Ben Healy, the Irish elite and U23 road race champion, will be leader of the Trinity Racing team when it hits the road in 2021.
The squad, founded and owned by Irish cycling agent Andrew McQuaid, was led in dominant fashion last year by Tom Pidcock and is now set to become a Continental team.
Now that young British rider
Pidcock is moving to WorldTour team Ineos Grenadiers, Healy is promoted to team
leader role having made a big impression in his second year at U23 level this
year.
“The Trinity
Racing road team, registering as a British Continental team, will be led by
current double Irish national champion, Ben Healy,” the team said in a release
on Monday.
“He will be surrounded by a host of talented young riders on the new road roster, including Thomas Gloag who had a breakout performance at the U23 Giro d’Italia in September.”
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The 20-year-old
Irish rider will have considerable backing as McQuaid has assembled a strong
group of young riders – a mix of established and emerging talents – that includes
two other Irish riders, Finley Newmark and Matthew Devins.
Healy rode very strongly this year in the Baby Giro in support of Pidcock, who won the race overall, took three stage wins and the climbers’ classification.
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Healy then went
on to ride Ronde de l'Isard (2.2U)
and had a much freer hand without Pidcock in the team; using that additional
freedom to take some great results.
He was 2nd on the opening stage, from a five-man breakaway, and Trinity Racing took 6th in the stage 2 team TT.
The final stage
of the race took the riders up three cat 1 mountains; Col de Latrape
(1,113m), Col d’Agnes (1,547m) and Col de Peguere (1,368m).
Healy got clear in the winning breakaway, attacking it from a long way out to solo clear to victory by a margin of almost two minutes before being picked for the elite road race at the Worlds in Imola.
He then went on to ride the National Road Championships where he recorded the fastest time in the TT, and won the U23 Irish title, and also won the combined U23-elite road race title.
In 2019, as a first-year U23, Healy claimed a stage victory from a breakaway at Tour de l’Avenir aged 18, the youngest rider to win a stage on the race since its foundation.
As a second year junior Healy won the Irish TT title and was 2nd in the road race – to Adam Ward – and has represented Ireland on the road at U23 and elite level.
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