World and European champion, Lara Gillespie, who was also up for an award of her own, being interviewd by David Gillick, alongside Cycling Ireland’s high performance coaches, award winners Martyn Irvine and Neill Delahaye, with chief executive James Quilligan looking on (Photo by David Fitzgerald-Sportsfile)
Ireland’s top bike riders may have been pipped at the post at the Olympic Sports Awards 2025 at the weekend, but Cycling Ireland was one of the big winners on the night. It claimed the ‘High Performance Programme of the Year’ award, after seeing off Rowing Ireland and Swim Ireland.
That fact the Cycling Ireland performance staff went up against their counterparts in rowing and swimming – two of the most successful high performance programmes in Irish sport – and beat them is a major coup for the organisation.
It also represents a significant turnaround for the national governing body, which only a few years ago was mired in controversy under previous management, though the high performance programme was never part of that.
Cycling Ireland’s high performance head coach, Neill Delahaye, said 2025 had been an “an outstanding year” for Irish cycling. It had been delivered after years of refining the high performance programme, he said, including putting in place development pathways.
“We firmly believe we have some of the best cyclists in the world in our programmes and some of the best staff in the world in our HPU planning, delivering and administrating our activities,” Delahaye added.
“As a federation and a HPU we are building capacity to develop and support world class performance with world class coaching, expertise and experience.
“While 2025 has been hugely satisfying, we intend that this is a platform on which to build more robust systems that will continue to deliver consistent success at the highest level for many years to come.”
Ben Healy (EF Education EasyPost) and Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) were also nominated for awards. Gillespie was shortlisted for the ‘Female Athlete of the Year’ and Healy was nominated for the ‘Male Athlete of the Year’ – the two main categories in these annual awards.
Furthermore, Healy taking the Tour de France yellow jersey was shortlisted as the ‘Sporting Moment of the Year’. A public vote took place for the three categories the two riders were in. However, the ‘High Performance Programme of the Year’ award was not open to a public vote.
Unfortunately, neither Healy nor Gillespie came away with a gong as the male and female awards went to golfer Rory McIlroy and heptathlete Kate O’Connor. The sporting moment of the year went to O’Connor for her World Championships silver medal.