Top Irish junior road and cyclocross rider Darren Rafferty faces a period away from racing and in recovery after sustaining a number of injuries while racing on home roads yesterday.
Rafferty, who has represented
Ireland at U16 and junior level, was riding the Hilltown GP and was in the winning
breakaway when he crashed.
He hit a pothole at around 40 miles
per hour. He was attended to by paramedics before being brought to hospital,
where medical examinations confirmed several broken bones.
The 17-year-old was diagnosed with three broken ribs, a broken wrist and bruising on his left lung.
Rafferty is racing this year in the colours of Team 31 Jollycycles U19, a French outfit, and still plans to take up his place with that team in France next month once his injuries heal.
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The crash is a bitter blow to him as it comes just as his second year in the junior ranks was really starting to move forward after the disappointment of last year.
When Covid-19 hit last March, not only was racing halted in Ireland, but there was also no option to be selected onto Irish teams to race abroad, something he would have been in line for.
Rafferty rode for Ireland in the junior race at the World Cyclocross Championships in February of last year despite only having just come out of the U16 ranks. He also won the Irish junior cyclocross title but then the road racing season was then very badly hit by the pandemic.
But just after the 2021 racing season commenced in the North last month he won the PJ Logan Cup and beat a number of top A1 riders that he was in the breakaway with.
He had also impressed yesterday at
the Hilltown GP before he crashed in the closing stages of the race but
hopefully he can recover quickly and enjoy a strong second half of the season.
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