{"id":3294,"date":"2021-09-14T13:27:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T13:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/ie\/?p=3294"},"modified":"2021-09-14T13:27:25","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T13:27:25","slug":"on-track-an-interview-with-irish-olympian-shannon-mccurley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/ie\/2021\/09\/14\/on-track-an-interview-with-irish-olympian-shannon-mccurley\/","title":{"rendered":"On Track \u2013 An Interview With Irish Olympian Shannon McCurley"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Rio Olympics in 2016, Australian-born Shannon McCurley became the first female track cyclist to represent Ireland at the Games; this past summer, she made her sophomore Olympic appearance, teaming with Emily Kay in the Madison. Unfortunately, the Tokyo adventure came to an abrupt and premature halt, as a nasty crash saw the pair eliminated from contention.<\/p>\n

Having suffered a concussion and a fractured jaw, Shannon is recuperating in her Irish base of Clondalkin. And so, in between \u201cdoctor\u2019s appointments and scans and all that nonsense,\u201d we caught up to look back on the Games, reflect on the journey to get there, and discuss what the future holds…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you look back on your Tokyo experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Um\u2026 I found the experience pretty grim at times. Because I had Rio, I had expectations and things like that \u2013 and because of COVID it really wasn\u2019t the same. There was no atmosphere. We knew that going in, I suppose, but when you\u2019re there you\u2019re suddenly trying to pick yourself up for the biggest event of your life \u2013 while missing out on all of that. The track cycling was about two hours outside of Tokyo, so we were in our own cycling village. It just felt like a normal World Cup event, where you base yourself with other nations in a hotel. Even in that though, you\u2019re really distanced from other nations, so you missed that proper interaction.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, a fantastic achievement to make the Games in the first place; have you been able to take the positives in that respect?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I feel like it\u2019s definitely sunk in that it\u2019s not just all about that one race, but rather what we had to do to get there. Emily Kay was my Madison partner, and then our reserve rider was Lydia Gurley; we were based over in Majorca since March, all together, and training together non-stop. You take into account the whole of the last five years, and everything that led into the Games.<\/p>\n

At a personal level, it was five years with plenty of injury challenges. Can you take us through the various setbacks?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My first big and nasty one was on a training run just after the Rio Olympics; I was out on the road and had a motorbike cut me off. I don\u2019t really remember much of it, but I ended up getting plastic surgery on my chin, and my elbow was destroyed; it shattered, and took three operations to get it right. I couldn\u2019t even straighten it for a while. So, switching over from sprint to endurance during that time was pretty difficult! I had a nasty concussion from hitting my chin, too; it was a lot to come back from.<\/p>\n

Then I got into racing, got settled as an endurance rider, everything was going smoothly, I had a great Europeans in 2019 where I got a silver in the Scratch Race. A couple of weeks later I went to London for a six-day event and a crash happened in front of me \u2013 unavoidable \u2013 and I lost about eight hours of memory to another concussion, which wasn\u2019t very pretty. I thought I had recovered, but I had a race in January of 2020 – a few months later – which was the first time I was able to put myself in the red zone and the head was fuzzy. I got through the race, but everything was pretty blurry, I had to take a few months off the bike after that one.<\/p>\n

Which would have made the Olympics an impossibility if it hadn\u2019t been postponed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, for me that was a blessing. I was able to travel back to Australia in March of that year, and get a good training block in, get my head and everything right, back in Melbourne for a good twelve months.<\/p>\n

Those who\u2019d never seen the Madison before Tokyo probably got a shock; it\u2019s about as hectic as bike racing gets…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best way to describe the Madison is organised chaos. You don\u2019t want to get caught under a change \u2013 which I unfortunately did. You always want to ride wide. You\u2019ve got to be on the ball the whole time; see the riders in front of you, where their partners are coming in, where your partner\u2019s coming in, judge your speeds, there\u2019s so much that goes into it. Even my friends and family didn\u2019t fully realise what the Madison was; the amount of people afterwards who told me, \u201cOh my god, that race was crazy. I couldn\u2019t understand what was going on…but of course you\u2019re in the craziest race there is out there!\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you train for that, then? Because miles in the saddle is one thing, but simulating race conditions must be impossible?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah…that was definitely part of the problem! We hadn\u2019t raced a Madison in 18 months. You can practice slings and practice the distance \u2013 but until you\u2019re thrown out there with 18 other teams, you can\u2019t prepare for that. Unfortunately, because of COVID, we had no racing \u2013 which explains why there were so many crashes in our race.<\/p>\n

Have you watched your crash back?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have, haha. I took a risk \u2013 and it didn\u2019t pay off. Yeah, it was just a split-second thing, and I didn\u2019t get out of there on time. Unfortunate, but that\u2019s life; you live and learn…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With Mark Downey and Felix English in the men\u2019s event, it was Ireland\u2019s largest ever track cycling team; a sign of the sport\u2019s growth in this country?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For sure \u2013 and I feel it\u2019s going to build from here on. We\u2019ve also got the Women\u2019s Team Pursuit, which has grown our team so much more. It just shows the potential for young girls coming through the sport that there is a pathway, and there is a future, when they see that there\u2019s such a big squad of us there now.<\/p>\n

What do you think is needed for track cycling to continue to grow in Ireland? And there\u2019s probably an obvious answer here…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Um, yeah: we need a velodrome here! That\u2019s the biggest thing. We\u2019re spending long durations of time away from friends and family, because it\u2019s what we have to do. I love basing myself in Dublin, where I have friends and family. A lot of people, when I tell them I\u2019m training in Majorca, they think, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s fabulous, that\u2019s great!\u2019 Meanwhile, I\u2019m thinking, \u2018If I have to go back there one more time\u2026\u2019[laughs]. I mean, the weather\u2019s great \u2013 you do get that out of it. But mentally? It\u2019s a lot. And the only way to progress Juniors through the sport is to get a velodrome here, and get them on the track. Having to send them abroad for training camps, it\u2019s just not going to progress the sport. You can see the way in GB, Germany, Australia \u2013 the bigger nations, and the ones that come out of top \u2013 there\u2019s so much more opportunity.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s next on your schedule?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have our European and World Championships in October, which it doesn\u2019t look like I\u2019ll be at; with a concussion and a broken jaw, I\u2019m not yet back in training. That\u2019s going to be another one that\u2019ll be hard to just watch on \u2013 but we\u2019ll have a good team there, and it\u2019ll be great to see them racing. And who knows, I might get up! But pushing on, I need to get fit on the road, back to a good base, and into next year and next season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the question you\u2019re probably sick of being asked \u2013 but has Paris 2024 entered your thinking yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I mean, I always said that it would be over after Tokyo but…I just don\u2019t know yet! I\u2019m already looking at next year \u2013 and then it\u2019ll only be two years so, yeah, you might see me in Paris.<\/p>\n

Does it feel like there\u2019s unfinished business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well I can\u2019t end on that, can I?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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