Brian Nugent with World No 1 pursuiter and Worlds medalist Caroline Ryan on the track at Sundrive Rd in Dublin. The Cycling Ireland head coach says there is intense competition for the three places available on the Irish junior team for the World Road Race Championships in Florence next month.
By Brian Canty
Cycling Ireland Head Coach Brian Nugent admits it will be “extremely tough” to pick a junior men’s team for the World Road Race Championships in Florence next month.
The three-man selection is something Nugent said he hasn’t even considered yet as he has the small matter of overseeing the training of an Irish Junior track team who will participate in the World Track Championships this week in Glasgow.
But after that, he, and his fellow coaches and selectors will go about picking a team that they feel can get the best result in Italy .
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“It’s going to be extremely tough, very difficult,” confessed Nugent.
“Three riders will go but you could send five or six, it’s going to be very difficult and to be honest, I’m trying not to think of that until after the World Track championships because it is a difficult one.
“We have formed opinions and things like that and we have ideas but we’ll have to wait until after the Track champs to visit it again."
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"It’ll be a tough selection but we’re in a good place…there are more people doing well and that’s good to see and it’s good for the future and that’s how we want to keep it; high competition for places. No one can take their foot off the gas and everyone has to keep moving forward."
Conventional wisdom would suggest Eddie Dunbar will lead the team having not only won the Junior Tour last month but he has notched up a string of fine victories already this season while also performing superbly in the European Road Race Championships in the Czech Republic, where he finished 26th.
With him there were Danny Bruton and Ciarán Campbell and they’ll both have to be considered again, as will Dunbar ’s Junior Tour teammates Dylan Foley and Thomas Fallon.
Matt Doyle rode the Worlds last year and is eligible again this year, while Jack Sadler won two stages of the Junior Tour and cannot be discounted either. The latter two are currently in Belgium training as part of a five-man selection for the World Track Championships.
There are plenty more who have shown excellent form this season and just some names are Sean Hahessy, Stephen Shanahan and Dylan O’Brien, the latter two still in the first year of the Junior ranks.
Mark Downey wore the yellow jersey at the Junior Tour for two days and is a fabulous climber and the younger brother of An Post Chain Reaction rider Sean has bags of class.
Of the others in the Nicolas Roche Performance Team, there’s David McCarthy as well as current National Champion Liam Corcoran; plenty for those picking the team to choose from and so plenty of headaches ahead, not to mention disappointment for many among what is a very strong crop of juniors this year.
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