Dylan Foley is one of five junior riders in the hunt for a place on the four-man pursuit team at the Junior World Track Championships in Glasgow next week.
By Brian Canty
Cycling Ireland head coach Brian Nugent is optimistic the Irish junior men’s track team can be competitive at next week’s World Championships in Glasgow but said expecting a medal is too much to ask.
Nugent has been based in Belgium with a large squad of the country’s top U23 and junior riders for almost a month now and he said he “couldn’t be happier” with the application of all involved.
“Everyone’s very good now, it’s been a really good camp so far,” enthused Nugent of the U23 riders.
“It was ambitious what we tried to do out here, with the amount of people, but it’s worked very well and they’ve gotten lots of opportunities and experience so it’s going really well and we’re very pleased,” he added.
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“The lads are going really well, they’re putting the work in and every day they’re getting better. They’re doing their sessions, then we have a bit of a de-brief and come back the next day where they left off. They’re just learning a lot and they’re getting faster every time and I couldn’t be happier.”
The big goal for next week is the 4k team pursuit and a four-man team from Dylan Foley, Thomas Fallon, Matt Doyle, Mark Downey and Jack Sadler will be picked from that.
One rider who has been omitted has been Dylan O’Brien but he is still a first year junior and having set some blistering times over 2k for the individual pursuit, it’s likely he’ll get some chances in the individual events like the omnium and points.
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But from the aforementioned five riders, one will be held in reserve. The team will be selected next Tuesday, the day before the event.
“Nothing else matters to them at the minute, they’re just in a really good frame of mind for it,” continued Nugent.
“They’re super motivated, every day they go to the track they’re listening, they’re learning, they’re asking questions. They’ve made huge improvements, they’ve really gotten into it.”
As regards records and medals, he stressed: “Usually in the second year, the records start to come, the last time we did this in 2007/08, the first year the guys were finding their feet, the second year they were breaking records and being competitive and got a gold medal in the points race through Sam Bennett. They’re certainly talented juniors, that’s 100% certain and I think next year will be better again.”
The Irish team will send a five-man team to Glasgow this Sunday, with Nugent, Frank O’Leary (junior coach), Stacey Kelly (soigneur) and Glasgow native Liam Howard (mechanic) operating as the backroom staff.
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