Luca Holmes, the 17-year-old Dubliner now riding for Belgian team WP Molenspurters, took his first road win of the 2025 campaign at the Dublin Wheelers Open Races in Summerhill, Co Meath, at the weekend. He got clear in a three-man breakaway and powered up the Dorey's Forge finish to win.
Unlike other riders lining out on the day, it was not his first competitive fixture of 2025 as he had already been in action with the Irish junior track team. That has included being part of an interesting junior team pursuit line-up, the first Ireland has fielded for many years.
From Dundrum, south Dublin, Holmes is a 6th year student in Terenure College and is sitting his mock Leaving Cert exams this week.
However, though he told stickybottle he would need to work towards his final school exams in the summer, he is also eyeing road and track competition abroad, including with the Irish team, where World Championships selection is a possibility.
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But, first, to his win on Saturday in the C2 Ian Gallahar Memorial, ahead of Luke Kehoe (Lucan CRC) and Caoilin Considine (Bray Wheelers) in a three-up sprint to the line.
"It was a small enough bunch, and there was a good few strong juniors there, so I was just keeping an eye on them to see how the race was going," he said. "I've had a few hard last couple of weeks so I was just testing the body to see how it was feeling.
"On the second and third lap, the body really came around, and I started failing really good again. So I tried to push on and be a bit more aggressive, take my opportunities."
At about the halfway point in the three-lap, 65km, race Holmes got away with Considine and Kehoe and that trio went to the line to fight it out.
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Holmes made his track debut for Ireland, as a first-year junior, riding the Gent International last June before riding the Europeans in Germany in July. He was abroad again in September of the Aigle Three Day in Switzerland. Last December he was back to Switzerland with the Irish team for Grenchen Track Cycling Challenge and took 3rd in the scratch race in the omnium.
This year he has already competed at the ‘Next Generation’ track competition in Apeldoorn, one of six juniors picked, and has been part of the Irish junior team pursuit line-up; something he says he really enjoyed.
"I'm looking forward to the next few months and, hopefully, we'll have a few more races coming up," he said of riding for the junior national track team.
Asked if he described himself as a track or road rider, he said: "I'm not really too sure. Obviously, there isn't a track in Ireland but I love doing both; I love doing track I really enjoy it."
Once his Leaving Cert is out of the way, he will go to Belgium for a block of road racing but with track goals very much still on his mind.
"I've big goals on the track this year, I'm hoping for selection for big events and to produce a performance at the end of the day," he said.
"I hope to spend a good bit of time in Belgium and I'm hopeful of selection for Europeans and Worlds on the track. I'd love to get a good result there.
"I've really enjoyed doing the team pursuit, I found that really fun. We improved a lot as we went on so hopefully maybe a similar team could be going to the Euros and hopefully the Worlds. If we produce a good time there, we could really get some momentum going."
