Having overcome a nasty pre-season training crash, junior international Max Fitzgerald has told stickybottle he hopes to a have strong season, making more Irish teams, possibly even at the junior track Europeans and Worlds.
However, Fitzgerald (17), from Tipperary, said those plans would be decided by others and, for now, he was focused on doing as well as he could in domestic races. He is also eyeing trips to Europe to compete with JEGG-SKIL-DJR U19, which is linked to the Visma Lease a Bike World Tour team.
Fitzgerald, a Junior Tour of Ireland stage winner, has already had plenty of experience racing abroad, including being part of the Irish junior team for the UCI Nation's Cup Hungary (2.Ncup) stage race last August, where team mate Seth Dunwoody won a stage and was 2nd overall.
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"We were averaging 45ks an hour for 140km and it was 35 degrees for the whole thing," he said of racing in Hungary. "We were throwing more bottles over our heads than we were drinking bottles. But it was class.
"I loved how professional everything felt, even things being up on the stage for a team presentation before ethe racing. And we won the team prize, that was a big thing, it hasn't been done in a load of years, if ever I think. We had a really good competitive squad there and it was really nice to be in the mix."
And what of that Junior Tour stage 5 win last year, claiming victory for the national team in the bunch sprint into Gort?
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"It was nice, especially in the green jersey, it was great to show myself in an Irish Jersey and that that got me into being able to go and race in Hungary a few weeks later. I was really happy with that because I just love racing those big races, it was a great opportunity."
Fitzgerald said his winter has gone well, though he crashed in recent weeks, just before the season started, taking a chunk of flesh out of his shoulder and knocking his preparation a little. Last weekend he was 8th in the C1 race at the Boyne GP, and has been aggressive in the races to date, suggesting his recovery from that spill is on track.
He said riding the track several teams on the national team during the road off-season broke up the winter nicely, offering some variety. He raced the Grenchen Track Cycling Challenge in Switzerland last December and was up again on the track, at the ‘Next Generation’ track competition in Apeldoorn, in January.
"Grenchen was a reintroduction back to the track, I hadn't been on it for a while because I was mainly on the road from the end of last season," he said. "Then after getting a bit of racing into my legs in Grenchen I kinda came around for Apeldoorn and I was able to be in the mix a lot more."
Fitzgerald is part of a new Irish junior men's team pursuit line-up that might go to the Europeans and/or Worlds this year, though no plans are yet finalised. He said the new line-up "seemed to gel very quickly and the boys were pretty eager to get going for it".
Currently in 5th years in Rockwell College near Cashel, Co Tipperary, Fitzgerald said while he would race for the road team in Europe at times before the school year ended, a larger racing block in Europe was on the cards for the summer months.
