Having previously pinpointed the appointment of a High Performance director as being an important part of building the future of the sport in Ireland, Cycling Ireland announced yesterday that the role would be vacated and not filled again in the near future.
The decision sees Dr Phil Leigh step down from the post after over two years in the role. He has been working in that position since April 2009, having moved to Ireland from Britain to carry it out.
“Dr Leigh and Cycling Ireland agreed that the timing was right as he had advanced the High Performance Programme as far as possible in the current conditions. There will now be a refocused effort on development,” said Cycling Ireland in a statement.
Earlier this year, Cycling Ireland was told by the Irish Sports Council that its High Performance grants would be considerably reduced. This forced a change to some plans and Irish teams. It is thought that this reduction in budget was a large part of the reason for the end of the role within the federation.
According to CEO Geoff Liffey, Cycling Ireland is not currently discussing a replacement nor has any set timeframe to fill the position again. “At present we have committed to doing a full organisation staffing review over the coming weeks,” he told VeloNation. “In the short term the high performance strategies will be about maintaining support for the ParaCycling squad and those who have a realistic chance of qualifying for London. The development restructuring is underway and more details of this will be announced at our AGM on Nov 12th.”
Speaking about the key achievements since Leigh came on board, Cycling Ireland lists the complete integration of Paracycling activities as one big plus, saying that it helped enable the group to deliver what it termed consistently excellent results.
“These results include four world championship titles and several other medal winning performances at world track championships, World Cup and road events,” it stated. “There has also been a considerable advancement of the High Performance Track teams. Both team pursuit squads setting significantly improved National Records and more recently Ireland secured a first U23 European Track medal.”
Thanking Leigh for his work, it also said that he had also helped build a solid development pathway and built important relationships within the sport that will benefit Cycling Ireland in the years ahead. It also credited him with setting up a development pathway from the youth categories upwards; it is expected that this will boost the numbers of riders delivering on their potential.
Leigh’s future projects are not yet known, but he will be moving back to England. He has not yet commented on the developments.
Irish cycling currently features four ProTeam riders, namely Nicolas Roche (Ag2r la Mondiale), Dan Martin (Garmin-Cervélo), Matt Brammeier (HTC Highroad) and Philip Deignan (RadioShack). There are also several promising riders at Continental and under 23 level, including the An Post Grant Thornton M. Donnelly Sean Kelly espoir competitors Sam Bennett and Philip Lavery who, along with 18 year old Felix English and Sean Downey, competed in the Under 23 programme at last week’s world championships.