Eddie Dunbar will be going back to AlUla Tour to try win the overall but that’s only part of the story as far as Irish cycling is concerned

If you had to pick the most significant places in the history of Irish cycling down the years, the obvious answer is Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, where Stephen Roche, Sean Kelly and Sam Bennett had some of their crowning moments. Or Col d’éze in the south of France, where Kelly and Roche dominated at Paris-Nice for so long.

Villach in Austria, where Roche won the Worlds in 1987, would also feature, as would Roubaix velodrome, for Kelly’s two wins in Paris-Roubaix and Shay Elliott winning a Tour stage and taking yellow in 1963.

Minsk and Santiago would also feature, as they were the locations where Martyn Irvine and Lara Gillespie won their track world titles, in 2013 and 2025 respectively.

There are other places of special significance for Irish cycling; too many to mention. But now you can add another (unlikely) spot to the list; AlUla Camel Cup Track in Saudi Arabia. It’s not the scene of any great Irish triumph, not yet anyway. But it’s about to play host to a very significant day for Irish cycling.

Clockwise from top left | Liam O’Brien of Lidl Trek, Seth Dunwoody of Bahrain Victorious, Jamie Meehan of Cofidis and Dillon Corkery of Picnic PostNL

Tomorrow, Tuesday, no fewer than five Irish riders will line-up there for the start of AlUla Tour. It is a five-stage 2.Pro race featuring a mix of flat stages and terrain for the climbers, likely with some crosswinds thrown in.

It’s not an event many kids will grow up dreaming about winning. But tomorrow, some of the new generation of Irish riders will take their place alongside the older, more established, names for the first time.

New generation already stepping up

Eddie Dunbar (29) will be there for Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling, hoping to win a stage, even the overall. Indeed, this could be one of the best chances he gets all season to win a stage race. Dillon Corkery (26) will be starting his first full season as a World Tour rider with Picnic PostNL.

Then we have the up and comers; Jamie Meehan (22) of Cofidis, Liam O’Brien (20) of Lidl Trek and Seth Dunwoody (19) of Bahrain Victorious. Like Corkery, Meehan will also be getting his first full season as a pro started – with his French team.

O’Brien and Dunwoody are set to ride their first stage race of 2026 for World Tour teams Lidl Trek and Bahrain Victorious, having been called up from those teams’ U23 development squads for this pro stage race. While O’Brien has had the World Tour team call-up before, this is Dunwoody’s stage race debut at the higher level.

In recent decades Ireland has had many false starts; young riders tipped for greatness but who didn’t quite make the grade, or who sampled life as a pro and decided it wasn’t for them.

But now the strength in depth in the current Irish rider group is so significant that some of our best teenagers are lining up alongside someone like Eddie Dunbar; 7th overall at the Giro three years ago and a double stage winner at La Vuelta in 2024.

Leaving aside the fact the likes of Meehan and, especially O’Brien and Dunwoody, are so young, it is a very long time since Ireland has had five cyclists in the same field in a significant pro stage race. Even in the halcyon days of Kelly and Roche it was four – with Martin Earley and Paul Kimmage completing the quartet for a while there.

Sure, even in the last few years we’ve had the likes of Archie Ryan, Ben Healy and Darren Rafferty – all EF Education-EasyPost – becoming established pro riders. Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) is shaping up to be among the best in the world. And Mia Griffin (Picnic PostNL) and Fiona Mangan (Mayenne Monbana My Pie) rode the Tour de France alongside Gillespie last year.

But now we have no fewer than three young pros – and there are others at this level waiting in the wings – all starting a new journey on the same day. And they are doing it alongside a fellow Irishman who has been a pro since the trio were still in national school.

And that’s a new dynamic for Irish cycling. We have usually had to wait for many years between small clusters of top riders. Even in times of plenty, those clusters have usually numbered two or three riders.

This week, however, a new wave of Irish riders has arrived on the start line while the top Irish names who inspired them are still in the bunch, and still in their prime. It’s a significant start to what should be an incredibly exciting season.