Ryan Mullen has taken his first podium result in a UCI race and now outlines so big targets for the next few months.
By Shane Stokes
Having notched up what is arguably his best-ever road race result, Ryan Mullen is setting his sights on some other key targets this season and has named his main goals to stickybottle.
The An Post Chainreaction team rider placed third overall in the An Post Rás after an extremely consistent performance, and also took the white jersey as best young rider.
He was smiling and satisfied at the finish in Skerries on Sunday afternoon, but also ready to knuckle down and do more work.
As Mullen told stickybottle more than once during the eight day race, he is still in a building phase in terms of form and expects to be at a higher level soon.
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“I am going to Mallorca in a couple of days’ time to start preparing for the Baku Games time trial,” he said.
“I have got a big block there of threshold work and then Baku Games and then the nationals.
“I will take a bit of time off and then do a big push for the Europeans in Estonia and then we will see how I am for that and obviously the worlds.
“In between the Europeans and worlds we don’t really know what is happening yet.
“The programme is always changing, there are always guys dealing with injury and stuff. I had my own fair share of injury this year.”
Mullen’s said earlier this year that developing as a road race rider was one of his big priorities.
He was previously primarily known as a time trial specialist, not least because of his storming silver ride in the 2014 under 23 world time trial championships.
However his performance in the 2.2-ranked Rás showed the progress he has made.
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Mullen in action in last week's Rás where he took the U23 classification as well as 3rd overall (Photo: Paul Mohan - Sportsfile)
Given that he is only 20 years of age, there are real grounds to believe that he can make further progress in the future and go on to a WorldTour contract.
“Obviously the nationals is probably my best result so far, but this my biggest in terms of UCI racing,” he said.
“It is my first ever podium in a stage race so it is progress.”
As he acknowledges, the result was achieved despite there being no time trial; had there been, he likely would have been closer to yellow.
Overall, he’s happy with how things turned out for him and the squad.
“It was a really good week,” he said.
“The team rode really well. We finished it off with some style.
“Four stage wins and four of us on the podium; it was tough. Hopefully I come out of it with some good form…”
The European Games time trial in Baku on June 18th will be a good gauge of that.
Mullen was frustrated with his near miss in the worlds time trial last September, missing out on gold by just 0.48 of a second.
And he is highly motivated to achieve the best possible result in the Azerbaijan competition, the European championships in early August and the worlds in September.
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