Jamie Meehan’s cycling career takes major step forward

In the space of six months a young Mountcharles cyclist has made major strides and he will be heading to France in January to take another giant stride forward towards the professional game.

Jamie Meehan turned 20 in September and after winning the Irish National U-23 Championship in June, he has represented Ireland at the World Championships in Scotland in August and more recently wore the green jersey of the Irish Cyclo-Cross team.

But while Cyclo-Cross - a sort of cross-country for cycling - has been enjoyable, his main focus remains on the road. He will be joining the CC Utopes team, who are a French Division 1 stable who have a great track record in developing young cyclists.

It has been a really busy and productive year for the modest Mountcharles man.

It all started really with the national U-23 title in June when Meehan was first home.

“Before the win in Dungannon I was thinking of going to college this year, but after that I kinda scrapped that idea and decided I would give it another year.

“I have signed up to an online course now to do cycling coaching. I’m doing that now in my free time. I have deferred Maynooth but I don’t see myself going there next year either, to be honest.

“I’m going over to France now for a camp. I don’t know if I will come home as I have another camp in February and I’ll be staying there after that until whenever.

“The team I’m going to, CC Etupes, is a Division 1 team in France but it’s still amateur. We will be doing UCI races where there will be professional teams involved. There’s like U-23 Paris-Roubaix which is one of the biggest races of the spring. We will be doing the U-23 version of that.

“It’s the same with Liege-Bastogne-Liege at U-23 level and a lot of UCI races in France and National Cups.

“It is kinda like a Development Team. The two Yates brothers, Simon and Adam, went through them. The two of them this year were leading in the Tour de France, they were sitting one and two in the first few days.

“So it’s a good team and they have had some real good riders come through.”

It is certainly a coup for Meehan to have been selected.

“The way it kinda works in cycling, you have to approach the teams. It wasn’t just about winning the national U-23 championships and the worlds this year. After the worlds I went to France to do the Tour de l'Avenir. It is called the U-23 Tour de France. We raced there for 10 days and I had a good result on the last day.

“We were talking then, me and my coach, Barry Monaghan, trying to see what the plan might be. It was kinda between one of the British Development Teams or the CC Etupes Team because we felt they would be the best two places to go.

“Dillon Corkery was at CC Etupes, he’s from Cork, and he turned Pro on the road this year with another French team. We were speaking to him and one of the guys my coach works with also raced in France for seven or eight years and he knew the team well. They kinda advised that CC Etupes would be the best option moving forward.

Jamie Meehan pictured at the Pump in Mountcharles  Pic: Thomas Gallagher

Jamie’s coach, Barry Monaghan, is from Newry, Co Down. “I was with a different coach earlier last year and moved to work with Barry from September of last year. He just schedules all my training, how many hours I do and what kind of training I do in that hour. The partnership is working well,” said Jamie.

So Jamie will have Christmas at home with his family, although he did have an offer elsewhere.

“I was actually offered a trip to Belgium to race with Ulster from the 21st to 29th December but for me it wasn’t really worth it to go over there over Christmas because I want to get focussed on the road for next year.

“It is a difficult kind of training for Cyclo-Cross, it’s much shorter while for the road, you do longer hours.

“I kinda took up Cyclo-Cross for the fun of it because it was really enjoyable and it is really good for skills and stuff. But the road is definitely my main focus.

“A lot of Cyclo-Cross  would be based in the North. They run a national series too where they go to every province. I haven’t really competed that much on it this year because I was focussed more on the road.

“I did a race down in Mayo and the National Championships are to be held in Limerick in early January.

“Me and Dean Harvey came into it late because the European championships on the road ran into the season. I think it was in Clonmel that we needed to do well in order to try and get picked. We had to go down to Tipperary for that and we did alright down there and got picked for the Irish team for the trip to France.

Ironically, for his Leaving Cert, Jamie didn’t do French at the Abbey VS. “I actually did Spanish at the Abbey VS so I do need to start brushing up on my French at home now before I go out. I think it is more out of respect than anything because the French are pretty passionate about their language and it is easier to get on with people if you try.”

His new French team is based in the town of Etupes. “It’s on the east and it’s close to the Swiss border. I think it’s close to Geneva as well.”

And in France Jamie will be doing what he feels he does best, hill climbing.

“At Tour de l'Avenir we did race up some big hills but I can’t remember the names. We had a couple of hour-long climbs and stuff and there in the training camp in Spain we were up Coll de Rates.

“I would definitely be more than a climber. I’d be too small and light to do stuff on the flat. And that’s a reason why it is hard to do well at home because we don’t have many longer climbs here.”

So the plans are well in place for Jamie Meehan and 2024. “I’ll enjoy Christmas at home. Then I will do the Cyclo-Cross National Championships on 14th January and then I go to France on the 20th January for the first training camp.

“We have a calendar done out. I think the first race is the first week in March. And it will be all go after that. We will probably be down the south of France so there should be good weather down there.”