A strong Irish team, with a mix of youth and experience, is set to take on the Kreiz Breizh Elites Dames (2.2) race this week over two stages in Brittany.
The team features some seasoned Irish internationals and
others who will be making their debut in an Irish jersey at elite level.
The Irish riders – Alice Sharpe, Imogen Cotter, Mia
Griffin, Megan Armitage, Lucy O’Donnell and Caoimhe O’Brien – will take on a
host of riders from pro teams including Jumbo-Visma, Team DSM, Drops Le Col, Parkhotel
Valkenburg and Team Arkéa, among others.
Former Irish road race champion, Sharpe (27), is the most experienced campaigner in the national team for the French race.
She comes back onto the road after being part of the Irish team pursuit line-up that won gold at the UCI World Cup in St Petersburg earlier this month.
Advertisement
Another member of that gold medal winning team, Griffin
(22), is also selected for the French two-day stage race, which takes place
this Thursday and Friday.
Griffin also took the individual pursuit bronze at the recent World Cup, which she added to the bronze medal she took at the same event in the U23 Europeans last year.
Related News
She is riding this year on the road, alongside Sharpe, with Team Rupelcleaning, but swaps her trade team jersey for the Irish kit this week.
Cotter (28), who has been riding very well in Belgium in
recent seasons, will be making her debut for Ireland at the Kreiz Breizh Elites
Dames. While she was picked to ride the race last year, an injury sustained
just before the event ruled her out.
Armitage (24), who has been riding for UCD Cycling Club
on home roads this year and for Illi Bikes in Belgium, also gets the call-up to
the national team this week.
Armitage was leading a race in Scheldewindeke, East Flanders, earlier this month when she got sent the wrong way by an official. Cotter was in the same event and finished in 2nd place.
The two youngest members of the Irish team for this week,
U23 riders O’Brien (19) and O’Donnell (18), will be adding to their growing
level of experience when they line out for the elite national team.
First year U23 rider O’Donnell is no stranger to the
green jersey as she represented Ireland at both the road and cyclocross World
Championships as a junior. And having performed very well recently in the
Portugal Cup she is named in the team for France.
O’Brien, another first-year U23, represented Ireland at
the Youth Olympics during her U16 racing days but this is her first step up to
elite international duty.
She claimed silver in the junior women’s road race at the
National Road Championships in Limerick last year. More recently she has
runner-up in the opening round of the National Road Series in Limerick last
month.
Topics
