Huge Irish team named for European Road Championships | Sticky Bottle

Lara Gillespie has already taken two European titles for Ireland this year, on the track, and given the strength in depth across the Irish team for the road Europeans, we can go to the Netherlands with very high hopes of medals (Photo: Sean Rowe)

Cycling Ireland has named a very large Irish team - with 29 riders in total - for the road races and TTs at the European Road Championships in the Netherlands, which begin in just over two weeks time. There are many established internationals in the squad, with also some new faces.

And one of the debutants is a rider who won a Spanish national title on the road this year, but is also entitled to ride for Team Ireland and should add real firepower to the Irish squad going forward.

The strength of the pool of Irish riders now available to selectors has probably never been higher. And that fact, combined with some of the recent Irish performances at the World Road Championships in Glasgow, means this team goes to Drenthe with real medal chances.

One of the debutants is Cal Tutty, the junior with Dungarvan CC who has forced his way into this team with the strength of his performances this year, including 3rd in the road race at the National Road Championships. The other new name is Julia Murphy, who is based in Mallorca and won the junior women's Spanish TT title earlier this year.

*Archie Ryan won a stage at Tour de l'Avenir and is now back on the national team, this time for the Europeans*

One interesting feature of the Europeans is that, unlike the Worlds, there is a separate women's U23 road race, with Lara Gillespie, Caoimhe O'Brien, Aoife O'Brien and Erin Creighton making up the Irish team.
In the women's junior ranks, Irish road and TT champion, and 4th place TT finisher at the Worlds, Lucy Benezet Minns is selected with Aine Doherty and the aforementioned Julia Murphy. All three will compete in both the TT and road race.

For the first time ever - and in quite an historic juncture for the women's scene - the quality of the women's junior and U23 teams means Ireland has a very real chance of a medal from both line-ups.

The junior men's team is also a very strong one; Seth Dunwoody, Adam Rafferty, Liam O'Brien, Patrick Casey, Cal Tutty and Oisin Ferrity; the latter the junior Commonwealth Games road race champion. Rafferty and O'Brien - 8th and 11th in the junior TT at the Worlds - will also ride the TT at the Europeans, along with Casey, who broke the Irish junior 25 mile TT record last week.

The U23 men's team is comprised of: Darren Rafferty, Archie Ryan, Dean Harvey, Odhran Doogan, Jamie Meehan and Kevin McCambridge. Rafferty and Ryan are real medal contenders - maybe even for gold. Harvey and Rafferty will also compete in the TT, where Rafferty is again a medal contender.

On the elite men's road race team are Ryan Mullen, Sam Bennett, Rory Townsend and Dillon Corkery, with Bennett a medal contender. Mullen also rides the TT. The elite women's road race team is made up of just two riders - Alice Sharpe and Megan Armitage - with Kelly Murphy set to compete in the women's TT.