Joseph Mullen has emerged as one of the top juniors on the domestic scene for Navan Road Club on the road and in cyclocross over the last 12 months, and has also already made his international debut in cyclocross.
And now the Co Meath teenager has secured a bigger chance for himself next year - with international racing - as he follows in the footsteps of Ben Healy and Archie Ryan to a new UK-based team, with a programme of UCI-ranked European racing.
Mullen is one of the new signings unveiled by Zappi Racing Team's junior line-up. Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) rode for the team as a junior and Archie Ryan (Jumbo Visma Development) also competed for the squad as a second-year junior back in 2019.
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The team has been racing throughout Europe and UK since 2015 and apart from Healy and Ryan - who will be team mates at EF Education-EasyPost next year - it has also helped launch the careers of: Mark Donovan (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team), Mason Hollyman (Israel-Premier Tech), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and other British pro riders.
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Mullen, though a first-year junior on the road this year, has already built up valuable international experience riding for DunasVale-Pereira & Gago, which is based in Portugal; including three top 10s in the Portugal Cup, a national series for juniors.
He has also competed this year in a series of national-level one-day races in Belgium, placing 5th in the 90km Erondegem (1.14.3) event in August and taking other strong results. A winner of the elite cyclocross race in Oldcastle, Co Meath, last weekend, Mullen was 2nd in the junior race at the National Cyclocross Championships last year.
He was also selected for Ireland onto the team that took on the UCI Cyclocross World Cup round in Benidorm last January and the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Hoogerheide in the Netherlands in February.
