The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman Award for February: Lara Gillespie (Cycling)
It seems like a wet week ago that Lara Gillespie made our judges’ job the simplest of ones when they set about choosing our October sportswoman of the month, the deliberations concluding as soon as she was nominated. She had, after all, capped a hugely impressive 2024 on both the road and track by winning bronze at the World Track Championships in Denmark.
It was, she said, “a dynamic year”, “I wasn’t just participating, I was actually able to compete at the highest level and I felt like I learned so much”.
Well, she’s been putting those lessons to most excellent use in the opening months of 2025, her form for the UAE Team in her first full year at WorldTour level outstanding – and there was the not so small matter of her becoming the first Irish cyclist to win gold at the European Track Championships.
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She earned her promotion to the UAE Team’s elite WorldTour squad with her performances for their development team last year. The highlights were her victories at the Antwerp Classic and Giro Mediterraneo Rosa. They were enough to convince her bosses that she was ready for the step up – and she’s been quick to reward their faith in her.
She kick-started her year at the four-day UAE Tour on her team’s home turf and produced three top-10 finishes, including a spot on the podium after placing third in the second stage. Those results saw her take the intermediate sprint jersey, as well as playing a key role in team-mate Elisa Longo Borghini winning the overall title.
And she carried that form into two races in Belgium in early March where she finished second in the Fenix Omloop van het Hageland and third in the prestigious Le Samyn. By then, our cycling man Shane Stokes could only conclude that “the 23-year-old is showing arguably the best run of form ever by an Irish female cyclist”.
But before those two races came the moment, also in Belgium, that she said she had been dreaming of her whole career. She’d collected multiple gold and silver medals through a dazzling youth career, but in Zolder she stood atop a senior podium when she won the elimination race at the European Track championships.
Over to Shane: “Gillespie looked completely in control during the tactical event, which sees the last rider across the line on each sprint lap ruled out. She monitored her rivals throughout, accelerating where needed, and whittling the field right down to just herself and Belgium’s Helene Hesters.”
“Gillespie launched the final sprint early and a shattered Hesters had no answer, being unable to accelerate and finishing well back. The victory is the fourth success at European level for the Enniskerry rider. Her first was when she won the junior points race back in 2018. Five years later she took both the points and omnium titles at under-23 level. Victory here tops all that.”
That success simply underlined that Gillespie is as comfortable on the track as she is on the road, and while the latter will be her chief focus through the rest of the year, she’ll have one eye on October’s World Track Championships.
But Gillespie, you suspect, would be the last to look too far ahead, having been blighted by illness and injuries through her career. And Wednesday was a reminder of just how brutal a sport cycling can be when she was among the favourites in another one-day race, the GP Oetingen, but was hurt in a fall 25km from home and was unable to continue.
She’s well used to bouncing back, though. “Everyone experiences hard times, but once things start going good again, you kind of forget about them,” she said of her previous trials. Wednesday was a blow, but after the success of her start to 2025, when she has looked more than comfortable in the company of her sport’s elite competitors, she’ll be anxious to get back in that saddle.
