Damien Shaw had plenty hard days on the bike in 2016 but he's hoping he can implement the lessons he learnt to have an even better season next year. He will be one of four Irishman in the team alongside Sean McKenna, Conor Hennebry and Matt Teggart.
By Brian Canty
Former Irish national road race champion Damien Shaw has agreed terms with An Post-ChainReaction for the forthcoming season.
The Mullingar man, 32, joins fellow Irish riders Conor Hennebry, Matthew Teggart and Sean McKenna, who have all signed one year deals.
Shaw’s best results this year included 5th in the nationals and 5th in the An Post Rás while he competed in the 2.HC-ranked Tour of Britain as well as the European Championships in France.
It was a steep learning curve and he said next year will be all about implementing the lessons he learnt to date.
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“I had a great time in 2016 stepping up to the professional level,” he said.
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“It was a huge opportunity for me to test myself away from Ireland and see where I was on the continental stage.
“I learned so much and I'm really excited for round two with the An Post Chain Reaction Team to put those learnings into action.”
The team also added a number of promising riders to their roster for next year with up and coming Kiwi track star Regan Gough putting pen to paper on a one-year deal.
The 20-year old has won gold medals from the 2014 UCI junior track cycling world championships and the 2015 UCI track cycling world championships in the team pursuit.
And he was also part of his country’s team pursuit squad at the Rio Olympics who finished fourth.
Also joining is 22-year old Polish cyclist Premislav Kasperkiewicz who previously raced for Czech team Klein Constantia.
Britain’s Dan Gardner, formerly of Astellas Cycling Team, and another track man cyclist, Sean MacKinnon from Canada, have also signed contracts.
We’ll have a longer interview with Shaw in the coming days where he talks about what he learnt in 2016 and what he hopes to do next year.
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