Cycling Reports

Power’s Struggle

By Gerard Cromwell (Nov 6)

While Ronan Keating may not be playing on Ciaran Power’s headphones as he puts in another six hours of cycling around the damp, cold roads of the South-East this winter, the 25 year can surely empathise with his latest hit, Life Is A Rollercoaster. Having been regarded as the best prospect to emerge from Ireland on a bicycle since his near neighbour and former world number one Sean Kelly, the Waterford man has certainly had his ups and downs since joining the paid ranks, although he refutes this suggestion immediately. “It’s been down, down, all down this year.” he says “It’s just gone from bad to worse really. But it’s over now and it’s time to move on.”

A one-year contract with the ever-improving Linda McCartney team was enough to prove to all and sundry that Power had the potential for greatness. His finish in the world’s second biggest stage race, the three-week Giro D’Italia, showed resilience and determination. The fact the he registered two top five stage placings along the way, despite having to contend with the likes of Mario Cippollini and his well-drilled Saeco team showed a sprinting talent reminiscent of a raw Sean Kelly. By the end of Power’s first year as a professional his McCartney team manager, Sean Yates, had seen enough to offer the youngster a new, improved contract for 2001.

In January of this year, after a month long training camp with the McCartney’s in Australia, Power continued where he left off with a fine third place on a stage of the Tour Down Under. That was about as good as it got for the chirpy Comeragh rider. On arrival in London just a few days after the Tour Down Under for the official team presentation, a bombshell rocked Power’s world. The Linda McCartney team that he and 18 others, including Sligo’s Mark Scanlon had signed for had disintegrated. There was no money in the kitty. No money for wages. No money for flights. No money to race. There wasn’t even enough money to pay for the new jerseys the riders had already worn in Australia. Mismanagement had strung the riders along, leading them to believe that deals had been struck with sponsors when in fact they hadn’t. Power was out of a job and with the season already under way, it was going to be hard to find another one.

“When we were in Australia,” says Power “we heard a rumour about Jaguar not being interested in sponsoring us, even though the name was already on the jersey for 2001, which was a bit suss. But we were still hearing about this extravagant team launch we were going to have in London. When we got there everything was a shambles, a big flop. It was a massive blow, especially because of the time of year. If it had happened in November or December you’d have had time to find something else, but at that time of the year none of us were guaranteed to get anything. It was such a shock to the system, it’s hard to describe.”

So big was the shock, in fact, that Power let all his hard work over the winter go to waste as he ignored his bike for two weeks in disbelief and depression. With a planned wedding to fiancé Lisa at the end of the season, decisions had to be made. Power flew back to his apartment in Toulouse and waited. He and Lisa were now the only two inhabitants of the complex, which before had housed most of the squad and their families.

Two weeks later his agent Frank Quinn called. He had some good news. A small, second-division, French team, Saint-Quentin-Oktos, wanted to sign the young Irishman. Power knew the team as he had ridden with them as an under 23 a few years previous. There would be a drop in wages, but at this stage it was a matter of survival. A deal was struck and Power took his bike out of the bag it had been in for the past fortnight and got back on the road. About a month later, he finished fourth in the GP Lillers in his new pink and blue colours. “I was in a break with two Festina guys and two Cofidis guys and ended up being worked over a little bit, but I was thinking things are looking up at least.”

As they were a French team, Saint-Quentin got invitations to ride some of the big world cup races such as Paris-Roubaix. Knicknamed the Hell of the North, much of the race is run over cobbled farm roads, making the weather and lady luck every bit as important as form. “Paris-Roubaix wasn’t for me.” smiles Power. “The chances of crashing were just unbelievable! It had been raining all day and the night before. One of the guys on the team, who was a mountain biker turned to road, punctured and I was with him so I gave him my wheel. The race suited him better than me, then with all the chaos that goes with the race, team cars getting stalled and stuff, it took ages to get a wheel so I pulled out at the first feed. We were doing Paris-Camembert two days later, so I wanted to do a ride there.”

Another good ride in Paris-Camembert saw Power up with the action all day, eventually finishing a creditable 20th. All was going well for his first target of the season, the Four Days of Dunkirk, where he hoped to put his sprinting skills to good use. “I discovered I could sprint a bit last year. So I built my training towards Dunkirk and a few other races which would suit me and were coming up.” Like most of 2001, Dunkirk didn’t go as planned. Instead of coming away from the race with a stage win or the green points jersey as planned, Power came away in an ambulance with a broken collarbone. “I remember going through the finish line the first time and noticing the barriers had those old-fashioned legs on them, the ones that stick out. I was thinking, uh oh, I better sprint on the other side. But when the sprint starts, you just have to go with the flow and I happened to be on the left hand side, where the barriers were. I was on the wheel of Stephan Barthe of US Postal and he hit the barriers, I hit him and everybody else hit me. I’d never broken anything before and I kinda knew it was gone. I got up and I couldn’t move my arm. I felt bad. Then I looked over at Stephan Barthe on the floor with blood gushing out of his head and he was groaning and looked in a really bad way and I thought I’m not too bad. I got up and crossed the line. There were only a few metres to go. I was ambulanced to the hospital and operated on next morning.”

After a few days in Saint-Quentin Hospital, Power returned to Toulouse and spent life as a couch potato for another two weeks, before beginning to train on a stationary bike again, building it up slowly. “I started off doing a little every second day. Towards the end I was able to do an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Then I went out on the road for about 40 minutes. That was pretty hard now, but I managed to get in about three weeks training before the National Championships.” Power finished a remarkable seventh on a tough course in Belfast. Having been in the leading break from the first lap, his lack of racing let him down near the end. “Every other year I had better form. I suppose there was no pressure on me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to race for the whole lot, so I just attacked at the start and decided to see how long I’d last really.”

After the championships Power targeted the Tour De L’Avenir as a possible way of earning a contract with a bigger team for 2002. Translated from French the races name means Tour of the Future and it’s seen as the under 25 Tour De France and a stage win here would guarantee you a contract with a big French team for next year. Again, the cruel hand of fate stepped in and dealt Power another body blow. On the way home from the Tour De Somme, he rang Lisa. Her father had tragically passed away. “I flew directly home to Ireland and didn’t touch my bike for another two weeks. Since that day, I didn’t have half the motivation I normally would. I got through the Tour De L’Avenir, but that was all. A junior would do more training than I was doing. The year definitely didn’t go as planned. It just went from bad to worse. But it’s over now.”

Tendonitis, picked up on the Tour De L’Avenir, eventually ruled Power out of Saint-Quentin’s last major race of the year, Paris-Tours. “Towards the end of L’Avenir, I started getting tendonitis but I didn’t want to drop out, so I kept going. I raced the day after and it had gotten worse, so I pulled out. I kept getting twinges every weekend after that and the week before Paris-Tours it got worse. I thought the chances of me doing a good ride were pretty slim anyway. I hadn’t been training an awful lot anyway, so I thought I might as well call it a day, go home and recharge the batteries and start afresh for next year.

After packing up all their things from the apartment in Toulouse, Power and his fiancé flew home to organise their wedding, which took place a fortnight ago. Before the wedding, there were doubts as to whether the Saint-Quentin – Oktos team would still be in existence in 2002. There was a shortfall of FF2m to be made up in their budget for next year. Linda McCartney was coming back to haunt him. Power was about to get married, had no house of his own, was already on a shoe-string budget and now faced the prospect of losing his job for the second year in a row.

Just back from his honeymoon on Wednesday, a phone call to the team HQ in France brought good news. Not only will Saint-Quentin be around next season. They will have a new directeur sportif, a bigger budget and more importantly, Ciaran Power. “I’ve just spoken to the new manager today (Friday). Everything is okay. There is no problem. I definitely have a place on the team. He has signed some riders from AG2R, Phonak, Cofidis and some other teams. I’m really looking forward to next year now. With having the last month off, I’m already so motivated for next year. I want to win some races. I don’t care what they are. It can be the biggest race in the world or the smallest race in the world, I don’t care.I’d love to ride the new Irish UCI races, but it depends on the team really, if they get an invite or decide to ride them. It would be great to ride the Ras again too.”

For Ciaran Power his rollercoaster ride is heading slowly skywards again. There may be a few more twist and turns and maybe even drops along the way, but Power is determined to stay on board until he gets to the top.