Cycling: Irish cycling has suffered a blow with the news that one of its most promising young professionals, Nicolas Roche, has declared for France. The 20-year-old is the son of the 1987 Tour de France winner Stephen Roche and is currently the only Irish rider racing for a ProTour team, the new top division in cycling.

Roche's mother, Lydia, is French, and he has held dual nationality for several years. He has competed for Ireland in that time in World and European Championships. He finished third in the Irish road race championships last year as a second-year senior.

However, he says that last autumn he was told that dual citizenship was not possible.

"The problem is not with the French cycling federation, but with the governmental side of things," he explained to The Irish Times this week. "The woman that I was dealing with there said I could have been disqualified from any race if I had continued to hold two passports. I signed a paper when I was 16 declaring I was French, because I was living there at the time. They are saying as long as I am on the French list, for them I am not allowed to be anything else.

"I have been told that if I want to stay Irish, there is no problem, but I have to resign my French nationality."

Roche grew up in Ireland and states he feels more Irish than French. However, in his teens his family moved to Antibes, near Nice, and he says that this complicates matters. "I am sad to give up my Irish passport. But I feel that this is the only option. It is different for the other Irish guys racing here because most of them have a background in Ireland, with their families and everything else there. If cycling doesn't work for them, they are going to go back to Ireland to live and work there. But for me, if cycling doesn't work out, I am going to stay in France, as my family are here. We are not supposed to admit it, but it is definitely easier to get work here if you are French."

Frank Campbell, who managed Nicolas on several Irish teams, including last year's Under-23 World Championship squad in Verona, says Roche did not take the decision lightly. "He has been weighing things up the past three or four months. I have looked at it from our side and basically given him all the information he needs. Ireland is in a funny situation where we do allow dual nationality, but the French don't appear to accept that. And Nicolas is in a peculiar situation with a French mother and having been born in France.

"It is very disappointing to lose such a talented young rider, who has worked very hard and been part of the very successful system over the past two or three years. He was one of the major players for the future when you started to look at future Olympics and those type of events. Personally I am very, very disappointed. I got on very well with him and found him very easy to work with. He is very professional in his outlook, which I suppose is only to be expected coming from his background."

Campbell points out that Roche looks set to lose his chance of going forward for carding, something he would have been assured of given the ProTour classification of his Cofidis team. Roche also says that he has little to gain.

"I want people to know that I'm not doing it for any financial reasons," he says. "I would have had a lot more opportunities for funding if I remained Irish. There are so many pro riders in France that it is different there. On the other hand, Ireland has so few that I think the country is making a great effort to help those it has at that level.

"Also, there are much better odds of getting onto national teams for the World Championships and the Olympics. I have to accept that unless I become Superman, the amount of strong French riders there are means that I am going to miss the next Olympics.

"I'm disappointed the way things have turned out. I would like to thank Ireland for what they are doing in the sport and what they did for me as an amateur. Even though my nationality is French and I will be riding for that national team, in the heart I still consider myself more Irish.

"I am closer to Ireland in my education and in the way I think. I will always be French on the paper but Irish on the bike, even though I'm not going to be able to wear a green jersey."