Nicolas Roche competes for Ireland at the Worlds in Bergen last year. He rides the elite men's road race and TT again in Innsbruck (Photo: Sean Rowe)
Cycling Ireland has named the Irish team set to contest the World Road Championships in Innsbruck. Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche are both included in the line-up.
They will be joined in a four-man team for the elite men’s road race by Conor Dunne (Aqua Blue Sport) and Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo).
Roche (BMC Racing) will also ride the time trial as will Mullen, a TT specialist. Martin (UAE Team Emirates) recently left the Vuelta as his wife was about to give birth to twins.
However, he has been included in the national team for Austria. And the racing takes place on a hilly course that should suit him and Roche best.
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For the elite women’s road race, Alice Sharpe (Torelli-Brother) is the sole rider named. She gets the nod having finished the road race at last month’s European Championships in Glasgow.
In the women’s TT, Cycling Ireland has selected the same two riders who competed in the test at the Europeans.
National champion Kelly Murphy (Chapter 2) has been named for the race against the clock, as has Eileen Burns (Ballymena Road Club).
Eddie Dunbar was to use the Tour of Britain as his last race before the Worlds. But with Aqua Blue Sport folding so suddenly that it pulled out of the race, he'll have a race-free build-up to Innsbruck.
The winner and runner-up at the junior road nationals, Lara Gillespie and Maeve Gallagher are Ireland’s two-rider female junior team for the Innsbruck Worlds.
It seems only a matter of time before Ryan Mullen pulls off a huge result for Ireland against the watch at elite level. He rides road race and test in Austria.
Murphy and Burns won gold and silver respectively in the TT at the national championships in Sligo back in June; a reversal of their finishing order last year.
For the U23 road race, Cycling Ireland has stuck largely with the team that rode the recent Tour de l’Avenir.
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In the line-up is the Team Wiggins duo of Matt Teggart and Michael O’Loughlin.
Eddie Dunbar (Aqua Blue Sport) is also picked having gone very close to a mountain stage win in France last month.
Daire Feeley (Union Cycliste de Monaco) and Darragh O’Mahony (Team CC Nogent-sur-Oise) also get the nod.
One name missing is that of Mark Downey; though stickybottle understands he opted not to ride.
He has had a very long campaign of racing road and track and was also 2nd in a stage of Tour de l’Avenir.
Conn McDunphy, who has already ridden for the Irish U23s on many ocassions, is named as reserve.
Looking sharp: The only Irish woman in the elite road race will be Alice Sharpe.
Eileen Burns at the Worlds last year. This year she's been picked for the Commonwealth Games, Europeans and Worlds; and she works full-time...
She's our national champion and now Kelly Murphy is representing Ireland at the Worlds.
Ireland will have two riders in the U23 test; Dunbar and O'Loughlin awarded the two berths available.
The junior women’s team is made up of two riders; Lara Gillespie (Scott-Orwell) and Maeve Gallagher (Castlebar CC).
They will both ride the road race and Gillespie, a European title winner on the track in recent weeks, also takes in the junior women’s TT.
The junior men’s road race team includes national TT champion Ben Healy as well as Aaron Doherty, Breandán Flannagan and Archie Ryan,
Adam Ward, the national road race champion and Junior Tour of Wales stage winner, is named as reserve.
As well as the road race, Healy and Doherty will also represent Ireland in the junior test at the Worlds.
The World Road Championships take place from Setember 23rd to 30th.
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