Dominic Jelfs gets ready at the back of the Madison team car, chatting with manager Roger Hammond
Irish international Dominic Jelfs has been riding his first races as a professional over the past week, when he took to the roads of Spain for the Mallorca Challenge series with his new team Madison Genesis.
He has been racing on the Continent in recent years and over the winter break signed for Madison, a UK-based team that counts former Team Sky professional Roger Hammond as manager. The squad has been riding the series of one-day races in Spain in recent days known as the Mallorca Challenge.
The fields have included some of the biggest teams in the world, representing a testing start to its operations for the Hammond-led outfit.
The action got underway last Sunday with the Trofeo Palma; a 112km race in Palma. It ended in a bunch sprint which was won by Kenny Dehaes (Lotto Belisol) from Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) and Ben Swift (Team Sky). Jelfs came home in a group some 1:29 down in 126th place.
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On Monday the riders had 167km to contend with in the Trofeo Migjorn and while that split up it was still dominated by the sprinters, with Leigh Howard (Orica GreenEdge) taking the verdict from Farrar. Jelfs finished in 173rd in a group 4:15 down.
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Tuesday saw the riders take on the much more challenging Trofeo Deià, which was 153km long and featured a number of climbs. That was won by Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), with Jelfs listed as a non-finisher.
Wednesday saw the series conclude with the 170km Platja de Muro, which was won again by Leigh Howard. Jelfs was in a large group outside the time limit.
British-born Jelfs has done a lot of racing in Europe in recent years. However, he has ridden on Irish development teams and also made a number of Irish U23 Nations Cups teams in recent years.
He rode for French team ‘Hennebont Cyclisme’ in 2012 and claimed the silver medal behind Sam Bennett in the U23 National Championships in 2010, a year in which he also rode the FBD Rás on the Irish development team.
He took the biggest win of his career last year when in September he grabbed a stage of the UCI 2.2 Tour of Bulgaria. He had won another race, in Brittany, earlier in the year.
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