Lara Gillespie among those at the sod-turning event to launch the construction of the National Velodrome and Badminton Centre. Photograph: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
Lara Gillespie is standing in front of a billboard-sized image of a cycling velodrome on the exact spot where construction is now ready to begin. Turning of first sods will always be ceremonious to some degree, only this will fill arguably the single biggest hole in the infrastructure of Irish sport.
“We’ve been patient,” says Gillespie, who won a world track title in October, despite the enduring lack of any velodrome in the country. “So yeah, we’ve been eagerly waiting for this. I think we were the only nation at the Paris Olympics last year without a home velodrome, it’s crazy to think we haven’t had it.”
Indeed it has been over a decade in planning, before in September, Sport Ireland received final approval for €100 million in fund
Continue Reading on The Irish Times
This preview shows approximately 15% of the article. Read the full story on the publisher's website to support quality journalism.