CHASING THE DREAM
Murphy has sights set on Olympics after an incredible journey
NO Irish cycling team has ever been represented in the Olympic velodrome – although yesterday in Adelaide, the women’s pursuit team took another step closer to becoming the first to break that glass ceiling with a seventh-place finish in the event.
Kelly Murphy is one of the four women aiming to go where no Irish cycling team had gone before. Her Olympic journey is a little unusual, too. As she freely admits herself, this was no childhood dream or ambition, simply because she was never at the top of her chosen sport, growing up.
Indeed, Murphy only began cycling competitively, at the late age of 26, after initially investing in a bike to commute to and from work at Aston University in Birmingham, where she was doing a PhD in brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience. Eight years
“Going to the Olympics was never on my radar”
later, she is on the verge of going to the Olympic Games. Of all the dozens of journeys that will bring Irish athletes to Paris this summer, it will certainly be among the strangest and most unlikely.
‘I was studying for a PhD when I began riding my bike and racing was never really anything that entered my consciousness at the time,’ she explains. ‘I was only averagely sporty as a kid so going to the Olympic Games was never something that was on my radar.’
Having done a handful of local races in Birmingham, Murphy got a couple of decent results and was surprised to get a call from Cycling Ireland – she was born in London to parents from Roscommon and Dublin.
‘After doing a few local races, I think I just met the right people at the right time and one day, I got a call from the Irish federation asking if this was something I wanted to do. I know a good deal when I see one and I thought “why not?” and I am now living the dream.’
Yesterday in Adelaide, the Ireland team of Murphy, Mia Griffin, Lara Gillespie and Alice Sharpe (with Eva Creighton as the reserve rider) made it through qualifying but were beaten in the first round heat by USA. The Irish team finished seventh in the Nations Cup standings, so they still have momentum ahead of the next event in Hong Kong. Qualification for the team pursuit would be quite the achievement, considering this is still a country without a velodrome.
On a personal level, it would also be a remarkable achievement for someone who wasn’t even cycling competitively a decade ago and insists that she has got where she is by dint of hard work, rather than any natural talent.
‘For me, personally, getting to the Olympics, that will be a dream come true. I very much see myself as someone who is not very talented, it is something that I would have to have earned. It is very exciting but for the team, this programme has existed in so many shapes and sizes for a number of years now and we have never been able to qualify, male or female squad, for the Olympics. We have been working away together as a team for some time now so for all of us to reach our destination, that would be the dream come true.’
Murphy is the only one of the pursuit team who is not doublejobbing in Australia. Sharpe and Griffin competed in the women’s Madison this morning while Gillespie will ride in the omnium tomorrow, an event where the talented young cyclist finished fourth in the recent European Championships, just missing out on a medal by a single point, having claimed the gold medal at the European under-23 championships last year. The 22-year-old Gillespie’s rare talent underlines how much this country is currently punching above its weight in women’s track cycling.
And they are doing this while Irish cycling still waits for its velodrome. Plans to construct one at the Sport Ireland Campus site have been much-trumpeted but ground has yet to be broken there. So the Irish pursuit team, like all of our top track cyclists, have to base themselves in a camp in Mallorca that Cycling Ireland had the foresight to set up almost two decades ago.
It means that Murphy spends her time between Birmingham and Mallorca, while also coming back to Ireland for the occasional race. She especially likes to cycle around the Mourne Mountains in Down, where she has a few friends. When she has to base herself in Ireland, she stays with her mother’s family, whether in Dalkey or Castleknock – her father is from a very rural part of Roscommon that is not conducive to riding a bike. But the Rossies will be out in force if she does qualify for Paris.
And there won’t be a journey among the Irish team quite like that which Murphy went on. She started commuting on her bike because she was getting sick of the hour and half on public transport every day to and from university. That 10km cycle in the mornings and evenings lit a competitive spark as she started timing herself.
From there, she got involved in a local cycling group in Birmingham and competed in the Tour of Yorkshire in 2017, before finishing second in the Irish Time Trial Championships, which alerted Cycling Ireland to her talent. She has since won that title four times and helped the Ireland pursuit team capture an unlikely bronze in the 2021 European Championships in Switzerland.
Last year, speaking after defending her time trial title, Murphy spoke about the challenges of keeping ahead of the competition and the commitment that dedication to excellence requires.
‘I’m really relieved. Every year I feel like the competition hits up and new people appear, I feel like people learn about the game and so it gets tougher every year, so I’m very, very happy,’ said Murphy.
‘You spend a lot of time training on your own so you never know where you’re going to compare next to other people I guess so it’s nice to know it pays off.’
And now, the dream is within touching distance, final fulfilment for all those hours and miles training on her own.
Two more Nations Cup events await in Hong Kong and Canada. Ireland have to remain inside the top 10 to make it to Paris and for Kelly Murphy to complete one of the most unlikely Olympic journeys of them all. From someone getting on a bike to shorten her commute eight years ago to Paris – there won’t be many stories like it this summer.
The Rossies will be out in force if she does qualify