The Irish national junior team for the Peace Race in Czechia, starting today, has been reduced in size while two changes have also been made as bad luck has befallen some of the young riders originally selected.
And having lost two riders to that bad luck, it appears Cycling Ireland has only been able to draft in one junior to take one of the vacant places. It means the team goes into the UCI Nations Cup stage race a man down before it even starts, which is unfortunate.
Conor Prendergast (Van Mossel Heist Cycling Team), who competed on the junior national team at Dornan Rás Mumhan at Easter, suffered a nasty crash out training. A sheep ran into his path, knocking the Galway rider off his bike and into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
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Prendergast was doing about 50kmph at the time on his TT bike when he hit the ram, before the oncoming driver went over his foot, causing fractures to his ankle and a metatarsal. That crash, last week in Co Wicklow, has ruled out Prendergast from any action racing for a while.
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Josh Callaly, who was also selected for the Peace Race, has been forced out of the Irish team. The Lucan CRC rider came down with illness and though he is expected to recover very quickly, he is unfit for racing this weekend.
In the absence of Callaly and Prendergast, David Gaffney (Villeneuve Cycliste) has been drafted into the team and will join Patrick Casey (GRENKE-Auto Eder), Seth Dunwoody (Cannibal B Victorious), Cal Tutty (JEGG-DJR Academy) and Joseph Mullen (Zappi Racing Team) in what is still a very strong unit.
The Peace Race will be fought out over four days next month, from Thursday to Sunday May 2nd to 5th, with four road race stages ranging from 61km to 134km.
Announcing the team two weeks ago, Cycling Ireland national development coach, Michael Black, said the strength and depth of the line-up showed the continued focus from Cycling Ireland on youth athlete development and creating a high performance pathway.
“We are delighted to announce the six riders for the first Nations Cup Race as a Junior team,” he said. “The depth and quality of talented junior riders at the minute has made our team selection very difficult and we easily could have selected two very competitive teams."
