Cousins Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) and Dan Martin (Etixx-Quick Step) have been named as the two riders to represent Ireland at the Road Race at the forthcoming Rio Olympics.
The announcement was made by the Olympic Council of Ireland today with Sharon McCurley’s qualification for the women’s Keirin also being announced.
McCurley became the first ever Irish woman to qualify for Ireland in a track cycling event. She previously won a bronze medal for Ireland in the Scratch Race at the European U23 Track Cycling Championships in Portugal in 2011.
Olympic Council of Ireland Chief Executive and Deputy Chef de Mission for Rio 2016, Stephen Martin, said: “With just under 50 days to go until the start of Rio 2016, the Olympic Council of Ireland continue to work collaboratively with National Federation performance staff and agencies to provide the best possible preparation and planning for Team Ireland athletes.”
Martin is showing very good form this season having taken stage victories at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and the Volta a Catalunya in addition to finishing third overall at both Catalunya and the Critérium du Dauphiné as well as third at La Flèche Wallonne.
Both Roche and Martin represented Ireland at the 2012 Olympics in London with the former also having taken part at the road race at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Roche has also shown good form this season, finishing 2nd overall behind Thomas Voeckler at the Tour de Yorkshire.
The hilly course in Rio is expected suit climbers with the men covering 256.4 kilometres. The course will consist of two different circuit sections with the riders taking on the ‘Grumari Circuit’ three times during the race, which contains the 1.2km, 7% average gradient Grumari climb and the 2.1km climb of Grota Funda which averages 4.5%.
The riders will then take on the second circuit section called the ‘Canoas/Vista Circuit’. On this section, the riders will tackle the Vista Chinesa climb four times which is 8.5 kilometres long at 5.7% average. After they descend for the final time, the riders will then have a 20-kilometre run-in to the finish.
