Up front

Over the past few years, Orla Chennaoui has established herself as the face of pro cycling in her role as lead presenter on Eurosport. She tells Cyclist about sticking to her values, her favourite cycling rivalry and why women's racing is more exciting than ever

- EMMA COLE

‘Within ten minutes of sitting in the studio I was crying with laughter, I mean barely able to breathe’

Orla Chennaoui is not a former pro racer; she doesn’t come from a family of cyclists and she hasn’t spent a lifetime immersed in cycling culture. So how has she come to find herself hosting Eurosport’s cycling coverage and commenting on the biggest races in the world?

‘It’s an odd thing, I think, when I look at it in isolation,’ says Chennaoui as she reflects on her career in the media.

‘I learned to ride my bike as a kid. I lived in the countryside in Northern Ireland and would often spend my summer holidays on my bike with my two cousins, Maeve and Maria. We’d cycle to each other’s houses and then go play in the rivers and fields, but that’s as far as it went.

‘I remember there was one kid at school called Jim who was a competitive cyclist, and at the time we all thought it was weird that Jim shaved his legs. For us it was the definition of strange. I grew up after the time of Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche, so I was aware of the amazing things they’d done – the Irish don’t win very much – but I didn’t get back into cycling until work reintroduced me to it, and I fell in love with it straight away.’

Making moves 

Chennaoui began her journalism career in print, then moved into radio, then local television in England, national television in Scotland and then to Sky, where she was a news correspondent at the age of 26.