By Shane Stokes
He’s taken results this year such as second overall in the 2.1 Pays d’Iroise in France, as well as bronze in the junior national time trial championships plus fourth in the road race.
Now Irish junior international, Patrick Casey, has secured a place with a World Tour team's under 19 squad for the 2024, as well as backing from Red Bull.
In what is a significant boost to his developing career, the 17 year old was confirmed on Thursday as being one of two riders to win the Red Bull Junior Brothers programme, which is used to identify strong new talents for German World Tour team Bora-hansgrohe team.
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He and the Austrian Anatol Friedl will compete with Bora’s Team Auto Eder next season, and will hope to progress to the WorldTour squad down the line.
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The duo emerged best in a screening drive conducted across Zwift and Strava this season, enabling riders to log rides on predefined segments. This data, recorded between the start of February and the end of May, was then assessed and 17 riders were invited to the Red Bull Athlete Performance Centre in Austria in late August to take part in a training camp. That whittled things down to two victors, Casey and Friedl.
Casey is from Yorkshire in Britain but declared for Ireland as he has family links to this country. He raced on the national team in the European championships, netting 38th in the time trial and 67th in the road race.
While those results were not the best out of the Irish team, Bora-Hansgrohe sees many encouraging signs and will work with him via Team Auto Eder next season to develop his talent.
He will hope to follow the example of Cian Uijtdebroeks, who was with the team in 2021 and then secured a WorldTour contract with Bora-hansgrohe. Uijtdebroeks won the Tour de l’Avenir last season and took 8th overall in the Vuelta a España, plus second in the young rider classification.
