Jack Wilson is one rider on the Irish U23 team who Cycling Ireland believes can do some damage at the Nations Cup races starting today at the Tour of Flanders, and in the process help Ireland qualify for the U23 road race at the World Championships later in the year.
By Brian Canty
Cycling Ireland head coach, Brian Nugent believes it’s a realistic goal for the Irish U23 team to get two top 10 finishes in the Nations Cup races which start today, Saturday, with the Tour of Flanders.
After today’s race the team was due to travel south to France to race the Core de Picardie on Wednesday before migrating back up north again to Holland for the final race, the ZLM Tour next weekend.
If they were to secure the two top 10s Nugent speaks of, that would automatically qualify Ireland two places for the U23 road race at the World Championships in Spain in September.
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It would also mean the team need not stress about racing more Nations Cup events later in the season and would also save money for the federation, Nugent said.
“Felix English has already scored points in Australia and all the points scored at UCI level go towards qualifying a slot for the World Championships,” Nugent told stickybottle last night, referring to a number of placings English had bagged while riding for his trade team Rapha Condor JLT in January.
“The Nations Cups are just that bit easier to get points in though; you get about 30-40 nations but they’re all working for maybe one or two guys for their own respective countries so you’ve a really good chance.
“Our plan is to get points this week and even without Felix we can get a top 10, or maybe two top 10s.”
Though English is out, and Nugent really rues that, he thinks in Ryan Mullen, Conor Dunne and Jack Wilson, there’s potential to do damage,
“If you get one top 10 you get one rider qualified for the U23 Worlds road race, and if you don’t you’ll have to go elsewhere to score points,” he said,
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“But the An Post Chainreaction lads are all in good races to score points throughout the year and they know that. They’re in 1.1s and that’s where points can come from too,” he added of the UCI grading of many of the races the team rides.
“These are the top three races in the world at this level and we aim to be right in the mix. Now, of course there’s a lot of luck involved too so it’s hard to know how it will go.
“Felix is going well and it’s a shame we won’t have him, we had talked about him having a good Picardie and ZLM. He’d come into the final in a small group and do well in a sprint and that was one plan but with Ryan Mullen too, we’ve options.
“We’ll look for him to do well at ZLM, while we’ll look to Conor Dunne and Jack to do well in Flanders and Picardie.
“But with Felix not there it leaves a gap so Kurt (Bogaerts, manager) will have to play that one out. Eoin (McCarthy) and Conor (McIlwaine) have a team role as well and they know that.
“Hopefully Ryan will have his track legs transferred to the road again, it’s just a matter of getting the miles in because he’s capable of a really good ride at ZLM,” he said referring to Ryan Mullen’s track focus in recent months and claiming 4th in the pursuit in the elite World Track Championships in Colombia.
“Last year he was flying there and just came out of the front group because of a crash with five kilometres to go. He can really do something there I think.”
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