Earlier this month, Garda Caroline Ryan made history when she won Ireland’s first ever Track Cycling World Championship medal (elite level) at Melbourne’s Hisense Arena.
“I’m trying to get back into training now and trying to forget about it, put it in the back pocket for a while now,” said the 32-year-old former rower of her bronze medal performance in the women’s points race.
Caroline previously rowed with the Garda Boat club and internationally with the Irish squad. She started with the Irish squad in 2005 when she broke onto the international rowing scene.
Caroline tried out for the Beijing Olympics but it was not to be and at the end of 2008, during the off season, she was introduced to track cycling. “I was planning on going back and training for the squad again the next year, I was happy, I was progressing with the rowing and getting faster all the time. I wasn’t thinking of transferring to another sport at all.”
Cycling Ireland had a talent transfer programme called Route 2012, they were testing triathletes and rowers among other sports people. On the day of the testing when rowers were invited along, fortunately for Caroline, and Irish cycling, she managed to secure a spot because a fellow athlete was unable to attend due to illness, she told Caroline that she wouldn’t be attending and that she should go along in her place.
Caroline said that after the testing she thought that that would be the end of that and didn’t expect to hear anymore, however she was called back because the test went well.
After that Caroline was given a cycling specific training programme before a further test was performed. Caroline noted that after the cycling specific training there was a good improvement when she was retested.
