Michael O'Loughlin (leading) and Stephen Shanahan have been selected on the national junior team for the Tour of the North at Easter; pictured here by Sean Rowe at the Des Hanlon Memorial in Carlow last weekend.
Cycling Ireland has named some of the best junior riders in the country on its first national junior team of the 2014 season to take on a strong senior field in the P&O Ferries Tour of the North at Easter.
The team is made up of O’Leary Stone Kanturk duo Dylan O’Brien and Eddie Dunbar, two riders from the NRPT-Standard Life team in the shape of Michael O’Loughlin and Mark Downey and another very promising talent, Stephen Shanahan from Limerick CC.
Both Dunbar and O’Loughlin have enjoyed wins in the opening weeks of the year, with Dunbar looking particularly strong any time he has raced.
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Last weekend he won the A3-Junior race at the Des Hanlon Memorial after spending around 100km up the road on his own and overcoming a puncture and another mechanical mishap to claim victory by an impressive margin of several minutes.
Earlier this month he travelled to Belgium and rode two races, winning one and placing 3rd in the other. His travelling companion on that trip was team mate O’Brien who finished 6th and 7th in those two outings; two very strong results in their own right.
Of the others picked for the Easter encounter, Michael O’Loughlin was placed 2nd in the Newbridge GP three weekends ago and then won the Blarney & District Traders Cup the weekend before last.
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He has made a seamless transition from youth racing last year to taking his place close to the top of the tree in the junior ranks less than two months into the new campaign.
He was also 2nd in Carlow at the weekend, where Shanahan was 3rd and O’Brien 5th.
Shanahan has also put a number of strong rides elsewhere, placing 5th in Rás Luimni the weekend before last and placing 4th in the Cycleways Cup early this month.
Downey’s 2nd place in the Cycleways Cup shows he is not too far from the form that saw him selected to ride both the road and track World Championships last year as a first year junior, taking a stage win and 2nd overall in the Junior Tour and wining Rás Dhun na nGall overall.
The team will be managed over the Easter Bank Holiday by Neil Delahaye.
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