Ireland’s Emily Birchall scores fantastic solo stage win at Youth Tour of Scotland

Get in there: Ireland’s Emily Birchall of the Neenan Travel Talent Team 2020 takes the opening stage of the Youth Tour of Scotland in Perth today (Photo: Youth Tour of Scotland)

Emily Birchall of Ireland’s ‘Neenan Travel Talent Team 2020’ has gotten the weekend off to a flying start at the Youth Tour of Scotland, taking today’s opening stage. The Cork youngster was out in front on her own after five laps of a 6.63km loop.

The manner of her performance, not to mention the significant time gaps back to all but one of the other riders, suggests she is now in a great position to aim for overall victory and maybe even further stage wins.

At the finish today, Emily had nine seconds to spare over Eleanor Dickinson (Royal London) in second. In another fantastic result for the Irish girls, Ciara Doogan rounded out the podium in third place, 1:28 down on her victorious team mate.

Laura Cooke of the Ireland team came come in 10^th place in a group 2:34 down on the flying Birchall, who has clearly gotten a lot stronger since her first outing in this race 12 months ago. Naoise Sheridan finished in 21^st place on today’s stage.

In the boys’ race, today’s opening stage was a circuit race of nine laps of the same 6.63km loop as the girls. It was won by Luke Morgan, riding for a composite team.

Jake Gray was best of Ireland’s FBD Talent Team 2020, coming home in 15^th place at four seconds. Michael O’Loughlin placed 18th, five seconds down on the winner, while Dion McCarthy was 20^th at six seconds.

There were then bigger gaps back the field, which split considerably and Aaron Swan finished in 25^th place, 2:27 down in a field of 72 riders.

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Both Irish teams face a split stage tomorrow, Sunday, with a cirterium and time trial to contend with before the racing concludes on Monday with a circuit race.