The crash at the European Championships in Switzerland that could have ended Eoin Mullen's Olympic hopes. The 22 year-old goes into the UCI World Cup in New Zealand aiming to secure enough points to qualify for next year's Games in Brazil.
Eoin Mullen has embarked on a 20,000 kilometre journey to New Zealand as part of the Irish team taking part in the UCI Track World Cup from December 4th to 6th.
The 22 year-old has had a season of ups and downs (literally), breaking the national kilometre record at the European Championships last month sandwiched in between nasty crashes.
The first spill came at the Track World Cup in Cali in January while the second was also at the Europeans where he tangled with Hungarian rider Sandor Szalontay during the first round repechage of the keirin.
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He’ll be hoping for better luck in New Zealand where he goes in search of the qualifying points that will hopefully secure his plane ticket to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next August.
“At the moment I’m close to qualifying for Rio but a lot has to go my way yet," he said.
“The points-scoring is more complicated than Leaving Cert maths!"
Basically, Mullen is hoping Russia qualify for the team sprint, which would free up some spaces for him to secure his qualification, or at least make the process somewhat easier.
Just after the medal presentation at the European Championships last year where he took bronze in the sprint.
“I need to be above a couple of European nations and I’ve got New Zealand and another World Cup in Hong Kong in January to do it,” he explained.
“To do that I definitely need to pass the qualification rounds and we’ll see after that. It’s not going to be easy because everyone is flying.
“Team GB were saying they’ll have to send an A team to New Zealand and Hong Kong; originally it was a B team they were going to send but they need to make sure.
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"So that tells you the standard we’re up against. It’s not going to be easy.”
Mullen flew out from Switzerland to Barcelona on Monday before traveling on to Dubai and Melbourne.
From there he was bound for Auckland and was due to arrive today, Wednesday.
The women’s team pursuit are also travelling and they will link up with Australia-based Shannon McCurley, who goes in the keirin.
Mullen was well below his best at the last round of the Track World Cup in Cali Colombia at the beginning of the month, so he’ll be hoping for better this time around.
“I’m getting back into it,” he explained.
“I struggled right up to September this year and I was starting to feel good again but then I hit the deck again in Euros and I wasn’t even sure if I’d make it to Cali.
“I did better than I thought there," he said of his 36th place finish out of 42 in the sprint in a time of 10.216.
"But failed to advance. You’re never happy when you don’t qualify but I was glad I didn’t break any bones in the Euros, I came out of it pretty okay.
“I had a lot of burns and bruising on my abs so I lost a bit of sleep.
“But I was pretty lucky I didn’t get any internal injuries because I had a splinter lodged in pretty deep.”
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