It was announced during a visit to the Commonwealth Games facilities in Glasgow in April 2014 that the Manx Government had put in a bid for the British Cycling National Road Race Championships in 2016.
Isle of Man TV channel – produced by Paul Moulton for Isle of Man Television
With the Glasgow velodrome and very apt place to talk to Mr L Skelly mhk who’s on our trip here today to go around and to see what’s going in for the games plus I know You’ had a lot of meetings as well haven’t you yes yes we have uh
With the uh first Minister Alex sammon and uh we’re here obviously in Glasgow launching the flight uh back and uh we’re delighted to to be here for that and this is about promoting tourism and also trade links here between the IR of man and Scotland I say very up about
Having cyclist poers but the big news is the big news is that the E of man is going to bid for the British road racing cycling championships to come to the aisle of man and uh something we’ve been preparing for quite some time and uh it’s very appropriate that we’re here
Because obviously there cycling fraternity on the is of man on our very famous world champions uh Cavendish and kenek who will hopefully be supporting us now I remember the days when we used to have a lot of cycling going on especially after the TT week all that
Seemed to disappear just as it seemed to become a bigger sport is that what you’re going after now this is something not only brings competitors but will it bring tourists followers over to the on that’s the intention is that uh we will have a professional event on the a of
Man that’s our first aim uh but we want that to be a Launchpad for cycling tourism on the eye of man so we will have pre and post events that will be for the diameters and we hope that this will actually be something to build upon
And create a legacy and a new Festival of cycling so you put a bid in do you know who you’re against and uh what’s the procedure I mean do you have to put money down is that the sort of thing or is it more about facilities and
Guarantees on what you can do it’s both it is a financial obligation and that’s something as I say it’s taken some time for us to bring forward initially uh started back actually the Olympic year when we wanted to capitalize on the Cavendish phenomenon as we know Cavendish didn’t win the gold Kenya did
And that’s fantastic news for the ey of man and now we do have this famous cyc in fraternity as I say and such a major um influence on the a of man particularly with our young people but we want to drive this from a tourism perspective as well as an event do you
Know who you’re against yet is anybody up there we we don’t we don’t we are just making our announcement early this year so that we are put in a prime position and hopefully we are successful and this will be a great event for the art of man you’ve done presentations
What have you offered at other places haven’t well we haven’t done presentations as yet we we have made representations uh to say that we are intending to put this bid forward uh today is the is the announcement that we are officially going to make that bid uh
For the a of man well F AP have we got the infrastructure for it yes I believe we do uh without a doubt and I think you know we’ve got fantastic um I think our topography lends very well for road racing and as you pointed out we used to
Be the home of the international cycling Festival uh for many years and then it did die off and I think that was really centered around the fact of the um tte course being entirely closed this would be quite a different race event alt together so uh we hope that we’ll be
Successful when will you know more uh we won’t know more till the end of the year but there is considerable amount of prep time with this as we do need to as you point out uh consider how the structure of the bid will be in terms of where the
Race will be the infrastructure sponsorship and all everything that goes around us