, junior and under-23 rider, but was then hampered for the best part of two years by illness and injury.

Now, fully clear of those concerns, that early flair has resurfaced. This year has brought a series of strong results, including high placings and new national records in the team pursuit, victories on road and track, and impressive showings against big name competitors.

She’s back, she’s fit, and she’s enjoying it.

“It feels really, really good,” she tells The Irish Times. “I’ve had good consistency. And I’m just happy. I think that helps. I haven’t been too stressed. I got my racing calendar sorted at the beginning of the year, and that’s really helped with going from World Cups to World Cups to championships and then to the road racing events.

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“It’s been really nice, because everyone’s understanding. Everyone trusts that this is the right plan for me right now.”

Gillespie is flat out meeting her track and road commitments. She competes in the velodrome for the Irish national team and is working hard with the squad to qualify for next year’s Olympics in Paris. She is also part of the UAE Development Team, a road-racing outfit aligned to the top-ranked UAE Team ADQ women’s WorldTour squad.

The men’s wing of the team is particularly well known to viewers of cycling; it won the 2020 and 2021 Tours de France with Tadej Pogačar.

Juggling a track and road programme has Gillespie on the road a lot. When she spoke to The Irish Times on Thursday morning she was packing bags to travel to Dungannon for the women’s national road race championship race on Saturday. After that she will head directly to Majorca for a track training camp, then to Portugal for the under-23 European Championships, back to Majorca for another training camp and then to Glasgow for the world championships.

That takes her up to early August, after which she will resume competing with the UAE Emirates team until early October. It’s a schedule that would test the most nomadic of people, but she is in her element.

“I’m not under loads of pressure, which is helping,” she says. “I can’t really complain. I’ve just been getting stronger and stronger, and getting that race experience that I’ve needed, because I’ve missed two whole years. I’m really, really happy with the trajectory that I’m on.”

Early success

Gillespie’s class has long been obvious. Now 22, she showed early promise with silver in the time trial at the 2017 European Youth Olympics. The following year she won European gold (points race) and silver (pursuit). In 2019 she became Ireland’s first ever track medallist at the junior worlds, taking bronze in the individual pursuit. She also clocked up three more silver medals in the Europeans.

That momentum would soon be derailed. Although she took silver in the 2021 Under-23 European Championship individual pursuit, as well as World Cup gold (team pursuit) and bronze (omnium), injury and illness would sideline her for quite some time.

While her health is now back on track and she has clocked up important results in 2023, she feels she hasn’t yet been firing on all cylinders with the Irish track squad.

“This year has still been about getting back,” she said. “I haven’t really felt I’ve been at my best form yet. But when we were in Jakarta [at the Nations Cup in February], I definitely did start to feel myself again in the pursuit. But in the other World Cups, I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent, to be honest. So I think the best is yet to come.”

That feeling that more is in the tank will be encouraging for Ireland’s other team pursuit riders. They have repeatedly lowered their national record, and look to be on course for qualification for Paris 2024.

And so too her road team. On May 6th she competed in what was only her second 1.1 ranked road race, the GP Eco-Struct in Belgium. She was up against far more experienced riders there, including the 2016 world road race champion Amelie Dideriksen.

The race came down to a big sprint. Dideriksen won; Gillespie stunned by finishing second.

“I was really pleased with that,” she says. “Because it just shows that I’m able to be there, and I have the confidence to be there. I’ve raced with Dideriksen on the track a good bit. I was still disappointed not to win, but getting this experience of being in the bunch sprints is helping me so much because I’ve never done it before.”

She went one place better in the Schellebelle kermesse race on June 13th. Six riders were clear until the end of that event, with Gillespie blasting home first ahead of the accomplished Julie De Wilde (Fenix-Deceuninck). It was her first big overseas road win as a senior.

“That was really fun,” she says. “That was my first kermesse ever as well. So that was cool. We got in a breakaway, and I knew to look out for Julie because she had just won a really big race a few days before.”

Gillespie is clearly a driven athlete, but is also someone who is passionate about the sport. She has a role raising awareness about the first-ever fundraising cycle for the Barretstown children’s charity, which takes place between Friday and Sunday.

She’d undoubtedly like to take part but the dates clash with this year’s Irish road race championships. Saturday’s women’s road race is an important goal for her. She’ll be one of the names to watch, but knows that the Irish women’s scene is continually on the up.

“It’s really great,” she says of that improvement. “And it’s so nice when you’re in a big international race with riders that you’ve known for years, like Caoimhe O’Brien and Alice Sharpe. That’s really cool, and the standard is only going to get better.”

Further ahead are this summer’s track targets, and then a stint of races with her road team until October. The UAE team have offered her guest slots with their WorldTour squad on several occasions this year but she has only taken them up on that once.

Right now track takes priority. Paris 2024 is a big goal, and so the road must play second fiddle for now.

But, whether it’s road or track, everything points to a very big future.