Eddie Dunbar: I'm driven to reach my full potential
The Irishman talks about his Giro low, how he considered stopping, the Vuelta highs, and supporting Ben O'Connor in next year's Tour de France
There was a moment earlier this year when the idea of retirement whirled around Eddie Dunbar’s head. Fed up and lying on the sofa during a mini-break with his girlfriend in Provence, the Irishman was at his lowest ebb and facing a major crossroads in his career.
He’d just crashed out of the Giro d’Italia, and with his knee still in a bad way, even walking was a painful excursion. He couldn’t enjoy his much-needed time away in France, and it felt like enough was enough.
And to say that Dunbar has endured more than his fair share of bad luck would be an understatement. A repetitive cycle of crashes and illnesses have peppered his career over the last couple of years, and the Giro crash, especially coming so early in the race on stage 2, almost felt like the final straw.
“I remember lying there and thinking ‘ what am I doing?’ I can’t even enjoy myself here for two days on holiday. Don’t get me wrong I know that it’s part of the job but the cumulative effect of it happening again and again… I wasn’t sure how much I could do this. It wasn’t so much that I hated cycling, it was more about the quality of life. How much it was taking out of me and how it takes years off your life. You can feel it mentally and physically,” Dunbar tells us as we catch up during Jayco AlUla’s winter training camp in Altea, Spain.
“The thought [of stopping] did pop into my head. If this happens again, you know, but at the time, it was raw as well. It did pop into my head, but at the same time, there was something in me that said I can’t stop like that. I felt like there was something in me that I needed to get out and show that I could win races. That showed at the Vuelta.”