Irish road international Fiona Mangan is set to ride for Spanish UCI squad Soltec Team next season. Based in Murcia, and with 2022 its first year as a Continental team, it has now confirmed Mangan among its riders for next seaon.
The team signed Olympic road race champion Anna Kiesenhofer for part of the 2022 campaign. As well as Mangan in its ranks for next year, it has also confirmed Isabella Escalera and Mariana Libano will ride for it. Escalera is a Spanish track international while Libano (18) was runner-up in Portugal's national junior road race championships this year.
Mangan (26) was a late-comer to cycling but made an impact almost immediately and has represented Ireland on the road as well as riding for Irish-Belgian Continental team IBCT this year. She was unlucky with illness and injury this season but still banked lots of experience in pro races in Europe, including Lotto Belgium Tour (2.1).
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She broke her collarbone on June 6th during GP Mazda Schelkens (1.2) in Belgium but just 19 days later she was in the field in the elite women's race at the National Road Championships in Kanturk and took bronze. A couple of weeks later she scored her first win on the road in Europe at a pro kermesse in Vrasene, Belgium.
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The Limerick woman played Gaelic football in a previous life, with Mungret St Paul’s GAA, before she moved into triathlon. That transition only came about when she went to Atlanta in the US for college – to study to be a biomedical engineer. In 2020 she focused more on cycling, due to a running injury, and rode her first major race that year; the national championships in Co Limerick.
Early last year she based herself in Girona and raced with Costa Brava Mediterranean Foods before returning to Ireland during the summer. She underlined her rapid progress by winning the Newcastle West Stage Race in her native Limerick in July-August. She claimed three of the four stages as well as the overall and the points classification.
Mangan also won the Cycling Ireland National Road Series last year and made the Irish team for Rás na mBan.
More to come on Mangan's move for next season.
