Bio

Caroline Ryan is a member of the Irish High Performance Track and Road Cycling Squad and is a registered Professional Track Cyclist.

One of the unique characteristics of Caroline’s association with sport at the highest level is her late transition into serious sporting pursuits.  While many top athletes have been coached and trained in their chosen sports from an early age, Caroline’s achievements to date are only magnified by her seamless transition into top class international competition in Rowing and now in Cycling.

She was an accomplished oarswoman and was selected to represent Ireland in Rowing from 2005 to 2008, including the World Rowing Championships at Eton, England in 2006, narrowly missing out on selection for the Beijing Olympics.  During this time Caroline won 5 National Championships and in 2008 became the first Irish woman to win the Henley Royal Regatta when she won the Princess Royal Challenge Cup.

At the end of the 2008 rowing season, Caroline took part in the Cycling Ireland Talent Transfer and Identification Programme established by Cycling Ireland in conjunction with the Irish Sports Council and Sport Northern Ireland.

Having quickly established herself as an ideal candidate for the transfer programme and showing lots of early promise, Caroline was selected as Pilot on the Irish Para Cycling Tandem team, competing at the paracycling World Cup in Manchester in May 2009, where they won a silver medal and set a new Irish record.

This was quickly followed by another silver medal at the World Paracycling Championships in November 2009 highlighting again Caroline’s affinity for track pursuiting.

Caroline then decided to concentrate on Track Cycling.  In 2010 she became National Champion in the 3km individual pursuit and 10km scratch event, setting a new National Record on her way to winning the women’s 3km individual pursuit.

Caroline went on to represent Ireland in the Track World Cups and finished 4th in her first outing at the Individual pursuit at World level. This qualified Caroline for the World Championships in Holland where she went on to secure 9th place and ended the year ranked 10th in the World Rankings.

Caroline set a new national time trial record (cutting 21 sec’s off existing record) in Hull in August 2011 while also setting new outdoor track individual and team pursuit records.