Irish cycling team named for European Youth Olympics in Slovakia

*The six-rider Irish team selected for the Summer European Youth Olympic Festival in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia*

The Irish cycling team has been named for the Summer European Youth Olympic Festival in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, later this month. Six young riders are on the team - three male and three female - and all will ride both the road race and TT.

Áine Doherty (VC Glendale), Aliyah Rafferty (Island Wheelers) and Mya Doocey (Navan RC) make up the female team while Patrick Casey (East Bradford CC), Sam Coleman (Shelbourne Orchard CC) and Seth Dunwoody (Shelbourne Orchard CC) are the three male riders selected.

Coleman, along with judo player Bethany McCauley, have been named as the flagbearers for the Irish team at the Games.

All six selected cyclists have been earmarked for selection for some time and have all proven fantastic competitors so far in the youth ranks on the road and, in some cases, in cyclocross.

In the lead up to the team being officially announced, the youth riders have been granted dispensations to compete in elite races on home roads as they prepared for the Games, which take place from July 25th to 31st.

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Doherty and Rafferty, for example, finished 3rd and 4th overall at the women's Newry Three Day last weekend; a race won by top elite rider Gabriele Glodenyte (UCD Cycling Club).

Meanwhile, Doocey, who is a first-year U16, has been impressing in youth events this season, winning the Leinster road race title, and was national U14 road and criterium champion last year.

Of the three male riders selected, Dunwoody has been youth champion in the criterium and Coleman won the U16 cyclocross title this year. Dunwoody last week won the elite Peter Bidwell Memorial, with a near race-long solo attack from the As-Junior group.

And just a few weeks back both Casey, who is based in the UK but has declared for Ireland, and Dunwoody attacked the U16 race at the Noel Teggart Memorial and went on to claim 1st and 2nd after catching and passing the A3-Junior race bunch and breakaway.