Commonwealth Games 2022: Team NI announces cycling squad for Birmingham

Eight riders will represent Team NI in the four cycling disciplines at this summer’s Commonwealth Games.

They will compete across Mountain Bike, Time Trial, Road Race and Track at the Games in Birmingham. The cycling events will be split between London and across the West Midlands.

Team NI performance lead Gary McKeegan is hoping the squad is capable of going one better then they did at the Gold Coast in 2018 when a fourth-place finish was achieved. But he accepts some of the events are too difficult to predict.

He said: “The road race is a lottery you have a big field of maybe 120 or 150 upwards in that event so it is always difficult to predict how it is going to go but last time in Gold Coast we had a fourth place, and we had another rider close to that. So hopefully we will be quite close to that.

“And with the squad we have in the men’s race particularly we should have a really strong squad to get a rider up in that top eight or even better. But it really depends on how some of the other nations ride whether the race stays together or splits on the day and the weather comes into that.

“We have a good mix. We have Dan Rafferty who is 18 and is an up and coming rider, we have Matty Taggart and Chris McGlinchey who are more experienced.

“This will be Cameron Orr’s second Games, it will be Lydia Boylan’s third games. She did Glasgow, Gold Coast and now Birmingham, so we have quite a mix and hopefully that experience will filter down through to those younger riders and we’ll hope to build on that at these games and subsequent games.

“There were hard decisions on the squad because not only do we need to get the riders that are the strongest in their own right in their own discipline but also those that can support others. So the likes of the road race there is no point in having maybe having one strong rider in the road race when you are in against teams of four or five athletes so you need to build a team around that.

“We are looking for athletes that can be competitive in their own discipline but to come together and be competitive in other disciplines. We have people that are going to ride track but come back and perform in the road race and the same with mountain bike and time trial will then come in and ride the road race and come together to form a really strong team that will help us to potential medal in the road race.

“Alice Sharpe is going for the track events first of all and then she will transfer over to do the road race. It was a great result for her (winning Irish National Championship) and a bit of justification for her inclusion.

“She has other competitions later in the year but she has prioritised Commonwealth Games above those and we are very thankful for her doing that and we will support her to make sure she gets the best result in the road race after her result in the nationals at the weekend.”

Team NI Cycling Squad

1. Lydia Boylan
2. Chris McGlinchey
3. JB Murphy
4. Cameron Orr
5. Joanna Patterson
6. Darren Rafferty
7. Matthew Taggart
8. Alice Sharpe

Sign up to our free sports newsletter to get the latest headlines to your inbox.