Cycling Ireland technical director Brian Nugent talks Worlds | Sticky Bottle

*Brian Nugent leads his riders into the Worlds in Berlin in search of medals and other results while also targeting Olympic qualification*

The Irish track team is “medal competitive” in "four or five" events going into the World Track Championships, according to Cycling Ireland technical director Brian Nugent.

While he expects one of them to win a medal, Nugent said there is now a big push on to qualify for the Olympics in the madison events.

As the Worlds in Berlin get underway Nugent said one key
goal would be to qualify our riders in the Madison, which would mean booking a
place in the women’s and men’s events in Tokyo, with four riders taking part.

The team pursuit line-up has done very well over the past
year and are now 12^th in the UCI rankings, having moved up two places
of late.

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However, even moving into the top ten in the rankings will
be a challenge as the points difference is not insignificant.

Ireland are on 3,905 points in 12^th with Belgium
on 4327.5 points in 11^th and Korea on 4,555 in 10^th.

But Nugent points out that the women have made very significant progress in repeatedly lowering their personal best – and the Irish record – and he believes they can do that again (which they have done this morning - Ed)

In a video interview, below, he pointed to Lydia Boylan and Lydia Gurley as well as Mark Downey and Felix English - in the madison and their individual events – as real medal prospects.