Members of the Irish track team will return to racing on the boards this weekend in Gent, Belgium, after a very long absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A small national team has been assembled for the
international meeting, which will offer invaluable racing opportunities for
riders from around the world.
And now that the Olympics are just over three months away the racing on offer has drawn national and trade team selections from all across Europe as well as Israel, Ukraine, Russia, Laos, the United States, Thailand and Guatemala.
The International Belgian Track meeting gets underway today, Friday, and will see a full schedule of events through the weekend on the Eddy Merckx velodrome.
The provisional entry list for the event includes a male
and female Irish national team made up of elites Mark Downey, Felix English,
Shannon McCurley, Emily Kay and Lydia Gurley as well as U23 rider JB Murphy.
All of those riders have won medals at the Worlds, Europeans or at World Cup
level.
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Alice Sharpe and Mia Griffin are also down to ride,
though they were listed as competing with UCI trade team Rupelcleaning-Champion Lubricants.
Irish rider Orla
Walsh was also down to ride the meeting and she too is down to rode in the
colours of a team; NoPinz Motip RT.
However, it wasn’t
clear at the time of writing if Sharpe, Griffin and Walsh would ride for the
national team or not.
Spellman Dublin
Port, an Irish UCI-registered track team, has also entered four riders
including well known road racer and pursuiter Cian Keogh.
With him in the
Spellman Dublin Port line-up are Claire Faber from Luxembourg, Kiwi Rylee
McMullen and British rider William Perrett.
We’ll bring you
more from the meeting as it unfolds.
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