When we first interviewed Greg Callaghan back in 2014 he was a relative unknown outside the circuit. A young, Irish lad living out of his van, working through the winter as a courier to pay his way racing for the year. What really stood out about Greg were not only his results, but his dedication - it's no small feat to fund yourself to go racing on three continents. On the back of that season he was picked up the Cube Action Team and in May of 2015 he was catapulted from an outsider to one of the best-known riders in the discipline, as he pulled off the biggest upset of the season, defeating the established riders when the series visited his homeland. When the series returned to Ireland last weekend he did the unthinkable, and repeated his win on home soil - something few riders have ever achieved. We caught up with Greg to talk about how life has changed since the days of living in a van and to talk more about his stunning victory this past weekend.






When we last interviewed you, you were racing as a privateer, living out of your van and working as a courier through the winter to support your season. How much did signing for a factory team change both your racing and your life in general?

It's been a hell of journey over the last couple of years alright. It's changed my life in so many ways, the main one being financial. When I was racing as a privateer I literally had nothing other than my van and just about enough money to get to the races, sometimes I didn't even have that. It was a struggle but I wouldn't do anything differently if I had another chance. In terms of racing it's boosted me massively. The team takes away so many stresses for me at the races and give me that support and confidence that I can be the best. It feels like my job now is just to train and ride my bike to the best of my ability. A couple of years ago there was a huge list of jobs to be done to be competitive on race day. Lucky for me Katy was brilliant for sharing the load and between the two of us we made things work at the races, it would have been so much harder on my own and probably not possible.

The rumour is that you had multiple deals on the table at that time, what is that lead you to choose Cube?

Thanks to that privateer article with you guys actually, it put me right in the spot light coming into silly season for all the teams. So yeah, I had a few really good options on the table which was surreal at the time. Cube had the most professional set up of them all and could offer me the resources I needed to achieve my goals. They made it clear that they wanted it to be a long term relationship and this wasn't going to be a 2 year thing despite it being a 2 year contract. That gave me a lot of peace of mind and showed me the faith they had in me. We got the deal arranged pretty quickly and everything was signed by the 1st of September that year. That was really nice, coming into the last race of the season knowing that everything was already done.






You arrived at the first two races of the season looking fitter than ever, but your results were a little way back from where you where in 2015, you certainly didn't seem to be too happy with yourself at the end of the trip. What happened?

I definitely didn't leave South America feeling like I'd shown my potential and all the hard work I'd put in over the winter, I really felt like I had the speed and strength coming into that trip to be standing on podiums. In Chile I was too fixed on the goal of getting a podium and not focused enough on how to go about achieving it. I normally focus on the process and not the end result and it works for me. I overlooked some details in my preparation throughout the week and it put me on the back foot come race day. I rode stiff and nervous all weekend. It was frustrating but these things happen, it's so hard to get the mental preparation right for these races, I learnt a lot from it and it's not a mistake I'll be making again. I felt great in Argentina but just pushed a little too hard in the wrong places and made some costly mistakes leading to crashes. The line between being on top and being on the ground is so fine, it's easy to get on the wrong side of it. Especially when the tracks are so wild! I guess after the bad week in Chile I wanted to redeem myself which led to pushing too hard.

How do you move forwards from a situation like that?

It took me a week or so to get my head around it but my coach, Dad and Katy sorted me out, it's so important to have good people around at those times. I sat down and spent almost a day analysing what I did wrong, what I did right, why all these things happened and put it behind me. That's all you can do really. I'm not one for believing in good or bad luck so I like to find the reasons why things happen the way they do and eliminate the negatives for the next race. Dwelling on it too much won't get you anywhere so I just learned from it and moved on.






When you won in Ireland last year - it was a fairytale, for many people who didn't know much about you then you maybe came out of nowhere a bit. This year you were the crowd favourite, there definitely felt like there was some expectation, how did all this feel from your side? What was your expectation or hope for the weekend?

The build up to this year was certainly harder than last year, it was so busy in the build up with media commitments and the stuff that comes with the team and so many people coming to your country. I actually felt pretty tired coming into Friday practice which worries me a bit. All that expectation and trying to bounce back from two bad races meant it was never going to be easy. Thankfully though I never really felt the pressure. The worst part was the suspense of waiting for it all. The most relaxed I've felt in the last month was when I dropped into stage 1. That's when I felt like "Right, I know what I'm doing now so just do it". To be coming back having already won at home and to have such incredible support made me feel like I'd already achieved something brilliant, that support was a win in itself for me. After being so fixed on a result being my downfall in Chile I didn't pick a number in my head for this one. I just focused on being the fastest Greg Callaghan possible on the day. All I can do is my best, so that's what I did, if someone beats that then fair play. I'd rather have the best Greg finish 10th than feel like I beat myself up mentally and finish 20th like in Chile.

For me, the most impressive thing is that you could deal with that pressure, you're still pretty young, but you handled that incredibly well, maybe even used it to your advantage?

To be honest that's what I'm the happiest with too. I didn't take in the fun of the weekend as much as I could have last year, I disconnected myself from it to stay focused and I kind of regretted that. When it was released that we were getting another chance to race in Ireland I knew I owed it to myself to enjoy it as much as possible. Not many athletes are fortunate enough to be able to compete in front of their home crowd, especially a home crowd as passionate as the Irish so I wanted to cherish that. When I look back on these two years of Irish races it's the support I got from everyone that I'll remember most. Having already got the win last year I didn't feel like I owed it to myself to win, so that took the pressure off and let me enjoy it. In turn, enjoying it so much led to me being relaxed and riding really well. Fun is fast!






Given how nuts the fans were during the day, and before they knew you had done it again, how wild was the afterparty?

Haha, I think a few people were afraid for my safety going into that one! It was great craic! I was all kinds of knackered, it was a huge week of media and bike riding so it was just survival for me. I was just gutted that all the chippers were closed and I couldn't get a bag of chips before bed, I've been waiting months for that bag of chips!